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Modernist elements in Yeats's poem "Easter 1916"

Summary:

Modernist elements in Yeats's poem "Easter 1916" include a focus on disillusionment and fragmentation, a departure from traditional forms, and an exploration of complex emotions regarding the Easter Rising. The poem's irregular meter, varied stanza lengths, and juxtaposition of personal and political themes reflect Modernist experimentation and a break from conventional poetic structures.

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What features of modernist poetry are in the poem "Easter, 1916"?

Features of modernism that are expressed in Yeats's poem are cynicism about modern society as well as interest in different experiences of time.

Yeats's speaker opens the poem by showing the banality of everyday life in 1916, a place of "grey" eighteenth-century houses, where people work behind "counters" or at desks. The speaker says more than once that he exchanges "polite meaningless words" with these fellow citizens, the repetition of the phrase emphasizing the meaninglessness of contemporary life that the modernist poets often noted.

The way these ordinary people experience time, the speaker says, is like

a shadow of cloud on the stream
[that] Changes minute by minute.

They live entirely in the flux and churn of the modern world, which has no more lasting solidity or meaning than the reflection of a cloud on water. But the four martyrs to the cause of Irish independence, who the speaker celebrates,...

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exist in a different kind of time, one that, unlike an ever-changing cloud, resembles an unmoving, unchanging "stone." By standing on timeless, universal principles to fight the British, these four ordinary people are "transformed utterly." They enter a different kind of time, one that is not concerned with mortality. Out of this,

all [is] changed, changed utterly

and

a terrible beauty is born.

This attempt to capture the idea that not all time is the same was a preoccupation with many modernist writers, who felt that reality cannot be captured without acknowledging differing perceptions of time, including the kind of mythic timelessness that Easter represents.

While Yeats applauds and honors the heroism of these rebels, his modernist sensibilities reign in his enthusiasm with a degree of cynicism. With World War I raging in the background of everyone's minds, a pointless bloodbath, he asks of these people,

Was it needless death after all?

This edge of despair puts Yeats in the modernist camp, questioning values that the Victorians might have accepted with glorious optimism.

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What modern elements are present in Yeats's poem "Easter 1916"?

Modern elements in W. B. Yeats's poem “Easter 1916” include experimentation, individualism, cynicism, and symbolism. Let's look at this in more detail.

While Yeats's poem follows a regular meter and rhyme scheme, Yeats experiments a bit with his narration. He follows almost a stream-of-consciousness technique as he reflects on the events of Easter, 1916. He reflects on various elements of the Easter uprising as they occur to him, and he inserts himself continually in the poem in a kind of modern individualism. The speaker talks of his dreams and refers to his own writing “out in a verse” in order to remember the people involved and the sacrifices they made.

The poem also indulges in a cynicism about the modern world that is common in modernist poetry. Obviously the Easter uprising has been a violent, deadly event, yet the speaker wonders if the deaths were needless in the long run, if the dream would every be fulfilled. There is a “terrible beauty” in the event, yet part of him seems to wonder if it was worth it. He is now left to speak “polite meaningless words.”

Finally, this poem is packed with symbolism. The “terrible beauty” refers to the struggles, losses, and gains of the Irish people, their commitment and their suffering. The color green symbolizes Ireland but also the longing for freshness and fruitfulness. The stone mentioned in the poem represents the determination and perseverance of the Irish people who continue to fight no matter what.

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