THE LAKE ISLE OF INNISFREE
By William Butler Yeats
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a-glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.
I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear the 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.
1892
Yeats’ poem “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” appears at first to be little more than a lyrical tribute to a place in Ireland. However, a close reading and in depth analysis reveals how he might subtly be poising a postcolonial position against England, criticizing the colonial power. We must remember that Yeats can be considered a symbolist poet, which means entities in his poem often serve as allusions to broader subjects. In the second line, the speaker announces he will build “a small cabin” made of “clay and wattles.” Wattles are wooden poles interwoven with branches. Cabins are made of simple materials and are bound by the very material of earth itself, clay. To live in a cabin by a lake is to be at harmony with nature. Traditionally, harmony with nature represents peace, which Yeats later directly addresses in the poem. The cabin the speaker is planning represents humility, a quality the colonial Britain certainly did not possess. A humble cabin by a lake represents Yeats’ idealized vision of Ireland, an image completely contrasting with Britain, particularly the urban centers such as London and Manchester.
ReplyDeleteThe speaker says “I shall have some peace there,” suggesting he or she is running away from a situation of unrest. This place of discontentment is probably England, where Yates moved with his family. By the third stanza, we see that Yeats is indeed in an urban setting reminiscing about the Lake Isle of Innisfree: “I hear the water lapping with low sounds by the shore/While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray.” If we read the poem as Yeats living in England and missing Ireland, we can see the postcolonial reading coming out in his resentment for England as well as his yearning for homeland. Economic conditions in Ireland suffered as a result of internal postcolonial conflict, and many Irish went to live in London. The resentment expressed in the poem could be suggesting the broader resentment the Irish people feel at this involuntary need to seek opportunity in England. Analyzing Yeates' poem illustrates the utility of the author's biography in analyzing post colonial poetry.
Brit gave a pretty encompassing analysis. As she pointed out, the speaker seems to be longing for the simplistic naturalistic life in the idealized Ireland. He years for a “bee-loud glade”, perhaps in contrast with the people/machine- loud urban London, or perhaps urbanization due to English colonization and influence. He wants to go to a place where “midnight's all a-glimmer, and noon a purple glow” in contrast to “the pavements gray”. He wants the color-rich life of nature and not the deadened, faded, colorless life of industrialization.
ReplyDeleteYeats can subtly take a post colonial position against England by commenting on the power of colonization. He was not happy with his living in England and maybe he could not find peace there so that's why he is saying he will go to Innesfree. And there, he will build a small cabin of clay and that's is where he thinks he will find peace. It simply takes us to a small island near the lake, taking us away from the trouble of everyday life, so we can live independently, alone where no one can bother us. He wants to live with nature instead of colonzation.
ReplyDeleteIt shows that Yeats often yearned for the quiet and peaceful life which he could not get in England because of industrialization. We can say that this poem is talking about this island, but also London, and the urbanization because of British colonization and its influence. I think at that time Yeats was living in England and he was missing Ireland,and it is peaceful. We can say that Ireland was going through tough times economically because of post colonial conflict. As a result, many people were moving to London and Yeats was one of them and then he is yearning for Ireland since it is only here that he can find true peace.I agree with what Brit and Batya said that Yeats did not want the colorless life of industralization, but instead he wanted a colorful life of nature where he can simply find peacefulness.
After reading William Buttler Yeats poem “The Lake Isle of Innisfree,” it is evident that he speaks from a postcolonial position. When nations were colonized, the suppressed people were unhappy, one reason being that their individuality was taken away from them, and put down. The colonized could not practice their own culture. Instead they had to live by the rules of the colonizers. Similarly to Yeats, the nationalist revival of the late nineteenth century “disadvantaged his heritage” while he was living in Ireland according to Yeats biography. It is clear that Yeats is unhappy with his current location. He desires to go to Innisfree, a place where he will be comfortable, somewhere he can relax. “ I shall have some peace there…”implying that he feels miserable. Throughout the poem Yeats speaks of the peacefulness of Innisfree. “I hear the water lapping with low sounds by the shore.” Yeats first line, “I will arise and go now…”indicates his postcolonial escape from the suppression of the colonizers.
ReplyDeleteIn this poem Yeats revisits his homeland of Ireland by going to Innisfree. These were Yeats early childhood memories that allow him to escape from the world he was living in England at the time, the poem reflects on Yeats Ideal world in Innisfree. Yeats decides to go live in a small cabin, not accompany by anyone. Yeats lived in London but the poem suggest that he had peace and tranquility living in a more country like state, "And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow, Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;". Yeats also adds color to his own Innisfree town. Yeats poem reminds me of people who lived in a place for a long period of time and then claim it to be theirs by saying "In my neighborhood or my trees, or my streets". Yeats has the power to reinvent his colonized world into his own. Instead of hearing the city's noise he hears he hears the water lapping.
