Images from wikimedia commons. The most famous war poems are memorized by school children, recited at military events, and set to music. I’m alone in the wine shop. I think it better that in times like these A poet's mouth be silent, for in truth We have no gift to set a statesman right; He has had enough of medding who can please A young girl in the indolence of her youth, Or an old man upon a winter's night. He is fighting for Britain because, although he is Irish, Ireland was under British rule at the time (independence, leading to the formation of the Republic of Ireland, would not be achieved until 1922, four years after the end of the war). In the cemetery, not one Spanish name. The war poems listed here include the familiar, the surprising, and the disturbing. Main Menu Instead, Yeats’s poetry of this period focuses on the fighting closer to home, such as the Easter Rising of 1916 (in ‘Easter 1916’), and, just after the end of the First World War, the longer struggle for Irish independence from British rule (in ‘Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen’). The original version was printed in Edith Wharton's "The Book of the Homeless" (Boston: D.B. a Civil War site not meant for walking. Abstract: Analyzing two poems written by W. B. Yeats, On being asked for a war poem and An Irish air-man foresees his death, the role of the poet during the Great War can be discussed under the perspective of the Irish anti colonial nationalism. I think it better that in times like these The influence of Cranes "War is Kind" was from his compassion and empathy for the everyday suffering of war victims. "[2] The poem was first published in Edith Wharton's The Book of the Homeless in 1916 as "A Reason for Keeping Silent". It’s one of Yeats’s shortest well-known poems, comprising just six lines, and sets out why Yeats chooses not to write a ‘war poem’ for publication. On Being Asked For A War Poem Poem by William Butler Yeats. "On being asked for a War Poem" is a poem by William Butler Yeats written on February 6, 1915 in response to a request by Henry James that Yeats compose a political poem about World War I. Yeats changed the poem's title from "To a friend who has asked me to sign his manifesto to the neutral nations" to "A Reason for Keeping Silent" before sending it in a letter to James, which Yeats wrote at Coole Park … On being asked for a War Poem By William Butler Yeats About this Poet William Butler Yeats is widely considered to be one of the greatest poets of the 20th century. Post your questions and comments on … I think it better that in times like these A poet keep his mouth shut, for in truth We have no gift to set a statesman right; He has had enough of meddling who can please A young girl in the indolence of her youth, Or an old man upon a winter's night. He has had enough of meddling who can please [3] Peter McDonald suggests that the changes in the poem's title reflects Yeats's changing political positions from the beginning of the war until its end in 1919 when Yeats publishes The Wild Swans at Coole. Instead I think he’s saying “You know that statesmen (a grandiloquent word for politicians and potentates that–seems a conscious choice) are providing the same pettifoggery for their audience as the least of poetry.”. Some of the most remarkable war poems defy expectations of what a poem "ought" to be. There are many great war poems out there and there have been a great number of popular war poets. "A Reason for Keeping Silent" was the original title. However, great war poetry reaches far beyond the ceremonial. The poem was prefaced with a note stating: "It is the only thing I have written of the war or will write, so I hope it may not seem unfitting. Putting together a universal list of the best war poetry raises all sorts of questions. I think it better that in times like these Tim Kendall, in The Oxford handbook of British and Irish war poetry, suggests that Yeats's alternatives to the subject of war stated in lines 5-6, are the more traditional subjects of poetry which the poet finds suitable material, yet Kendall sees the reversion of the subject back to Yeats's generic topics as "self-unwriting". Yeats objected to the war, and could not imagine using poetry to wave the flag for the right ‘side’ (and his Irish blood would have boiled at the idea of writing a patriotic poem in support of the British troops in the war!). He has had enough of meddling who can please Yeats wrote his in 1915, after being continually asked to write a poem about the war. On Being Asked For A War Poem by William Butler Yeats - Famous poems, famous poets. It could just be him saying “Ah shucks, I’m just a wondering minstrel here” but I’m not yet