The Lake Isle of Innisfree Group

Question:

kala1foran
kala1foran
Student
High School - 9th Grade

In "The Lake Isle of Innisfree," where does the writer see the water lapping?

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Posted by kala1foran on Monday March 30, 2009 at 4:50 PM and tagged with point of view, setting, the lake isle of innisfree, theme.

Answers:

  1. mshurn
    mshurn Teacher
    College - Freshman

    eNotes Editor

    The answer to your question is found in the last stanza of the poem:

    I will arise and go now, for always night and day

    I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore:

    While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,

    I hear it in the deep heart's core.

    The narrator, then, is not physically present on the isle in the lake at Innisfree. He goes there in his memory, longing "night and day" for the peace it represents. The memory of the sound of the "water lapping with low sounds by the shore" takes him away temporarily from life in the city with its "pavements gray."

    Sources:
    http://www.enotes.com/lake-isle/style
    http://www.enotes.com/lake-isle/summary
    http://www.enotes.com/lake-isle/themes

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    Posted by mshurn on Monday March 30, 2009 at 5:29 PM

  2. ennison
    ennison Student

    Yes he is picturing the scene and hearing it in his imagination. The alliteration in "lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore" brings the soft sound of gently lapping water into the line.

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    Posted by ennison on Wednesday May 20, 2009 at 9:20 AM