ReplyDeleteWilliam Yeats, poem “The Lake Isle of Innisfreeis” is focusing on a place where the narrator can find peace. The starting of this poem is telling us how the narrator was feeling about the city and he wanted to go in to the lake where he can find peace. The lake was fare away from the city where he couldn’t hear the noise of the industries and he can live with peace and freedom.
ReplyDeleteAlso, we can see how Yeats was feeling about being colonized. He did not like being colonized because they did not have any freedom to practice their own cultures. They were forcing to practice the colonizers cultures and everything. The lake was only place where he was feeling free and he could do anything what he wanted. He was unhappy living in London and practicing colonizers lifestyle.
WBY’s poem addresses the future even as it looks to the past. I don’t know why but I always thought that this was like a deathbed poem. The whole, ‘I will arise now and go’ coupled with the impossible eden-like “peace” and perfection of Innisfree may account for this. However, to me, there is a distinct note of mourning in the poem. I don’t think I ever made this connection before, but the poem really has something in common with some of the poems of Mahmoud Darwish and Taha Muhammad Ali and the way, in some of their poems, they look nostalgically to this perfect lost land that they feel bound to by blood and culture. In Yeat’s poem, he makes no mention of the colonizers who have robbed him of his perfect childhood home because the note of mourning behind the implicitly unreachable and perfect place is itself enough of an indictment against them.
ReplyDeleteIn “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” Yeats presents a subtle postcolonial critique against England. He begins his poem with the assertion that he “will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,” which he describes as a kind of idyllic paradise where he will live in harmony with nature. The repetition of “go,” however, suggests a troubled hesitation that is ultimately reaffirmed by the end of the poem when we realize that this is all a fantastic fantasy. Yeats is not actually on his way to Innisfree, but rather stuck standing on a “roadway” in England, “on the pavements gray,” a dull, miserable reality compared to his beautiful dream of Ireland. For Yeats, England is cast in one perpetual shade of “gray,” while Innisfree is rich and vibrant with color, where “midnight’s all a-glimmer, and noon a purple glow / And evening full of the linnet’s wings.” He has to constantly remind himself to “arise and go now” in order to stimulate metaphorical movement, when he is actually stuck in a horrible place he does not want to be. For him, Innisfree certainly represents a place of “peace” and beauty but Yeats also refers more immediately to his mind as a means of escape, a peaceful refuge that carries all his beautiful memories of Ireland. But again “peace comes dropping slow,” because it is difficult to dissociate himself from his present environment.
ReplyDeleteThis poem can be viewed to a large as extent as the lament of a colonial subject for the home he has been separated from due to the devastating effects of colonization. Without an awareness of the history between England and Ireland it is easy to overlook this postcolonial critique. But as some of my fellow classmates mentioned, England’s colonizing practices perpetuated economic problems within Ireland that made it impossible for the poet to continue living in his homeland. The pain of being forced to leave a place he deeply loves is certainly aggravated by the fact that he must go to England, the colonizing nation to find work in order to survive. This poem therefore deals not only with complicated themes such as separation and loss but also “betrayal” to some extent.
In the poem “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” Yeats assumes a post-colonial position against England not by outwardly attacking the colonizer, but by subtly asking us as readers to think about what he leaves unsaid. He begins by declaring, “I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree.” These words suggest a movement towards Ireland, but at the same time force us to think about what and why he must go to Innisfree. What makes his current condition so terrible that he wishes to go, not just anywhere, but to Innisfree? As the poem develops we learn about the speaker’s desire to have a “small cabin” with a garden of “nine bean rows” and a “hive for the honeybee.” Since he must travel to Innisfree to obtain these simple things we realize that even this meager lifestyle cannot be achieved in England.
ReplyDeleteThe tone of longing continues throughout the poem as the speaker discusses his hope for “peace” and his desire to reconnect with nature. As others have already mentioned, this calls our attention to the lack of peace and absence of nature in England, possibly alluding to the effects of industrialization. The speaker clearly wants to escape as he listens “night and day,” to “the water lapping with low sounds by the shore,” as if calling him back to Innisfree and away from the “roadway” and the “pavements gray” that mark his current existence. The image of tranquility and peace that exists deep in his “heart’s core,” which he associates with Innisfree and Ireland emerges as a veiled attack against the brutality of the conditions he must endure in England. However, by replacing the colorful images that begin the poem with the grayness of the pavements, Yeats also alludes to his own entrapment—his inability to truly escape, which also becomes the reason why this desire to go to Innisfree must live on in his heart. Although he claims that he “will arise and go now,” it is still as yet, an uncompleted action.
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ReplyDeleteIn “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” it appears that the speaker is revisiting a familiar isle with great nostalgia. This isle, Innisfree, represents a peace which he is without. The first verse depicts his plans of taking up a simple countryside living. The second verse follows the theme of nature and gives a sense of time from dawn until the evening, when he wishes to exist in this peaceful escape through vivid recollections of sights and sounds of the isle. The third and final verse takes the reader to an urban setting, where he is in the present. The reader is reminded of his heart’s desire to return to Innisfree by familiar sounds in the lackluster city.
ReplyDeleteI thought this nostalgic poem made a connection with colonialism because Yeats described pre and post colonialism through his imagery. He placed the simple, natural style of living in a sublime aspect in comparision with the urban setting which was dull and “grey”. The quickened meter in the first verse suggests a light-hearted element in the first verse and this can be associated with his notion of pre-colonial Ireland. The following verses, with their spondaic meter, slow down the poem’s message with a tone of longing and drudgery which can be tied with post-colonialism’s modernization.
It seems like other students cover adequately how the poem might take a post-col. Position against England. In the poem, Yeats states a preference for his childhood home in Ireland over roads and pavements which may symbolize England. And “peace” could be interpreted as having a dual meaning for independence as well as the content found at place where the speaker feels at home. Yeats also knew many Irish nationalists during his life and their influence could come out in his poems.
ReplyDeleteBut Yeat’s is extremely subtle in expressing his desire for Irish independence in his poems. If it is there, no one can make a sure argument that would convince everyone. The poem is definitely about Yeat’s preference for Innisfree over city life. Any symbolic meaning in the poem is too vague for me.
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ReplyDeleteAlthough Yeat's Poem "The Lake Isle of Innisfree" seems simple and straightfoward, it actually has many deep and subtle criticisms against England. Throughout his poem, Yeats expresses his post colonial position through his nostalgia for his beautiful city in Ireland, Innisfree. Yeats describes Innisfree to be a place where he can "have some peace [there]". The beautiful nature of "purple glow" and "midnight all-glimmer" is a place of tranquility which he remembers so clearly.
ReplyDeleteOn the contrary, England is just described to b "the pavement gray". Yeats intentionally contrasts England and Ireland's environment to condemn England's lack of beauty and nature. Furthermore, the proportion of the poem also indicates criticism whereas he writes about Ireland's beauty for most of the poem and England's roads for only one verse. This proportion subtlely degrades England and industralization. He stresses on every beautiful details of Ireland that England does not have, and describes England to be very simple and just "gray". The poem shows the importance of Ireland's rural environment and condemns England for lacking the important natural aspects.
Yeats appears to be weaving a thread of mourning through "The Lake Isle of Inisfree." In the first stanza, the speaker states that he "will arise" which is reminiscent of the language used to describe someone returning from the dead. This rise seems to be of one from colonial subject to individual.
ReplyDeleteThis reading is reinforced by the second stanza in which Yeats writes "from the veils of the morning." On the surface, it seems that this is describing sunrise. Rather, this may be wordplay in which Yeats puns, "morning" is actually "mourning."
The speaker is mourning Ireland's colonization. In the third stanza, it seems that the speaker references a specific event. The speaker expresses an emotion from "in the deep heart's core" while standing "on the roadway." This could very well be a reference to a road which the British colonists had the Irish build during which many Irish lives were lost.
“The Lake Isle of Innisfree” by Yeats emphasizes a simple lifestyle with spirituality to reconnect oneself with God via nature. Nature is made by God and man too is created by God and connecting the two together brings peace, prosperity and connection with oneself and others. A simplistic lifestyle with “cricket” singing, “hive” for bees, “shore” and sounds that comes from it and the impact that all of these natural sounds will produce on the “deep core” of one’s heart is elaborately mentioned with great emphasis on simplicity in language and simplicity in life. It seems like a lonely person on “pavements” that are gray as that of shallow life with sorrows is trying to find comfort in simplicity of nature to reflect and heal the wounds in the heart’s deepest core. Wanting a break from life, spiritual venture via nature and escape from life’s deepest regretted moments or wounds via sorrows to heal the heart and renew one’s mind and heart and connect the two via nature is exactly what Yeats is doing in this poem.
ReplyDeleteAs Yeats mentions:
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?[82]
Lifestyle in Europe has sipped most of the life out of Yeats that in the end of his life he wanted to relax and enjoy life in its simplest forms with peace. Put breaks to memories and find onself with nature for serenity.