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William Butler Yeats: The Lake Isle of Innisfree

Questions for Thinking and Writing - Yeats, Part 2

After watching the lecture, answer these questions.

This activity contains 3 questions.

Kennedy notes that Yeats “found himself hating the city and longing for the peaceful west of Ireland.” In what ways does the poem reveal the feelings of the poet? Can you recall a similar longing for a place that seemed far away? How did your imagination influence your feelings about the place?

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Read Yeats’s poem "Sailing to Byzantium" and connect some of the imagery in the poem to the points Kennedy makes in his lecture on Byzantine art. How does the poem reflect this art?

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Kennedy explains that Yeats was fascinated with traditional Irish tales. There was a story associated with the island of Innisfree that Yeats would have known. Yeats scholar Russel K. Alspach recounts the legend of Innisfree in his book, Yeats and Innisfree (1965). “According to the legend there grew on a tree in the island a luscious fruit…exclusively reserved for the use of the gods who had a dragon there to guard it. The daughter of the chief of the island asked her lover, named "Free," to get her some [of the fruit]. Free defeated the dragon; but he ate of the fruit and died of its virtue after returning to his sweetheart and telling her his story. Thereupon she too ate of the fruit and fell dead across his body.” Does this legend influence how we read the Yeats’s poem?

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