easter 1916

br easter 1916 Easter 1916 The progressing theme of Yeats ' poem "Easter 1916 " is one which moves from the perspective of a pacifist lamenting the horrors and cost of violence , to an activist who has been so deeply impacted by the deaths of those around him who rose to action , that he is ready to act violently if necessary , himself . In the poem 's opening , the speaker admits that he has very little familiarity with those who are considered revolutionaries . He remarks that " I have passed with a nod of the head /Or

polite meaningless words /Or have lingered awhile and said /Polite meaningless words (Yeats ) which indicates not only that the speaker is disengaged from the revolutionaries at a political level but also that the speaker has taken refuge in societal manners and mores . The implication of the repeated word "polite " is that the speaker of the poem is a good citizen , a law-abiding man with manners and social sensibilities

The ensuing stanzas of the poem trace the realization on behalf of the poem 's speaker that each of the revolutionaries who were killed were themselves , good citizens , with manners and "polite " etiquette . In other words , the speaker of the poem begins to realize the revolutionaries are just like him "That woman 's days were spent / In ignorant good-will (Yeats ) or "This man had kept a school /And rode our winged horse (Yeats ) so that the speaker begins to see that his own lot is tied up with those he had previously tried to ignore . The strategy of presenting the poem in this fashion is to allow the reader of the poem , also , to make the same emotional journey as the poem 's speaker , moving from detached ambivalence to involved emotionality . One of the most powerful devices is its modulated refrain which reveals variations of the sudden emotional shift in the poem 's speaker "All changed , changed utterly /A terrible beauty is born (Yeats . The refrain indicates that violence or the will to do violence is "terrible " but the communal reality of a shared community , race , and nation represents "beauty " and is , as such an irresistible "Siren Song " and it is this observation in the poem that hits at the poem 's true "anit-war " theme : demonstrating that a nation , a race , a people cannot be broken or occupied without consequence...