A Textual Analysis of W.

B Yeats’

“When You Are Old”

A Course Paper Submitted to

Mr. Christian Ray C. Licen

Professor

In Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Course

Theories of Language and Literature

First Semester

by
 MICHELLE GIE R. BERSALUNA

Masters of Education major in English Teaching

CTU Graduate Studies

November 2018
 ABSTRACT

This paper assumes that William Butler Yeats’ poem “When you are Old”
which is directly addressed to the speaker’s lover. Yeats was born in Dublin,
Ireland, and is one of the most celebrated poets in Irish history. Many of his
poems reflect the Irish spirit, but this poem concentrates more on the love he
once shared with a woman. Many of his poems reflect the Irish spirit, but this
poem concentrates more on the love he once shared with a woman. This woman
is probably Maud Gonne, an Irish revolutionary who ended up marrying another
man. Yeats himself would go on to marry, but many see When You Are Old as a
poem highlighting the failed relationship with Gonne. After an initial read, many
see this poem as one that is filled with love, but the last stanza is dark; the
speaker is reminding his former mistress that their love did not last, and this is
something she should regret for the rest of her life. While this is one of Yeats’
most popular poems, he wrote many others that were just as successful. As a
result, he won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1923.

Thus, this poem argues that W.B Yeats poem is expressive of the poet’s
experience with unrequited love through a textual analysis of it’s language and
tone. Specifically, it seeks the poetic vision of the poem and how this experiences
expresses the language and tone of unrequited love.
 Introduction

Rationale

Love was one of William Butler Yeats’s great inspirations. It was love that kept
him moving and developing. It was love that confused him and made him reflect.
It was love that shattered him and made him mourn. Yeats’s experience with love
was rich and fulfilling as well as frustrating and devastating. In order to come to a
better understanding of Yeats’s love poetry, we need to take a look into his
private life.

“Yeats met the fiery revolutionary [Maud Gonne] in 1889. He fell deeply in love
with her and would propose to her in 1891, 1899, 1900, 1901, and 1916. Gonne
had no use for Yeats's proposals. However, she did have a use for his talents.
Gonne would use Yeats for his ability as an orator. Maud Gonne, dragging him at
her heels on nationalist agitations, soon found that he was a natural orator and
could easily dominate committees. Maud Gonne would continue to turn Yeats
proposals down, yet she continued to be the catalyst for the finest love poetry
Yeats would ever create. Gonne would once ask for Yeats's help in London,
ending a brief but happy love affair with Olivia Shakespear. Sensing divided
loyalty, Shakespeare would end the affair and it was shortly thereafter that Lady
Gregory would save Yeats from a potentially more tragic end, like the poets of the
tragic generation” (cf. nadn.navy).

Yeats really loved Maud Gonne. She was the love of his life, and still, she would
never really react to, let alone return his love. Yeats has experienced the many
different facets of love through this continuous interaction between his everlasting
true and sincere affection and dedication and her cold and calculating rejection.
But although this may be a personal tragedy it also resulted in something positive
and beautiful, namely Yeats’s love poetry Maud Gonne inspired him to. Yeats
managed to deal with all his positive and negative experiences in a productive
way and included them into his poetry. Maud Gonne once even said to him that
she could not stop rejecting him as he would not write such beautiful poetry about
her anymore then.

As said, Yeats’s perception and concepts of love can be identified in his poetry.
Furthermore, we can identify a development of Yeats’s depiction of love in his
poetry. We can find many different sides of love in Yeats’s poems. In some
poems, Yeats describes it as an almost divine power. In other poems, he starts
doubting whether love is really that fulfilling or not. And in further poems, he even
focuses on the dark and destructive sides of love. These different concepts of
love will be described in this paper through the analysis of selected poems.

Methodology

This study employs qualitative research through discourse analysis in the poem
that we can connect the relationship between man and woman who experienced
one-sided love. Thus, Formalism and Expressivism theories helps in the further
explanation of the poem’s content and language based from the experiences of
the author.

