Modern & Contemporary Poetry

Modern

William Butler Yeats

The Lake Isle of Innisfree

• the speaker wants to go to “innisfree,” which is kind of a metaphor for a place where you can find inner peace and generally live a peaceful life without worry
• the poem just talks about wanting to go to innisfree and talks about the different beautiful things in nature that are there in innisfree and how peaceful it would be there
• rhyme scheme and stanzas are odd for modern times
• shows peacefulness of the innisfree through nature
• repetition while describing glade
• imagery → humble cottage, bees and beans
• he’s in the city (London), longing for innisfree, a peaceful place in his heart
• sound devices to describe innisfree

An Irish Airman Foresees His Death

• the death of Major Robert Gregory, the son of Yeats’ friend, inspired this poem
• robert was an Irish artist who was killed during world war I
• the poem is from the perspective of the Irish airman, who talks about how they are fighting a war that they don’t care about, war does not affect him
• many Irish soldiers were forced to fight for england but did not care about england or the outcome of the war at all, so they were just fighting for nothing
• war will not benefit or hurt is people, so whats the point
• the airman talks about how his country is Ireland and how he is not fighting this war or flying this plane because he is a patriot or because of the law, or fame or glory, or duty
• he is just fighting because of an impulse and because of the adrenaline it gives him
• the guy says that basically compared to this moment the rest of his life seems like a waste

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D.H. Lawrence

Snake

• the speaker is just talking about this snake

• uses anadiplosis - repetition of a word or phrase ends line and begins the next line

• takes place in sicily

• the snake came to drink some water from the guys water trough

• the snake drank first and the speaker just waits for him to finish

• the speaker contemplates killing the snake but the speaker doesn’t want to even though he has this voice in his head saying that if he was a man he would just kill the snake

• but the speaker says that he feels honored to be in the presence of the snake and doesn’t want to kill the snake

• but then the snake turned to enter farther into the water, and the speaker throws a log at the snake when the snake is turned around

• the snake is startled and darts away and the speaker immediately feels bad and regrets it

• rime of the ancient mariner reference: the speaker thinks about the albatross and how that situation is kind of like the situation with the snake

• he compares the snake to a king and says that overall he regrets what he did

• shows snake as greater divine being by calling it a God, King, honored, guest

• conflict between instinct and education

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Siegfried Sassoon

Wirers

• another war poem about how the soldiers are spending all this time worrying about setting up their wires during the war even as people are getting killed and dying
• and how the priorities of the war are becoming messed up and people are doubting their old certainty in the war and its purpose
• middle section dreamlike: sound devices
• audience: those not in the war
• purpose: showcase atrocities of war and how human lives are rendered meaningless
• everything sucks, realistic view of war

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Rupert Brooke

The Soldier

• also a war poem, but a very patriotic one
• the speaker says that if he dies in war, he wants to be remembered as a part of england
• he talks about how much he loves england and how he is shaped by england
• dying in war is worthwhile because of his patriotism
• contrast between eras - realism vs idealized patriotism
• england is his city

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