English - The Wild Swans at Cool: Content & Causlities

Topic sentence

Yeats’ poem “The Wild Swans at Cool” explores the passing of time and the transcience of life, where he frequently engages in deeply personal reflections on his longing for youthful vigour. It is not difficult to be impressed by this poem, as it contains some of Yeats’ most pressing and enduring preoccupations concerning the human condition: the passing of time, the inevitability of change and the vagaries of human love

In the first stanza, the poet sets the scene carefully/in a careful manner. He describes the “autumn(al)” beauty of the landscape around Coole:

“The trees are in their autumn beauty / The woodland paths are dry / Under the October twilight the water / Mirrors a still sky”

This highly evocative, auditory use of imagery is effective as not only does it convey Yeats’ powerful memory of this scene, but it also clearly alludes to the passing of time. We imagine his deeply personal feelings of nostalgia and melancholy. By establishing and objectifying the poet’s depressed state of mind, he overwhelms the reader by employing intense emotions of nostalgia and melancholy, as we realise that things - a day, a year - is finally coming to an end

The poet also uses very euphanous “t” sounds via sibilance and assonance, creating a sense of wisteria.

By creating and forming an auditory image, he replicates the image of water, establishing a very quiet atmosphere…a beautiful, auditory impression of the setting

“woodland paths are dry”

Yeats associates the idea of dryness with creative, physical and artistic sterility

Then, in the final couplet of this stanza, the poet notices “nine-and-fifty swans, insinuating that each swans are in pairs, but only one remains alone

Yeats uses these swans to symbolise elegance, immortality and beauty, as well as partnership and fidelity as they are known to mate for life.

What makes this symbol so (romantic, beautiful) is the way in which Yeats encapsulates the otherworldly beauty of Gonne. Not only that, through having an odd number of swan, he emphases his unrequited love for her and her immortal ethereal beauty. Each swans have a lover but one, just like him, capturing his emotions of loneliness and yearning.

“autumn”

use of pathetic fallacy as a metaphor for the aging process

effective as it exhibits that change is inevitable

Then, in the sestset that comprises the second stanza, Yeats informs us that:

“The nineteeth autumn has come before (him) / Since (he) first made (his) count” of these swans.

His meditation is then interrupted by the sound of the swans, as before his eyes, they: 

“suddenly mount and scatter wheeling in great broken rings / Upon their clamorous wings”

Effect:

This powerful image of the swans mounting the air is very effective in evoking their strength and youthful energy to the reader. This is because it brings to mind the power, strength, youth and verility of the swan, fully capturing the way the passing of time can be missed until it’s too late.

Since nineteen years have passed and the poet has aged, conversely, their vigour highlights for him a deeply personal awareness of the passing of time and the transcience of life. In this manner, the swans act as a deeply evocative metaphor for immortality and, by implication, the mutability of mankind. 

This is because, in the poet’s view, they are changeless

In the third stanza, the poet tells us that the sight of these “brilliant creatures” provide…

…him with a painful reminder that “All’s changed” since he first head the onomatopoeic “bell-beat of their wings” flapping “above (his) head”. And now, “(his) heart is sore”

Effect:

This highly auditory and emotionally charged use of language is immensely profound because it brings to mind/captures the poet’s sorrow as he watches the swans’ timelessness and unchanging grace, while he undergoes the biological and personal transformation of aging. 

The final line of this stanza (4) seems disconnected. However, it takes its logic from the personal pronoun “I” in the third line. In other words, the poet is telling us that when he was here, 19 years ago, he was more at ease and used to “trod with a lighter tread”

What makes this image so effective is the way it captures the poet’s feelings of sorrow and even a little regret. Yeats shows the way he was a man with freedom, where he could go anywhere as he pleased just like the swans. But presently, as he watches the swans, his feelings of despondency rises in his heart. He knows he is getting older, both physically and mentally, and he can’t help but think about what could’ve been both past, present and future

In the fourth stanza, the speaker returns to his consideration of the swans, which he feels are unwearied.

“Lover by lover”, they “paddle in the cold companionable streams”, or “climb the air”, and in that, these creatures are transformed. Yeats’ clever use of an oxymoron in “cold companionable” also highlights the contrast between the swans’ seemingly unchanging, loving companionship, despite the cold water that they inhabit.

Effect:

What makes the ethereal, peaceful symbolic nature of this image so effective is the way that Yeats captures and brings to mind the eternity of the swans, a prospect that is very far out of his reach. In his eyes, they have managed to transcend the here and now because they represent the eternal youthful vigour and their lively hearts.

In the final stanza, the poet continues his consideration of these beautiful creatures.

Contemplating them as they “drift on the still water”, the speaker contrasts the transcendent changelessness of these swans with the mutability of his own existence. Yeats also uses oxymoronic adjectives in his description of them - “mysterious, beautiful” - in order to portray the swans as enigmatic, yet beautiful/enchanting enough to capture/catch the human attraction

These beautiful, euphanous and oxymoronic images are incredibly effective/evocative because Yeats shows that although he himself cannot be eternal and living in immortality, he lives through the swans…

In the final line of the poem, Yeats engages in a deeply personal reflection on his own death and its inevitability.

He wonders whose eyes they will “delight” when he awakes, “To find that they have flown away?”

Overall…

This poem embodies all that is best about Yeats’ poetry. The beautiful simplicity of language, the masterful control of sound and the emotional honesty that lies at the centre of the poem have been matched by very few poets in the twentieth century.