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2 2 .Yeats 黃怡君
2 2 .Yeats 黃怡君
2 2 .Yeats 黃怡君
deeply. In 1917, he married Georgie Hyde-Lees, who bore him a daughter and a son. In 1922
he became a senator of the founded Irish Free State. For six years he served as Minister of
Fine Arts in the Dublin Cabinet. In 1923, Yeats received the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Yeats continued to play an active role in Irish life for the following several years. In 1932,
he made the last of several trips to the United States. In 1938, his health began to fail, he
moved to South France. He died on January 28, 1939 and was buried near Nice. In 1948, his
body was returned to Ireland and was laid to rest in Drumcilff Churchyard, near the
town of Sligo.
Yeats was proud, sensitive, courageous and independent as a great poet and playwright.
Yeats successfully made his poetry embody the truth of his life. As if to carry this truth
beyond the grave, he wrote his own famous epitaph on his tombstone. They are the last words
in his Collected Poems: Cast a cold eye on life, on death, Horseman, pass by!
the absurd argument, the poet shoes us the mystery of love and beauty.
Finally, in the last stanza, Yeats gives himself the last word on the conversation. He
pretends that he has talked with a person full of religious knowledge and wisdom. The
religious man has found some written authority that supports Yeats position. Yeats is
right, and the girl is mistaken. No one except God can love her alone. Young men are but
flesh and blood, cannot go completely beyond flesh and blood in their love. The poet is
really talking about human beings generally, and his theme is very much in the tradition
of Romantic literature. His last stanza expresses the truth of our human condition.
This poem is one of Yeats lighter pieces, a delightful dialogue between a young, lovely
girl and a wise friend-obviously an older man. Though it is light and humorous, it also
expresses Yeats constant, serious themes: the relation between physical beauty and love,
and on other hand, spiritual beauty and love. In this poem, Yeats has done everything so
lightly and skillfully that we hardly realize how much has gone into his poem. On the
surface is just the gentle, human conversation of a young girl and an older man about the
theme of love and beauty. Beneath the surface, however lies the poets commentary on
human nature.