Ambivalence In The Poems By William Butler Yeats
William Butler Yeats is an Anglo-Irish poet which belongs to older generation, more fully, he is a poet of early modern. As a poet, he uses descriptive language to portray the life of Irish citizens. Taking into consideration his poems, we see his ability in bringing new things such as experimenting with the structure of poetry, also, using various symbols and allusions and being distinguished as a master of caesura. However, the most important of all these features is his ability to present ambivalence in his poems. Ambivalence is ambiguity, when the poet leaves opening gaps for the reader to have paradoxical thoughts related to particular things he writes in his poems. I will elaborate some examples of ambivalence in some poems by William Butler Yeats such as “The Wild Swans At Coole”, “The Second Coming”, “Easter, 1916” and “Leda And The Swan”.
Starting from “The Wild Swans At Coole”, Yeats depicts the concern of getting old. He compares himself with 59 swans. The comparison between himself and these swans is related again to age, according to him, they are still young and he is old when he says. Ambivalence in this poem is related to time because the speaker is now old and alone overthinking how did time passed by so fast.
In the next poem “The Secong Coming” which was published at the end of World War I, Yeats focuses more on the life of people and the circumstances after war. The people’s belief in religion has faded and the place is dominated by a chaotic situation. It is time for the Second Coming, that is the return of Jesus to show up. At the end of the poem, he writes”Bethlehem was the birthplace of Jesus, however, this question is ambiguous because he does not know whether the Second Coming will be good or evil.
The third poem of this essay that contains elements of ambivalence is “Easter, 1916”. The poem is an elegy in which Yeats tells about the revolt that happened in Dublin, Ireland where a lot of protestors were killed. Throughout the poem, Yeats describes how much Irish citizens want their independence, and at the end of each stanza he uses the lineThis is a powerful contrast because the word “terrible” shows the cruelty as well as the death of the protestors, whereas beauty is their wish to win independence. This independence could have not been arrived without the death of lots of people and this way Yeats criticizes citizens of Ireland.
Last but not least, the poem which also has elements of ambivalence is “Leda And The Swan”. In this poem, we as readers, recognize how the poet experimented with the form of this poem. The poem is a sonnet and usually a sonnet has fourteen lines and the theme is beauty or love. Nevertheless, “Leda And The Swan” is a sonnet but it has fifteen lines and the theme is rape. In this poem, Zeus (Greek mythology) takes the form of a swan and rapes Leda with whom has four children and one of them is Helen of Troy. The woman is helpless in this situation. In addition, Yeats seems to associate this situation with the situation in the previous poem “Easter, 1916”, Ireland is helpless towards Britain. At the end of the poem, Yeats writes Here Yeats raises the question whether Leda was aware of the identity of the Swan.
In conclusion, William Butler Yeats is a poet of duality, focuses on universal and is known for his experiments in the poems even though he was against experimentation. He uses elements of ambivalence in lots of his poems such as the unhappiness of getting old, waste of time, return of Jesus, theme of rape in a sonnet.