Results and Discussion

This paper argues that W.B Yeats poem is expressive of the poet’s
experience with unrequited love through a textual analysis of its language and
tone. Specifically, it seeks the poetic vision of the poem and how does his
experience express the language and tone of unrequited love.

This poem, in relation to the Formalistic and Expressivist Approach is in the

form of a sonnet, which is a very structured form with a varying amount of lines all
with ten syllables. The subject of this very poem is a girl, much speculation
believes that the girl to whom he is writing is Maud Gonne, someone whom he
had a long and uncertain relationship with. In addition to this girl, the poem
expresses the change over time, ultimately culminating with Yeats being left
alone by the girl to whom he had loved. The title of the work: When You are Old
completely captivates the theme that Yeats is portraying. He is saying if you love
someone, in this case Yeats loves Maud Gonne, and he must tell her before the
he is too old and the love has fled.
The central idea of this poem is love, more specifically it expresses the idea
of love being lost due to time, a saddening thought as conveyed by the tone. The
tone is rather mellow but definitely shows melancholy as Yeats is inevitably
depressed by the loss of love from a girl he thought to be the one. He conveys
these emotions using a varying array of poetic devices,
Summary/Synthesis of the Poem

This is a poem that many see as highlighting the unrequited love between the
speaker, presumably Yeats, and his former lover. The speaker, talking directly to
his muse, instructs her to open the book in which this poem can be found and to
re-read it. While re-reading, she should recall how many people loved her for both
true and false reasons, namely because of her beauty. The speaker goes on to tell
the lover that there was one man, probably the speaker, who loved her completely.
In the final stanza, the speaker tells his former lover that she should remember
that this love did not last, and she should be filled with regret because of it.

Addressing Moud Gonne, the poet says that when she is old, she should take up
this book of Yeats’ poems and read it slowly. He asks her to compare her old age
with the time of her youth. Feeling sleepy and nodding by the fire-side she can
compare her grey hair with the softness of look and deep shadows that her eyes
had in the prime of her life. Inn brief the poet wants Maud Gonne to have a feel of
the terror that old age produces , ‘full of sleep’. Here sleep can be explained as
usual time of sleep as well as the natural laziness or lethargy that comes in a
human being as he or she grows old.

In the second stanza the poet further asks Maud Gonne to recollect as to how
many people loved her when she was young and beautiful, and not all of them
had true love for her beauty even. Quite a few of them just pretended love to her
falsely, but there was one man only who loved , not her physical beauty alone but
also the purity of her soul behind her beautiful shape. His love was purely spiritual
and she must remember that he loved the pains of her growing old. It also means
that he loves her even now when she is old and is prepared to share with her the
sorrows of her age.
The speaker says to Maud Gonne that when she lies down on the bed,
bending a bit toward the fire-side where the iron-rods outside the fire-chimney
are glowing red with the heat of fire she must says to herself in a sort of sad of
soliloquy that with the departure of her youth and charms, the false love of her
lovers had also vanished away and evaporated in the mist of high mountains and
stars. By saying this the speaker also intends saying that in comparison to her
false lovers, he was the only true lover who had loved her all-through –from youth
to old age and he loves her even now.

Poem Analysis

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,

And nodding by the fire, take down this book,

And slowly read, and dream of the soft look

Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

First, note the rhyme scheme. The first and fourth lines rhyme, as well as the
second and third lines. Also, note the meter, it’s an iambic pentameter—this gives
the poem a musical quality. Finally, the word “and” appears six times! At least one
reason for this is to assist in keeping the poem metered.

The poem is full of gentle images, such as “Full of sleep”, “nodding by the fire”,
“slowly read”, “dream,” “soft look”, and “shadows deep”. This sets the tone and
mood of the first stanza which is clearly one of calmness. The first stanza is very
soothing to read.We can guess that the book referred to above would be one by
Yeats—specifically one containing poems about the beauty of Maude Gonne.Pay
attention to the mention of eyes. Eyes are actually one of traits that perhaps, in
terms of exterior appearance, age the slowest. It’s not so uncommon to find an
older person with youthful and beautiful eyes. But that’s not so here! Instead, the
eyes have lost their “soft look”, they’ve lost their “shadows deep.”The mention to
the eyes helps us understand that Yeats is predicting that not only will Maude
Gonne lose her physical beauty, she will lose her spiritual beauty as well. Her
eyes will become those of a shallow person. She will become harsh. This is very
revealing as to the theme and intent of When You are Old.

