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Blood and the Moon is a poem by Irish poet William Butler Yeats written in 1927. It was first published in the Spring 1928 issue of The Exile and then in the collection The Winding Stair in 1929, before being reprinted in The Winding Stair and Other Poems in 1933. Yeats composed the poem in response to the 1927 assassination of Kevin O'Higgins, the Vice-President of the Free State, whom Yeats had known personally. The poem contains many themes common in Yeats's poems from the 1920s including the "tower", a reference to Thoor Ballylee, which had been the title of a collection of works printed the year before "Blood and the Moon" was published, as well as the "gyre" which had been a major focus of his 1920 poem "The Second Coming".
The murder of Kevin O'Higgins acted as a catalyst for Yeats's creation of the poem. As Vice President and Minister of Home Affairs in the Cosgrave Government, O'Higgins had enforced the Army Emergency Powers Act and condemned seventy-seven Republican "irregulars", including author Erskine Childers and many men with whom O'Higgins had been allies during the Irish War of Independence. O'Higgins was assassinated by a Republican gunman on 10 July 1927. [1] When Yeats heard the news that O'Higgins had been murdered, he refused to eat and spent his evening walking along the streets until the sun set. [2]
Thoor Ballylee, Yeats's poetic model for the poem's tower, was a 16th-Century Norman castle in the Barony of Kiltartan, Ireland. The building was originally called "Islandmore Castle" and "Ballylee Castle", yet Yeats changed the name when he purchased the building in 1917 for £35. Yeats believed that the word "castle" was too magnificent and used the word "Thoor" instead as it was an anglicisation of the Irish for "tower", 'túr'. [3] Yeats credits the landmark as being the inspiration for the poem's setting. At the top of the tower was a waste room, which inspired the image of the empty room discussed in lines 8-12: [4]
At the time that Yeats purchased the tower, it had seventy-three stairs that are described in lines 16-18 of the poem:
The castle consisted of four stories. On the first floor was the dining room, and the living room was found on the second. The third story contained the bedroom, and the top story contained the "Strangers' room" which and a secret room. It was also on this story that the tower's large windows opened up over the millstream below. The windows are mentioned in the poem on lines 43-46: [3]
The poem is arranged in four stanzas that lack symmetry and vary in size and structure. The first stanza contains three quatrains with a rhyme scheme of ABBA, which contain no breaks between the lines. The second stanza contains 18 lines of text with six long-lined tercets using a rhyme scheme of AAA, which causes it to appear very different on the page from the stanzas that precede and follow it. The third stanza is a douzain, a square block of twelve lines of verse composed of pentameter quatrains with a rhyme scheme of ABBA. The fourth and final stanza repeats the structure of the one that precedes it. [5]
Yeats explained the structure by suggesting that the poem is arranged on the page to visually represent the images described in the text. The first stanza represents the tower introduced in line 2. He claims to have composed these lines so that they would look long and slender on the page to achieve the outline of the tower's structure. The second stanza represents the "winding, gyring, spiring treadmill of a stair" mentioned in line 17, which would account for the fact that the stanza lacks symmetry among its lines, which appear to extend to various lengths across the page in a way not seen in the other stanzas. Stanzas three and four, identical in form and appearance on the page, represent two ways of looking at the tower windows. Stanza three represents the windows "glittering" from the light of the moon passing through the glass, and stanza four represents the "dusty" inside surface upon which the trapped butterflies cling. [6]
According to literary critic Northrop Frye, "Blood and the Moon" attempts to portray the achievements of a civilization using allegory, describing the top of the tower that society builds as being an area of death and decay. In the poem, the butterflies that reach the top of the tower are unable to escape through the window and are littered around the room. The second stanza is devoted to describing other methods that poets had used to try to explain the attempt of artists to build their own towers to elevate civilization through poetry only to find, Jonathan Swift in particular, themselves dragged "down into mankind". [7]
The contrasting elements of the blood described in line 3 and the "purity" of the unclouded Moon in line 30 represents a major theme of the work. The Moon's surface appears unchanging and contrasts with the Earth that has been stained with the blood of men as the result of "arrogant power". As the poem speaks of the pristine nature of the Moon's surface in the third stanza Helen Vendler suggests that it broadens the contrast between the two surfaces to highlight the difference between "the mortal and the incorruptible". However, she also states that the poem's theme of life and death shifts focus in the final stanza as the poet discusses the trapped butterflies, which "brings into view the pathos of life, rather than its violence". [8]
In his book Yeats, critic Harold Bloom describes the poem as being splendid, though theatrical, suggesting that the second stanza is the only part of the poem that fails to achieve its objective, calling it a "pseudo-Swiftian rant". [9] Vendler also comments on the stanza, suggesting that the fact that it is the only one to have breaks between the lines as well as the incongruity of its form in relation to the others. Bloom, however, uses the problem with the second stanza to show that the poem has flaws that do not exist in other works Yeats wrote in the same period, suggesting that while the poem is "honest", the "strength is not there". [9]
William Butler Yeats was an Irish poet, dramatist and writer, and one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. He was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival, and along with Lady Gregory founded the Abbey Theatre, serving as its chief during its early years. He was awarded the 1923 Nobel Prize in Literature, and later served two terms as a Senator of the Irish Free State.
