William Butler Yeats Group
Question:
zippybrown
Student
What is Yeats's "The Spur" about?
Answers:
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lit24 Teacher
DoctorateeNotes Editor
Posted by lit24 on Sunday July 19, 2009 at 11:10 PMYeats' "The Spur" belongs to his "Last Poems" (1938). The quatrain expresses pithily the pathetic state of his old age. He poses a rhetoric question implying that all that remains of him in his old age are lust and rage to spur him on during his last few years on this earth.
'Lust' and 'rage' are excusable in a youth, but sadly inappropriate in an old man - "horrible." But Yeats remarks that these are the only two things remaining with him in his old age to keep him going on till he dies.The word 'spur' refers of course to the horse spur with which the horse rider digs into the flanks of the horse to make it go fast.
Yeats married George Hyde Lees in 1916 when he was 51 years and had two children through her. Before this he had all along been infatuated with Maud Gonne. This relationship was consummated but when Yeats proposed marriage she refused. Maud Gonne later married the Irish Nationalist John Macbride. Before marrying Georgie, Yeats proposed to Maud Gonne's daughter Iseult Gonne who promptly refused him! Even after his marriage to Georgie, Yeats continued to have many affairs with several women.
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