How many loved your moments of glad grace,

And loved your beauty with love false or true,

But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,

And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

The rhyme and meter of the poem in the second stanza is basically identical to
the first stanza. However, the word “and” isn’t used as much, and the pacing here
is harsher and faster.

The implication of the first line is that people loved Maude Gonne only when she
was happy and gay, but the moment she turned somber and sad, they
abandoned her. So clearly this was not a true love. (In a way, at the time, this was
already something Gonne was experiencing in her life.)Yeats, admits that some
people might have loved Maude Gonne for her beauty, but even here he notes,
some of this might have been superficial. This is why he states, “love false or
true”.The use of the word “pilgrim soul” here is very important. Yeats wants to
explain to Gonne that he and she are kindred spirits. They are soul mates. They
both share, to at least a degree, Irish nationalism—and both at the time were
interested in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. We can be sure though,
that this line is meant to cut even much deeper than that—Yeats believes that
they truly share something on a deep spiritual level. In this way, Yeats feels only
he can really appreciate where Gonne’s truest beauty lies.We can contrast the
final line of the second stanza with the first line of the same stanza. So long as
Gonne is successful and outwardly projects happiness, superficially some man
claim they love her. However, when the tide turns, and her success is no longer
present, who shall lover her then? Yeats is saying he would still love her.

And bending down beside the glowing bars,

Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled

And paced upon the mountains overhead

And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

The third stanza, as far as meter and rhyming scheme, is no different than the
first and second stanza. The form is identical.

The references to the “glowing bars” is to most likely to some type of fire grating
that is so close to the fire that perhaps it glows a bit red. These bars potentially
represent prison bars, suggesting that Maude Gonne is going to entrap herself.
Worse, given the fiery implication here, the suggestion seems to be she’s going
to find herself in a kind of earthly hell of her own making. We don’t want to
suggest anything overly literal here, but only hell as a kind of metaphor. But given
Yeats propensities for the occult, who knows?The second line of the third stanza
then suggests that Maude Gonne will regret this. But her punishment is even
worse, because to a degree she’ll already have lost her depth, which will limit her
ability to even regret what has happened. She will truly have become imprisoned
in her own future shallowness.While Gonne is stuck in an earthly hell of her own
devising, where will Yeats be? Why up there in the heavens, of course. The love
will have waited for her there on the mountains, pacing back and forth, and
hoping she would come to receive it, but eventually it’ll become one with the stars,
always gazing down at her from the distance—after all she’ll no longer be in a
position any longer to achieve that love. The use of symbols such as mountains
and stars might even be of deeper significance here. We will leave it to others to
explore this possibility.

Conclusion/Recommendation

In conclusion, Ultimately Ithis poem accurately reflects the life of Yeats and
possibly the life of many others. It is a rather common occurrence for someone to
love another, and never truly act upon it, or if they did it was unsuccessful. Yet
once they reach an old age the one who is in love realizes that the love was truly
lost much before. It is honestly heartbreaking, even in the case of Yeats and
Gonne; Yeats love Gonne unconditionally and she never once reciprocated his
sentiments, even going to the point of her marrying another man, one that Yeats
openly despised. It is sad to acknowledge Yeats lost love and also how it
happening is a rather common occurrence, although it happens and we must be
made aware.This all shows that Yeats is giving her the subliminal mandate inside
the clear and direct message to love him now, that he is the only one who really
loves her and to not let time walk against their happiness.

As we can observe, Yeats masterfully uses many elements perfect and

harmoniously correlated and concentrated in an extremely short poem such as
alliterations, perfect metric, spondee, symbols and personification of love to give
her the right message persuading to reach her change of mind and reciprocal
love to him.
Works Citattion
Poem Analysis. “When you are old by

W. B Yeats” google,

https://poemanalysis.com/old-

william-butler-yeats/

X.