"To Autumn" is a poem by English Romantic poet John Keats. The work was composed on 19 September 1819 and published in 1820 in a volume of Keats's poetry that included Lamia and The Eve of St. Agnes. "To Autumn" is the final work in a group of poems known as Keats's "1819 odes". Although personal problems left him little time to devote to poetry in 1819, he composed "To Autumn" after a walk near Winchester one autumnal evening. The work marks the end of his poetic career, as he needed to earn money and could no longer devote himself to the lifestyle of a poet. A little over a year after the publication of "To Autumn", Keats died in Rome.
"Ode to a Nightingale" is a poem by John Keats written either in the garden of the Spaniards Inn, Hampstead, London or, according to Keats' friend Charles Armitage Brown, under a plum tree in the garden of Keats' house at Wentworth Place, also in Hampstead. According to Brown, a nightingale had built its nest near the house that he shared with Keats in the spring of 1819. Inspired by the bird's song, Keats composed the poem in one day. It soon became one of his 1819 odes and was first published in Annals of the Fine Arts the following July. The poem is one of the most frequently anthologized in the English language.
"Ode on a Grecian Urn" is a poem written by the English Romantic poet John Keats in May 1819, first published anonymously in Annals of the Fine Arts for 1819.
"The Second Coming" is a poem written by Irish poet W. B. Yeats in 1919, first printed in The Dial in November 1920 and included in his 1921 collection of verses Michael Robartes and the Dancer. The poem uses Christian imagery regarding the Apocalypse and Second Coming to describe allegorically the atmosphere of post-war Europe. It is considered a major work of modernist poetry and has been reprinted in several collections, including The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry.
Coole Park is a nature reserve of approximately 1,000 acres (4 km2) located a few miles west of Gort, County Galway, Ireland. It is managed by the Irish National Parks & Wildlife Service, part of the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht. The park is in a low–lying karstic limestone area characterised by seasonal lakes, known as turloughs, which are almost unique to Ireland. It has extensive woodlands. There are 6 kilometres of signposted nature trails plus a formal late 18th century walled garden.
The Tower is a book of poems by W. B. Yeats, published in 1928. The Tower was Yeats's first major collection as Nobel Laureate after receiving the Nobel Prize in 1923. It is considered to be one of the poet's most influential volumes and was well received by the public.
The Winding Stair is a volume of poems by Irish poet W. B. Yeats, published in 1933. It was the next new volume after 1928's The Tower. The title poem was originally published in 1929 by Fountain Press in a signed limited edition, which is exceedingly rare.
"Ode on Melancholy" is one of five odes composed by English poet John Keats in the spring of 1819, along with "Ode on a Grecian Urn", "Ode to a Nightingale", "Ode on Indolence", and "Ode to Psyche". The narrative of the poem describes the poet's perception of melancholy through a lyric discourse between the poet and the reader, along with the introduction to Ancient Grecian characters and ideals.
The Wild Swans at Coole is the name of two collections of poetry by W. B. Yeats, published in 1917 and 1919.
The Book of Urizen is one of the major prophetic books of the English writer William Blake, illustrated by Blake's own plates. It was originally published as The First Book of Urizen in 1794. Later editions dropped the "First". The book takes its name from the character Urizen in Blake's mythology, who represents alienated reason as the source of oppression. The book describes Urizen as the "primeaval priest" and narrates how he became separated from the other Eternals to create his own alienated and enslaving realm of religious dogma. Los and Enitharmon create a space within Urizen's fallen universe to give birth to their son Orc, the spirit of revolution and freedom.
