Responsibilities and Other Poems

This collection opened my eyes to the poetry of W B Yeats. I was familiar with the more famous poems for example “An Irish Airman forces his death”, “Easter 1916” “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” and “Leda and the Swan’, but previously when I had dipped into a collection of his early poems I was confused by the many references to Irish Myth and Folklore and soon found myself cast adrift. Therefore I approached this collection with some trepidation and the first two poems “The Grey Rock" and "The Two Kings" did not ease my fears as they are both steeped in old mystical Ireland, however in The Grey rock Yeats addresses his fellow poets with “Here is a story that I have remade” and so the reader has a handle on a story in show more verse of Kings, phantoms, the old gods, battles and love and it is a good yarn.

The fifth poem ‘September 1913” seemed to mark a sea change in the poets thoughts. The poet is disillusioned with the present situation in Ireland, but he is also questioning the romantic notions of the past, because he realises there is no going back to a golden age. A refrain closes the first three stanzas”

“Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone,
Its with O’Leary in the grave”

While in the final stanza that speaks of the pain of the Irish heroes and exiles (Robert Emmet, Edward Fitzgerald and Wolfe Tone) the refrain that closes the poem pushes the disillusionment further into almost despair:

“But let them be they’re dead and gone,
They’re with O’Leary in the grave.

From here on in, the collection becomes more realist in thought, although there is still some imagery from a more mystical past. There soon follows a run of brilliant poems that demonstrate both fine feelings and a mastery of form and style. Yeats was hailed as a modernist poet because his themes tied in with the modernist movement, but he did not share the fashion for blank verse. In this collection of poems there is only one that is in blank verse all the rest have regular rhyming schemes, so much so that you know you are reading a poem. Yeats was not without a sense of humour and he could tell a good story, however apart from the first two poems there are no rambling mini epics, in fact many of the poems are quite short. There are still poems in this collection that are a puzzle, none more so than ‘Running to Paradise”, but the imagery and sound of the poem is so good that it is a puzzle that is a joy to read. There is a song quality to some of the poems and he will often use repeated couplets to enhance this feeling.

Yeats’ on/off love affair with his muse Maud Gone caused him much anguish and this comes spilling out in a small collection of poems originally published under the title: The Green Helmet. There were just eight poems in the original slim volume and here they are included with others written between 1909-1912, when Yeats was heavily involved in the Abbey theatre. There is passion, loss, reconciliation and finally an acceptance in the eight poem collection, but there is also references to ‘sweet death’ that becomes unsettling. The additional poems do not match the intensity of feeling but there is still plenty of enjoyment to be had from most of them.

The book also includes a short one act play “The Hour Glass” from 1912.

The collection Responsibilities was published in 1914, but the collection I read which includes the Green Helmet poems was published in 1916. I think there are poems in this collection that everyone could enjoy and some of them are great poems, poems that will stay in your head and poems that you will want to come back to. This is a five star collection (and it’s free on the net) show less

Definitely wasn’t impressed with this collection of poetry… For me Yeats is all about the mystical, magical, and mythological Ireland, and while his dalliance with realism in the previous collection (The Green Helmet and other Poems) was interesting, I’m getting awfully bored with the focus on the everyday. The one poem which I did enjoy in this collection was “Friends,” which harkens back to his interest in cultural mythology, since the themes and imagery are very obviously tied to the threefold aspect goddess. She takes many forms in various cultures around the world, and some would read this poem as simply an exploration of time and age, but knowing Yeats’ previous inclinations gives the poem quite a bit more potential show more depth and interest. Unfortunately it looks like this trend towards realism dominates the remainder of his work, so this will be the last collection that I read for a while. May come back in time, though. show less