Poetry Foundation. “Poetry Magazine”

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/

william-butler-yeats

Sharma, K.N. "When You Are Old by William Butler Yeats:

Summary and Analysis." BachelorandMaster, 28 June

2017,bachelorandmaster.com/britishandamericanpoetry

/when-you-are-old.html.
Appendix A
I am Michelle Gie Bersaluna, 24 years old. An Educator and a dreamer, who
never gave up on achieving her dreams and aspirations in life. I am the eldest out
the two siblings in our family and I came from a happy and loving family.

I also worked so hard for my family and I was a scholar during my college years,
and it was not an easy path I conquered a lot of challenges, hardships that
requires great perseverance and through all those challenges I was able to
graduate. I earned my degree of Bachelor of Secondary Education major in
English in University of Cebu- Main Campus. My beloved Alma Mater, who
helped me in realizing my dreams and aspirations in life.

Furthermore, after graduating in college I had my first job as an ESL teacher, my

experienced their was fun and it enables me to develop more my interpersonal
skills especially in dealing and teaching the foreign ones. It helped me in
someways to develop my self confidence, my communication skills and being
able to socialize with other nationalities. After 3 months of working in my first ESL
teaching experienced I stopped in order to focus in my review for the Licensure
Examination for Teachers and luckily with the goodness and grace of God I was
able to pass the board exam, that milestone in my life was one of the most
important achievement I have ever had. It was the realization of my dreams and
fulfillment of being a full-pledge Teacher, I am very much proud, happy and
blissful in everything God has given me. I realized that life is always a battlefield,
it's just how we fight for it and able to survive with persistence, dedication, love
and compassion to other people because life is a roll coaster journey, we may
stumble and fall but what best is we stand up and always strive hard to fight for
our dreams, rights and goals in life
Philippians 4:13 I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

Appendix B
 When You Are Old

BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,

And nodding by the fire, take down this book,

And slowly read, and dream of the soft look

Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,

And loved your beauty with love false or true,

But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,

And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,

Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled

And paced upon the mountains overhead

And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

 Source: The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats (1989)

Appendix C

William Butler Yeats Biography

Playwright, Poet (1865–1939)

William Butler Yeats was one of the greatest English-language poets of the 20th
century and received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923.

Born in Ireland in 1865, William Butler Yeats published his first works in the
mid-1880s while a student at Dublin's Metropolitan School of Art. His early
accomplishments include The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems (1889) and
such plays as The Countess Kathleen(1892) and Deirdre (1907). In 1923, he was
awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. He went on to pen more influential works,
including The Tower (1928) and Words for Music Perhaps and Other
Poems (1932). Yeats, who died in 1939, is remembered as one of the leading
Western poets of the 20th century.

Early Life
William Butler Yeats was born on June 13, 1865, in Dublin, Ireland, the oldest
child of John Butler Yeats and Susan Mary Pollexfen. Although John trained as a
lawyer, he abandoned the law for art soon after his first son was born. Yeats
spent much of his early years in London, where his father was studying art, but
frequently returned to Ireland as well.

In the mid-1880s, Yeats pursued his own interest in art as a student at the
Metropolitan School of Art in Dublin. Following the publication of his poems in the
Dublin University Review in 1885, he soon abandoned art school for other
pursuits.

Career Beginnings

After returning to London in the late 1880s, Yeats met writers Oscar Wilde, Lionel
Johnson and George Bernard Shaw. He also became acquainted with Maud
Gonne, a supporter of Irish independence. This revolutionary woman served as a
muse for Yeats for years. He even proposed marriage to her several times, but
she turned him down. He dedicated his 1892 drama The Countess Kathleen to
her.

Around this time, Yeats founded the Rhymers' Club poetry group with Ernest
Rhys. He also joined the Order of the Golden Dawn, an organization that
explored topics related to the occult and mysticism. While he was fascinated with
otherworldly elements, Yeats's interest in Ireland, especially its folktales, fueled
much of his output. The title work of The Wanderings of Oisin and Other
Poems (1889) draws from the story of a mythic Irish hero.