"Sailing to Byzantium" is a poem by William Butler Yeats, first published in his collection October Blast, in 1927 and then in the 1928 collection The Tower. It comprises four stanzas in ottava rima, each made up of eight lines of iambic pentameter. It uses a journey to Byzantium (Constantinople) as a metaphor for a spiritual journey. Yeats explores his thoughts and musings on how immortality, art, and the human spirit may converge. Through the use of various poetic techniques, Yeats's "Sailing to Byzantium" describes the metaphorical journey of a man pursuing his own vision of eternal life as well as his conception of paradise.
"A Prayer for My Daughter" is a poem by William Butler Yeats written in 1919 and published in 1921 as part of Yeats' collection Michael Robartes and the Dancer. It is written to Anne, his daughter with Georgie Hyde-Lees, whom Yeats married after his last marriage proposal to Maud Gonne was rejected in 1916. Yeats composed the poem while staying in a tower at Thoor Ballylee during the Anglo-Irish War, two days after Anne's birth on 26 February 1919. The poem reflects Yeats's complicated views on Irish Nationalism, sexuality, and is considered an important work of Modernist poetry.
This is a list of all works by Irish poet and dramatist W. B. Yeats (1865–1939), winner of the 1923 Nobel Prize in Literature and a major figure in 20th-century literature. Works sometimes appear twice if parts of new editions or significantly revised. Posthumous editions are also included if they are the first publication of a new or significantly revised work. Years are linked to corresponding "year in poetry" articles for works of poetry, and "year in literature" articles for other works.
"Tulips" is a poem by American poet Sylvia Plath. The poem was written in 1961 and included in the collection Ariel published in 1965. The poem is written in nine stanzas in sixty-three lines.
In 1819, John Keats composed six odes, which are among his most famous and well-regarded poems. Keats wrote the first five poems, "Ode on a Grecian Urn", "Ode on Indolence", "Ode on Melancholy", "Ode to a Nightingale", and "Ode to Psyche" in quick succession during the spring, and he composed "To Autumn" in September. While the exact order in which Keats composed the poems is unknown, some critics contend that they form a thematic whole if arranged in sequence. As a whole, the odes represent Keats's attempt to create a new type of short lyrical poem, which influenced later generations.
Thoor Ballylee Castle is a fortified, 15th-century Anglo-Norman tower house built by the septs de Burgo, or Burke, near the town of Gort in County Galway, Ireland. It is also known as Yeats's Tower because it was once owned and inhabited by the poet William Butler Yeats.
"The Circus Animals' Desertion" is a poem by William Butler Yeats published in Last Poems in 1939. While the original composition date of the poem is unknown, it was probably written between November 1937 and September 1938. In the preface, Yeats suggests that he intended the poem to combine his personal views and impressions with the customs and beliefs of Christian Ireland. The poem was the last work published in Yeats's final collection, with "Politics" following as an envoi. In the poem, the poet uses the desertion of circus animals as an analogy to describe his failure to find inspiration for poetic creation as he seeks for new inspiration. Critics have detected aspects of both Modernism and Postmodern literature in the poem.
Poetical Sketches is the first collection of poetry and prose by William Blake, written between 1769 and 1777. Forty copies were printed in 1783 with the help of Blake's friends, the artist John Flaxman and the Reverend Anthony Stephen Mathew, at the request of his wife Harriet Mathew. The book was never published for the public, with copies instead given as gifts to friends of the author and other interested parties. Of the forty copies, fourteen were accounted for at the time of Geoffrey Keynes' census in 1921. A further eight copies had been discovered by the time of Keynes' The Complete Writings of William Blake in 1957. In March 2011, a previously unrecorded copy was sold at auction in London for £72,000.
"The Song of Wandering Aengus" is a poem by Irish poet W. B. Yeats. It was first printed in 1897 in British magazine The Sketch under the title "A Mad Song." It was then published under its standard name in Yeats' 1899 anthology The Wind Among the Reeds. It is especially remembered for its two final lines: "The silver apples of the moon,/ The golden apples of the sun."