IB HL English Literature - Paper 2

Last line of Sailing to Byzantium

To lords and ladies of Byzantium / Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

First line of Sailing to Byzantium

That is no country for old men

Last line of the first stanza

Rhyming couplet: Caught in that sensual music all neglect / Monuments of unageing intellect"

What is Sailing to Byzantium about

* Yeats sees Byzantium as one of the highest points of civilization for the arts because of the renaissance etc. He criticizes the young for their temporal emotion and society for its emphasis on the immediate rather than the permanent.
* In seeking refuge in the desired Byzantium Yeats rejects a society in which he no longer feels either appreciated or relevant.
* finds peace in mortality, being in

Middle line from Sailing to Byzantium

* Consume my heart away; sick with desire

And fastened to a dying animal

* Gather me into the artifice of eternity.

Last line of The Second Coming

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last / Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

First few lines of The Second Coming

“Things fall apart; the center cannot hold; ( enjambement into ) mere anarchy”

First line of the second stanza in The Second Coming

Surely some revelation is at hand / Surely the second coming is at hand. / The Second Coming! (+ allusions to spiritual world)

What is The Second Coming about

Ideas of destruction and unleashing (stark contrast with the religious connotations of the Title) an unstoppable force are contained in the metaphor of the Second Coming….last line symbolic of Yeats prescient tone seeing as disaster is immintent because of cyclical violence

Punishment last line

yet understand the exact / and tribal, intimate revenge. (caesura!) … troubled by his understanding , recognizes he is a part of this tribal

Key lines in Punishment

* her shaved head / like a stubble of corn (become a part of the land - violence is a part of the country)
* her noose a ring / to store / the memories of love (adultery..)
* little adultress
* I am the artful voyeur (hypocrisy, recognizes his exploitation of her exposed…disfigured body)

Volta of Punishment

My poor scapegoat / I almost love you / but would‘ve cast i know / the stones of silence (metaphor)

What is Punishment abt

a woman executed as a result of adultery; ritualistic nature of violence, Heaney calling himself out in this realm, sees that his understanding of “exact tribal intimate revenge” is hypocritical, troubled by his acceptance, (streams of consciousness, moves to lots of enjambment)

Last line of act of union

No treaty I foresee will salve completely your tracked / And stretched body, the big pain / That leaves you raw, like opened ground, again.

First line of Act of Union

Tonight, a first movement, a pulse

Key lines in Act of Union

* gradual hills, heaving province
* I am the tall kingdom over your shoulder / that you would neither cajole nor ignore


* conquest is a lie (shortest line, political (+ impeially male)
* The battering ram, the boom burst from within.
* paramilitary growth references “fifth column” “war drum” “cocked fists”

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What is the Second Coming about?

* The poem operates around one main conceit. It is a double sonnet; bitterly ironic in its structure and title as the compasisonate connotations of marriage starkly contrast the violent act rape that is personified in the poem.


* Through this narrative, Heaney comments on the political situation in ireland and concludes the poem by making a comment on how violence is addictive , cyclical and a product of history while condemning Britains colonial legacy.