THE WILD SWANS AT COOLE – CRITICAL ANALYSIS (WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS)

This post is about the critical analysis of The Wild Swans At Coole written by William Butler Yeats. In this post, you will find out the complete summary of the poem in easy-to-understand language. Moreover, you will find some extra information about the poet and the poem in this post, which you will find helpful. Let us find the critical analysis of The Wild Swans At Coole written by William Butler Yeats.

About The Author

William Butler Yeats was an Irish poet, playwright, and novelist, and one of the most important figures in 20^th-century literature. He was the driving force behind the resurgence of Irish literature, became a pillar of the Irish literary scene, helped establish the Abbey Theater, and served as a second member of the Irish Free State Senator in his later years. Anglo-Irish Protestant Yeats was born in Sandymount, educated in Dublin and London, and raised in Sligo. He was fascinated by Irish legends and occultism, and he learned poetry from an early age. These themes shaped the first phase of his work, from his student days at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Dublin to the turn of the 20th century. His first collection of poems was published in 1889, and his relaxed poems are credited to Edmund Spenser, Percy Visialie, and Pre-Raphaelite poets.

About The Poem

“The Wild Swans at Coole” is a  by the poet William Butler Yeats (1865–1939). It is written when Yeats was staying with his friend Lady Gregory at his home in Coole Park, this collection was dedicated to his son, Major Robert Gregory (1881-1918). World War I writer Daniel Tobin said Yeats was depressed, reflecting his growing age, the romantic rejection of Maud Gonne and his daughter Insert Gonne, and the ongoing Irish rebellion against Britain. Said he was unhappy. I wrote this. Tobin reflects that this poem is about the poet’s quest to perpetuate beauty in a  world where beauty is deadly and temporarily changing.

Critical Analysis

Literary Devices

• Assonance

The resemblance of sound between syllables of nearby words, arising particularly from the rhyming of two or more stressed vowels, but not consonants but also from the use of identical consonants with different vowels.

The nineteenth autumn has come upon me

Their hearts have not grown old;

Delight men’s eyes when I awake some day

• Consonance

Agreement or compatibility between opinions or actions.

The trees are in their autumn beauty,

The woodland paths are dry,

Under the October twilight the water

Mirrors a still sky;

THE WILD SWANS AT COOLE – CRITICAL ANALYSIS (WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS)

• Alliteration

The occurrence of the same letter or sound at the beginning of adjacent or closely connected words.

The bell beat of their wings above my head,

Trod with a lighter tread.

Their hearts have not grown old;

• Enjambment

Though many lines of the poem are end-stopped lines, enjambment is used in places where a sentence continues to the next line of verse without pause.

Under the October twilight the water

Mirrors a still sky;

Upon the brimming water among the stones

Are nine-and-fifty swans.

• Personification

Personification is the attribution of human qualities to nonhuman things.

Unwearied still, lover by lover,

They paddle in the cold …

Their hearts have not grown old;

Passion or conquest, wander where they will,

THE WILD SWANS AT COOLE – CRITICAL ANALYSIS (WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS)

• Imagery

The poem is full of imageries used to make readers perceive things better.

We find some great visual images (that readers can almost see) in the following lines –

Upon the brimming water among the stones

And scatter wheeling in great broken rings

… lover by lover,

They paddle in the cold

Companionable streams …

Title

The identity of the poem “The Wild Swans at Coole” refers to something literal the wild swans that Yeats discovered at Coole Park, Ireland. They identify as a consequence name actual area and actual thing. But it certainly has greater big which means in it. Here the swans are called ‘wild’, which means untamed. They are exceptional to us. They can wander anywhere they want. The swans don’t have the concerns and hardships of human lifestyles. That is why their coronary heart doesn’t develop mold. On the alternative hand, we, people aren’t worry-unfastened just like the swans. Our lifestyles have turned out to be painful with a load of mundane sports and emotional complexities.

Again, the park is located far from the humming town lifestyles. And similarly, the wild swans stay worry-unfastened withinside the lap of nature. The speaker additionally takes haven on the lap of Coole Park while he feels exhausted. Unfortunately, there’s no getting away from the cold, difficult reality. Thus, the identity indicates the similarity between the wild swans’ percentage with the Coole and the poet’s feeling of loss and melancholy.

Theme

• Immortality

In the closing stanza of the poem, the poet immortalizes the younger pleasure of swans. Yeats’s swans will move on taking part in the identical romantic spirit. A swan can also additionally die; some other swan will come to play the identical function in this world. They won’t be right here at Coole, however, they’ll hold to thrill different guys in a few different a part of the world. Symbolically, the poet upholds the immortality of now no longer the handiest swans but of each lovely element of nature.

• Nature vs Humanity

The poet spends a whole lot of phrases depicting the character and its numerous factors withinside the poem. The suitable October autumn twilight, the woodland paths, the stunning active swans, and from their paddling to flight – all continuously give nature. Though the speaker grows older and worn out with this life, the swans don’t. They stay the same. Nature by no means loses its energy and it has its constant rules. The poet right here gives nature’s changeless sample through the swans in comparison to humanity.

THE WILD SWANS AT COOLE – CRITICAL ANALYSIS (WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS)