William
Butler Yeats (1865-1939) was one of the most prominent Irish poets and literary
figures of the twentieth century. He was well known for his dramatic and prose
works as well. He was the pioneer of the theatre of Abbey and served the nation
twice as a senator.
Overview
'Among
School Children' is one of the most popular poems of Yeats. W.H. Hudson
describes the poetry of Yeats in these words, “Yeats has a knack of raising
occasional poetry to the level of a profound poetry of universal appeal and significance.
Among School, Children can be cited as an example.”
The major themes in this poem are revolving around the poet's memories and experience. Each stanza is about the youth versus age permeate and wisdom versus naiveté.
Context
This
poem is a reflection of Yeats visit to a convent school at Waterfront in 1926.
He was sent as an inspector to Free Irish State to check the quality of
education. The poem begins in the first person most naturalistically in the
standard pattern of a guided tour and reaches the philosophic heights.
Composition of the Poem
The
poem has eight stanzas and eight lines in each stanza. It is written in Italian
verse form called ‘ottava rima’ and having a rhyming scheme of abababcc.
First Stanza
I walk through the long schoolroom questioning;
A kind old nun in a white hood replies;
The children learn to cipher and to sing,
To study reading-books and history,
To cut and sew, be neat in everything
In the best modern way—the children’s eyes
In momentary wonder stare upon
A sixty-year-old smiling public man.
Interpretation of the Stanza
The first stanza is about the visit of the poet in 1926 to the Convent School at Waterford at the age of sixty. The school was run by the nuns on the Montessori Method of teaching. During the visit, the poet records his private thoughts. In school, he asks questions from a nun and observing the intellectuality of students. Although the poet is old he proves himself young and keeps aware of the age difference. He finds most of the students between the age of four to seven and they are busy in solving arithmetic. The girls are surprised by looking at an old person with a smiley face.
Second Stanza
I dream of a Ledaean body, bent
Above a sinking fire, a tale that she
Told of a harsh reproof, or trivial event
That changed some childish day to tragedy—
Told, and it seemed that our two natures blent
Into a sphere from youthful sympathy,
Or else, to alter Plato's parable,
Into the yolk and white of the one shell.
Interpretation of Second Stanza
In the second stanza, the poet was dreaming of his lover Maud Gonne. She was as beautiful as Helen in her youth, for whom a ten-year War, Trojan War was fought, which is the theme of Homer’s epic Iliad. Gonne was a beautiful young woman with a body like Leda (who was raped by Zeus in the form of a swan). Basically, the poet remembered his past days and the chats he has with her in his youth. Visiting classes, he was thinking about Gonne, that someone has a resemblance to her or not. He remembered an accident in school. He sympathized and his two natures get together. He showed that he and she now become a single body and united. Basically, this is the speaker's fantasy, wishing to unite (in sensuality) with his first love, to become a complete human. There is a reference to myth as well in this poem.
Third Stanza
And thinking of that fit of grief or rage
I look upon one child or t'other there
And wonder if she stood so at that age—
For even daughters of the swan can share
Something of every paddler's heritage—
And had that colour upon cheek or hair,
And thereupon my heart is driven wild:
She stands before me as a living child.
Interpretation of the Stanza
The poet in this stanza draws an analogy between his lover (Maud Gonne) and the children at the convent school. He further compares the beauty of her lover with the “daughters of the swan” and then concludes the Stanza by declaring how she has affected his heart. Firstly, the poet connects the previous stanza with a stanza by saying how the memories of his love for Maud Gonne only create grief as they are not together anymore: “And thinking of that fit of grief or rage”. Though the memories of his lover only bring grief to him his love for Maud Gonne was never forgotten. He then comes back to reality and observes the children at the convent school. He ponders whether Maud Gonne was like any other girls he saw at the convent school. Secondly, he again wonders that does his lover shares a common heritage with the “daughters of Swan” which is a reference given to the Helen of Troy. He then declares that the beauty of his lover, her hair, and her cheek often make his heart go wild. He imagines her to be standing right in front of him.
Stanza Four
Her present image floats into the mind—
Did Quattrocento finger fashion it
Hollow of cheek as though it drank the wind
And took a mess of shadows for its meat?
And I though never of Ledaean kind
Had pretty plumage once—enough of that,
Better to smile on all that smile, and show
There is a comfortable kind of old scarecrow.
Interpretation of the Stanza
The poet after imagining his lover as a young girl now imagines her to be the same age that he is. He wonders if her beauty was made or captured by any Italian artist belonging from the 1400s the “Quattrocento” period. This period in Italy was marked by the start of the Renaissance movement. He appreciates her beauty and her hollow cheeks. According to the poet, his lover even in the old age with hollow cheeks is beautiful and mesmerizing like Leda. He again gives an allusion to Leda who was raped by Zeus and was an epitome of beauty and was used as an inspiration or a muse in the Renaissance period. He appreciates the beauty of Leda. He presents imagery of a swan ornamented by colorful feathers to depict the beauty of his lover. The last two lines can be interpreted in two different ways. The first interpretation revolves around the initial stance of the poet regarding the beauty of his lover and aging. According to the poet even in old age, one must smile as the smile is a representation of tranquility. The second interpretation presents the notion that the poet is brought into reality after thinking about his lover and realizes that he is at a convent school so he must put on a face with a more suitable smile.
