What image of Ireland is Yeats representing in The Stolen child?
In some ways The Stolen Child can be seen as a reaction against the modern and rational nostalgia for a pre-industrial past in Ireland.
Yeats establishes many settings in Sligo, Ireland in the Stolen Child. There are constant name droppings like Sleuth wood, Rosses and Glen-car.This gives the poem a sense of place and make it more authentic. Each of these locations are related to old fairytale like stories. Yeats is trying to recreate the image of Ireland that has now been lost to industrialisation. He uses archaic language to represent the old type of Ireland that was stereotyped. The use of this language links to a collection of stories by Yeats called Celtic Twilight where he tries to reignite irish fairytales. This shows that he is yearning for the past, mythical view of Ireland and that it no longer exists.
In the line “for the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand”, Yeats presents a sinister image. He could be trying to say that a child is better off in death than in this world of negativity. This could be referring to the famine occurring in Ireland at the time. It seems that he strongly believes that a life is not worth living for a child anymore as they will just face a life of pain.
Yeats uses the term “the world is full of troubles” to again let the reader know that he is aware of the problems in Ireland and he wants to reinforce that negative image so people can see the damage caused.
The Term Paper on Beyond The Image World War
Beyond the Image This study of Hilda Doolittle was prompted by my curiosity about a poet called H. D. , who is well anthologized as an Imagist poet. Reading further, I discovered that H. D. s work was far more extensive than first anticipated. Her part in the Imagist movement was only the beginning of a long career that ended with her death in 1961. It does not seem rational for a poet s personae ...
Similarly he uses terms like “kettle on the hob” to bring up the stereotypical, rustic and rural Ireland. Yeats strongly wants that image back into peoples heads. “See the brown mice bob Round and round the oatmeal chest”, is a line where Yeats shows his feelings towards Irish peasants. He is mocking them in some way and acting immature or insensitive towards them.
Over all this poem tells us that Yeats is nostalgic for a lost Ireland. However this is written at a time when he was attempting to gain Maud Gonne’s affection. He only really appears to gain interest in republicanism and for an independant Ireland to please Maud.