Acclaimed Poet and Playwright

In addition to his poetry, Yeats devoted significant energy to writing plays. He

teamed with Lady Gregory to develop works for the Irish stage, the two
collaborating for the 1902 production of Cathleen Ni Houlihan. Around that
time, Yeats helped found the Irish National Theatre Society, serving as its
president and co-director, with Lady Gregory and John Millington Synge. More
works soon followed, including On Baile's Strand, Deirdre and At the Hawk's
Well.

Following his marriage to Georgie Hyde-Lees in 1917, Yeats began a new

creative period through experiments with automatic writing. The newlyweds sat
together for writing sessions they believed to be guided by forces from the spirit
world, through which Yeats formulated intricate theories of human nature and
history. They soon had two children, daughter Anne and son William Michael.

The celebrated writer then became a political figure in the new Irish Free State,
serving as a senator for six years beginning in 1922. The following year, he
received an important accolade for his writing as the recipient of the Nobel Prize
in Literature. According to the official Nobel Prize website, Yeats was selected
"for his always inspired poetry, which in a highly artistic form gives expression to
the spirit of a whole nation."

Yeats continued to write until his death. Some of his important later works
include The Wild Swans at Coole (1917), A Vision (1925), The Tower (1928)
and Words for Music Perhaps and Other Poems (1932). Yeats passed away on
January 28, 1939, in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, France. The publication of Last
Poems and Two Plays shortly after his death further cemented his legacy as a
leading poet and playwright.
Theoretical Underpinnings

Formalism

It is a school of literary criticism and literary theory having mainly to do with

structural purposes of a particular text. It is the study of a text without taking into
account any outside influence. Formalism rejects or sometimes simply "brackets"
(i.e., ignores for the purpose of analysis) notions of culture or societal influence,
authorship, and content, and instead focuses on modes, genres, discourse, and
forms.

In literary theory, formalism refers to critical approaches that analyze, interpret, or

evaluate the inherent features of a text. These features include not
only grammar and syntax but also literary devices such as meter and tropes. The
formalistic approach reduces the importance of a text’s historical, biographical,
and cultural context.

Formalism rose to prominence in the early twentieth century as a reaction

against Romanticist theories of literature, which centered on the artist and
individual creative genius, and instead placed the text itself back into the spotlight
to show how the text was indebted to forms and other works that had preceded it.
Two schools of formalist literary criticism developed, Russian formalism, and
soon after Anglo-American New Criticism. Formalism was the dominant mode of
academic literary study in the US at least from the end of the Second World War
through the 1970s, especially as embodied in René Wellek and Austin
Warren's Theory of Literature (1948, 1955, 1962).

Beginning in the late 1970s, formalism was substantially displaced by various

approaches (often with political aims or assumptions) that were suspicious of the
idea that a literary work could be separated from its origins or uses.[citation
needed] The term has often had a pejorative cast and has been used by
opponents to indicate either aridity or ideological deviance.[citation
needed] Some recent trends in academic literary criticism suggest that formalism
may be making a comeback.

Expressive criticism

It focuses on the artists emotion. It is well known among poets, for poetry is
based on emotion. Expressive criticism describes poetry as an expression, as an
over-flow of a poet’s feelings. Expressive criticism is unlike many other forms of
criticism in that it does not focus on the style of writing, or grammar, or diction; it
focuses on what is being said by the the author.
This form of criticism originated from a cultural movement in Germany and
Austria in the early twentieth century called, expressionism. Expressionism was
focused on the arts, it’s true meaning changing constantly over time. Ironically,
this term was first used to describe French artists, not Germans. If work produced
by Van Gogh and Munch is inspected, the critic will find that their work is based
off of human experience. It was for this reason that expressionism was claimed to
not be a style.