Stanza Five
What youthful mother, a shape upon her lap
Honey of generation had betrayed,
And that must sleep, shriek, struggle to escape
As recollection or the drug decide,
Would think her son, did she but see that shape
With sixty or more winters on its head,
A compensation for the pang of his birth,
Or the uncertainty of his setting forth?
Interpretation of the Stanza
The poet now incorporates another significant image of her mother. He explains the hardships a mother faces during pregnancy and questions are these shrunken sleep, the shrieks, and struggles worth the life of their child. An allusion to “Honey of a generation” is given. This image is taken from the essay “The Cave of the Nymphs”. The main idea behind this image is how the memories of a woman before their prenatal life are forgotten. He presents this notion by pointing out how the lives of the mothers after the birth of their child only revolve around their child. The mothers become oblivious of their previous lives, their likes, and dislikes. They forget their selves and only remember their duty as a mother. He questions this loving and selfless nature of the mothers by saying that is the pain of labor a mother faces for her child paid off if the child lives till he is sixty or more. He questions were the pain his mother suffered during childbirth with his existence on this planet for sixty years. Lastly, he questions what does a mother get after suffering from all this pain? How can she be compensated?
Stanza Six
Plato thought nature but a spume that plays
Upon a ghostly paradigm of things;
Solider Aristotle played the taws
Upon the bottom of a king of kings;
World-famous golden-thighed Pythagoras
Fingered upon a fiddle-stick or strings
What a star sang and careless Muses heard:
Old clothes upon old sticks to scare a bird.
Interpretation of the Stanza
The poet in the last stanza presents three different schools of thought and makes fun of them by declaring that even the great philosophers were unable to hinder the process of aging. Firstly, he mentions Plato who being an idealist viewed the world from his lens of idealism. Plato’s metaphysical theory of forms and his “ghostly paradigm of things” according to the poet was the major contribution to his philosophy. Secondly, he mentions Aristotle who was a practically-minded man and the teachers of Alexander the Great. Thirdly, he mentions Pythagoras who was a “World-famous golden-thighed”; a well-known Greek philosopher of mathematics, music, and metaphysics. The poet explains how each of them had a perspective and philosophy of their own. Their philosophies were even sung in the stars which the muses heard. But he explains that these philosophies too grew old and now are used to scare bird.
Stanza Seven
Both nuns and mothers worship images,
But those the candles light are not as those
That animate a mother's reveries,
But keep a marble or a bronze repose.
And yet they too break hearts—O Presences
That passion, piety or affection knows,
And that all heavenly glory symbolise—
O self-born mockers of man's enterprise;
Interpretation of the Stanza
The poet in this stanza firstly presents an analogy between nuns and mothers. He describes how both worship images. A nun worships the images of the deities whereas a mother worships the images of her child. A nun worships in a church by lighting candles to attain tranquility and perfection but for a mother, the memories of her child are an embodiment of perfection. The poet distinguishes between the love of a mother which is an earthly love and the love of a nun which invokes “a marble or a bronze repose”. The poet presents the notion that love whether religious or earthly brings disappointment: “And yet they too break hearts”. A mother is often disappointed with her child because of his physical growth and the changes which are observed in his behavior and he thus becomes a reason for her grief. Similarly, a nun often faces disappointment due to her believes and the never-changing nature of the stone. The poet concludes this idea by declaring that both the nuns and the mothers worship their own set of images but these images are mere illusions that bring disappointment. Secondly, he points out three different emotions such as passion, piety, and affection and associates them with his lover (Maud Gonne), the nuns, and the mothers respectively. One can interpret that he is doing so points at the greatness in women who know all of these emotions and are symbolic of heavenly glory. Lastly, he concludes his idea and presents the notion that how women are self-born mockers of man: “O self-born mockers of man's enterprise” as they can give birth to themselves which man cannot do.
Stanza Eight
Labour is blossoming or dancing where
The body is not bruised to pleasure soul,
Nor beauty born out of its own despair,
Nor blear-eyed wisdom out of midnight oil.
O chestnut tree, great rooted blossomer,
Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole?
O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,
How can we know the dancer from the dance?
Interpretation of the Stanza
In the last stanza of the poem, the poet presents the notion that opposites produce vitality. They are the reason for the blossoming of a soul. Firstly, he presents this notion by pointing out how a human reproduces. A human being is reproduced by the means of sexual reproduction which involves both sexes male and female. A human being is a result of intercourse between two opposites and after a hard labor of bearing that fetus, a soul blossoms. Similarly, a chestnut tree does not only bear a leaf or a flower or a trunk rather it consists of these three in harmony. The existence of these three in harmony makes a chestnut tree a “great rooted blossomed”. Beauty and perfection are not born in isolation rather they exist because of the harmony present in nature. Lastly, he validates his point by questioning: “How can we know the dancer from the dance?”. Just like a dance that cannot be separated from the body dancing, similarly, human life cannot be oblivious of sadness and ecstasy rather they exist in harmony.
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