Question

Critically analyse the poem " Lake Isle of Innisfree"

Answer 1

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The Lake Isle Of Innisfree

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,

And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;

Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,

And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,

Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;

There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,

And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day

I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;

While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,

I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

Summary of santanzas :

1st Stanza - Speaker describes physical location, on Innisfree, where he will live alone in a self-made cabin.

2nd Stanza - All the qualities of this new life are stated. Speaker needs peace. The pace of life will be slower, Nature will take over.

3rd Stanza - Reiterates need to fulfil the wish. Even as he stands in the traffic, amongst the crowds, he longs for that idyllic island on the lough.

Analysis Of The Poem:

This is a poem that grows and deepens with each read. It is essentially a poem of rhythm and sound, rise and fall, stretched vowels and shortened, musicality and slowness. It is a complex poem and has baffled critics for years with its long 13 syllable lines, shorter lines, and challenging metre (meter in the USA). Once in the memory it stays for ages, being a kind of refuge, a place to go when things are drab or tough.

The Lake Isle Of Innisfree is perhaps the best known of all Yeats' poems. It has been a popular choice of anthologists since it was first published in 1890 and has made Innisfree, a tiny island in lough Gill in County Sligo, Ireland, now a place of pilgrimage.

This green and watery landscape is where the young Yeats spent time as a child and the idyllic imagery remained strong in his memory. He wrote the poem when he was in his early 20s, stuck in the metropolis of London, homesick, struggling to get his name known and his poems out in suitable form.