Expressionism started at as paintings, sculptures and so on. It wasn’t until later

that literature, theater, and music were added to the list of expressionism. After all,
couldn’t it be argued that literature, theater, and music are just as much a part of
the art community as a painting by Van Gogh? There is still much disagreement
over the definition of expressionism. The one thing about it that is known for sure,
is that it is very individualized. That is why expressive criticism is mainly used on
poetry.
What really started the expressive movement was the age of Romanticism.
Romanticism deeply affected our modern consciousness and literary
commentary. The three main concepts that expressive theorists still stick to today
are imagination, genius, and emotion. Expressive theorists believe that
individuality is something that must be conveyed in literary work. They believe in
going above and beyond the objective theorists idea that a poet’s job as a poet is
to stray away from personality. Objective theorists believe that criticism should
focus on the poem and not the poet. What those critics don’t understand is that
the poet is the poem.

One of the big names associated with expressive criticism is William Wordsworth.
Wordsworth defines poetry as “emotion recollected in tranquillity”. He says, “a
poem is inner made outer”. Wordsworth was a naturalist. In any poem of his, that
known fact becomes clear. He, himself, always plays a major role in his own
poetry. Who he is as a person, reflects in his poetry.
Expressive writing has really evolved since it was first created. It is not only the
main writing style of poetry, but it is now used in therapies, to help clients better
understand their own emotions. The reason for this, is when something is
expressive, it cannot be judged as fiercely as something that is factual. Critics
cannot have an influential opinion about how somebody feels.

Other criticisms tend to downplay the importance of the author while critiquing his
or her work. Expressive criticism directs its focus on the author. While expressive
criticism is more likely to be used with poetry it is also useful when critiquing
novels and essays. Most people tend to focus on word choices and different
styles, and mistakes that have been made, rather than why the author wrote the
essay or novel, or even a short story. By focusing on the author, readers may
better understand what they are reading.

Pedagogical Framework
LESSON 1:
 Textual Analysis of W.B Yeats “When you are Old”

Desired Learning Competency

At the end of the 2-hour lesson, the students will be able to:

1. understand and analyze the poem from the given activity.

Desired Learning Outcomes

At the end of the 2-hour lesson, they will be able to:

1. analyze the poem through its tone and language;

2. understand the poetic vision of the poem.

Preparation/ Motivation

Pre-Activity Questions

The students will answer these questions:

1. Did you experience being in love?

2. What was your experiences about one-sided love?
3. Based from your experiences, what’s your own definition of love?
 About the Author and
the Poem

William Butler Yeats is an Irish poet and one of the greatest poets in the English
Language in the 20th century. He was awarded Nobel Prize for literature in 1923.
He is one among the great love poets of the world.

This is a love poem addressed to the poet’s beloved Maud Gonne who was the
most beautiful young lady of his time. She is believed to be the inspiration behind
this poem. The tone of the poem is one of melancholy. W.B. Yeats imagines her
future years and his true love in future. He repents over her divergent attitude
who fails to understand his spiritual love. The poet begins the first stanza
addressing her imagining her to be in her old age. The lady will be very old
approaching her peaceful years. She then opens the book of poems penned by
the poet. As she starts to read slowly, she is taken back in time to recollect her
past when she had innocent looks in her eyes and sadness hidden in the looks of
her eyes. The poet also says that his beloved would also regret how
many loved her physical grace but only the poet worshipped her Pilgrim soul
even as her face changed. At last, the lady will grieve over the loss of her True
Love fleeing from her and joining a crowd of stars very distant from her. Thus the
poet expresses his true intentions while his beloved fails to understand.

Read the Poem

Directions: Read the poem silently and take note of the difficult words.

When You Are Old

BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,

 And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,

And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,

Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

Comprehension Questions

Comprehension I

The poet is addressing

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In line two, the word ‘book’ refers to

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 The words ‘glad grace’ suggests
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What does the phrase ‘your changing face’ suggest?

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‘Love fled’ connotes

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Directions: In the diagram, explain your analyzation of the poem “When you are
Old”.

Explain Stanza 1
rsona-vision-address
ee
 Explain Stanza 2
olism

T Explain Stanza 3 and

Mood
 Student’s Learning Task

og

1. Directions: Explain this question in connection with W.B Yeats “When you
are Old” poem.

“When You Are Old” is a poem of contrasts. What purposes do

they serve?

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