Read “Easter 1916” (September 25, 1916) and write an essay to address the Discussion Focus.
Discussion Focus:
“Easter 1916” (1916)
By Willaim Butler Yeats
One of the most powerful political poems of the 20th century was written by a man who was ambivalent about politics. William Butler YeatsLinks to an external site. (1865–1939) began his career under the spell of the late Victorian eraLinks to an external site.. Art in that time was generally more romantic than worldly. The word spell is relevant here: in 1887, Yeats became a Theosophist and an acolyte of Russian occultist Madame Blavatsky. He participated in various spiritualist practices—from séances to automatic writing—for the rest of his life. His early poems feature his passion for Celtic mythology and Gaelic sagas—as in the widely known lyric poems “The Lake Isle of InnisfreeLinks to an external site.” and “The Song of Wandering AengusLinks to an external site..” Nationalism was widespread in all its forms in Ireland at that time, but Yeats preferred his romantic literary nationalism to the new insurrectionary nationalism of his great love, the actor, and activist Maud Gonne. Her beauty attracted him and her zealotry repelled him in equal measure. For the first 45 years of his life, Yeats focused his nationalistic energies on writing plays and songs and collected folk tales about Ireland’s past but wrote little about its complicated present or uncertain future (Mlinko, Poem Guide, 2016).
The word Easter has a variety of connotations. Yeats includes it in his title of a poem that focuses on an Easter uprising. Develop an essay that defines Easter in the context of Yeat’s poem. Use the definition essay to format your focus.
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