thinking that. A poet's mouth be silent, for in truth ON BEING ASKED FOR A WAR POEM. On being asked for a War Poem. In summary, ‘On Being Asked for a War Poem’ is a poem about refusing to write a war poem when asked to produce one. Poem, from 1919 and in the public domain. I suspect him of wanting to not just praise the work of poetry with surprisingly weak praise. This odd act of refusal-as-assent – writing a poem, but a poem which takes a stand against writing a certain kind of poem – has the air of irony about it, and Yeats probably intended his poem to be taken as a brief ‘thanks, but no thanks’. His line ‘We have no gift to set a statesman right’ is a forerunner to Auden’s famous line that ‘poetry makes nothing happen’, and the similarity is no coincidence: Auden makes that well-known statement in his elegy for W. B. Yeats, written in 1939. Updike, Merrymount Press, 1916). [1] When it was later reprinted in The Wild Swans at Coole, the title was changed to "On being asked for a War Poem". Interesting Literature is a participant in the Amazon EU Associates Programme, an affiliate advertising programme designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by linking to Amazon.co.uk. Yeats' 1916 poem, On being asked for a War Poem, followed by my poem, Theoretically I Am Against War. [1] Yeats changed the poem's title from "To a friend who has asked me to sign his manifesto to the neutral nations" to "A Reason for Keeping Silent" before sending it in a letter to James, which Yeats wrote at Coole Park on August 20, 1915. The poem was prefaced with a note stating: "It is the only thing I have written of the war or will wri… "Or an old man upon a winter's night" For this line I imagined an old man walking down the street late at night in the winter, and I imagined him as a veteran, and he looked really sad and isolated. I came on this poem of Carruth on my way to Google up information about The Week of the Angry Arts that took place in NYC around 1967, a big event that engaged scores and maybe hundreds of writers and artists in public readings, displays, and performances through a full week. It was the American novelists, Henry James and Edith Wharton – who were good friends and who both came to live in Britain – who approached him: Wharton was editing an anthology, The Book of the Homeless, the profits from which would go towards helping refugees of the war. Enjoy these poems during National Poetry Month (April), or any other time of year! But why that title? Before we analyse ‘On Being Asked for a War Poem’, here’s a reminder of the text of the poem. That anthology appeared in 1916, complete with Yeats’s contribution, which appeared under the alternative title ‘A Reason for Keeping Silent’. And then there is ‘An Irish Airman Foresees His Death’, in which an Irish pilot fighting for Britain in the First World War predicts that he will die in that war, but he feels no sense of patriotic duty towards Britain, the country he fights for. A young girl in the indolence of her youth, It is a … I THINK it better that in times like these A poet’s mouth be silent, for in truth We have no gift to set a statesman right; He has had enough of meddling who can please A young girl in the indolence of her youth, Or an old man upon a winter’s night. A young girl in the indolence of her youth, It is the duty of mankind to uphold justice. The poets lead off that volume, and Yeats (alphabetically) closed their section as the last word there from his contemporaries in verse. Here is the entire poem: “I think it better that in times like these A poet’s mouth be silent, for in truth Yeats wrote at least one other version of line two. Famous authors - William Butler Yeats, featuring the poem On Being Asked For A War Poem Poetry in the public domain, from past literary greats of historic times. Edith Wharton asked for a poem from Yeats for book meant to raise funds for Belgian war victims during WWI, and this was his response, which indeed was printed and therefore served its charitable purpose. I THINK it better that in times like these : A poet keep his mouth shut, for in truth : We have no gift to set a statesman right; He has had enough of meddling who can please : A young girl in the indolence of her youth, 5: Or an old man upon a winter’s night. Enter your email address to subscribe to this site and receive notifications of new posts by email. The main difficulty in summarizing "On being asked for a War Poem" by William Butler Yeats is that the poem is so short. Instead, he identifies as an Irish patriot, rather than a British one. Post was not sent - check your email addresses! Slate Poetry Editor Robert Pinsky will be joining in discussion of William Butler Yeats' "On Being Asked for a War Poem" this week. I like to add that Yeats’ poem, under the title “A Reason for Keeping Silent” (I’m unsure if that different title was Yeats’ or the editors’) was printed in Warton’s charity anthology for the war’s refugees. Nonetheless, Yeats wrote a number of poems concerned with the rebellion in Ireland during the First World War– he was a committed Irish nationalist. Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email. I thoroughly enjoy them. by William Butler Yeats. On Being Asked For A War Poem. I feel strangely enough most for the young Germans who are now being killed.’ Yeats goes on to say that the ‘bespectacled’ Germans he has seen remind him more of himself than the English soldiers (‘footballers’) or the French troops. "Introduction", The Countess Kathleen and Various Legends and Lyrics, In Memory of Eva Gore-Booth and Con Markiewicz, The Works of William Blake: Poetic, Symbolic and Critical, The Curse of the Fires and of the Shadows, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=On_being_asked_for_a_War_Poem&oldid=940308079, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 11 February 2020, at 19:34. The differences between the two ‘On Being Asked for a War Poem’ is a poem by W. B. Yeats (1865-1939), written in 1915 and published the following year. ‘Joining the Colours’ was published in the midst of the First … "On being asked for a War Poem" is a poem by William Butler Yeats written on February 6, 1915 in response to a request by Henry James that Yeats compose a political poem about World War I. Yeats changed the poem's title from "To a friend who has asked me to sign his manifesto to the neutral nations" to "A Reason for Keeping Silent" before sending it in a letter to James, which Yeats wrote at Coole Parkon August 20, 1915. On Being Asked To Write A Poem Against The War In Vietnam Well I have and in fact more than one and I'll tell you this too I wrote one against Algeria that nightmare and another against . [4] In the first two lines of the poem, Yeats states that it is better for a "poet to keep his mouth shut" than to enter into debates about wars and politics, feeling that a poet should speak only about traditional lyric subjects and leave the war to soldiers and politicians.[4]. The final two lines are the only ones which might cause some real head-scratching from readers (and critics), but Yeats appears to be making an appeal to the broad readership that poetry (including his poetry, by 1915) enjoyed: young girls might enjoy his romantic verses about old Ireland, while an old man might enjoy the ballads. ‘On Being Asked for a War Poem’ could be productively analysed alongside ‘An Irish Airman Foresees His Death’, for this reason. [3], When Henry James asked Yeats to submit a poem for publication in Wharton's collection which was intended to raise money for Belgium refugees,[4] Yeats intended for the poem to state his political position on the "European War". No evidence in statues or statistics. Who has ‘asked [Yeats] for a war poem’? "On being asked for a War Poem" is a poem by William Butler Yeats written on February 6, 1915 in response to a request by Henry James that Yeats compose a political poem about World War I. On being asked for a War Poem. Joining the Colours by Katharine Tynan. In February 1915, Yeats had written to his friend Lady Gregory: ‘I suppose, like most wars it is at root a bagman’s war, a sacrifice of the best for the worst. 0 Anyway, thanks for the continued interesting and informative posts here. Browse our unique collection of sad and touching Poems about War and Peace. Being asked for a War Poem" was the title of a revised version. On Being Asked for a War Poem. ‘On Being Asked For a War Poem’: This poem was written after Yeats was asked to write a war poem. On Being Asked for a War Poem (1915) I think it better that in times like these A poet's mouth be silent, for in truth We have no gift to set a statesman right; We must protect those persecuted. There is evil in the world and we must not ignore it. From what I know, Yeats’ was a cultural nationalist (and a spiritualist too) who believed in the power of literary culture, so to “praise” poetry as passing entertainment for those left not fighting overseas (girls and old men past service age) seems an odd choice. We have no gift to set a statesman right; 10 classic war poems selected by Dr Oliver Tearle. Well, history Here we are, Hayden, at war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and sizing up Yemen as I write. Read William Butler Yeats poem:I THINK it better that in times like these A poet's mouth be silent, for in truth We have no gift to set a statesman right;. So as you point out, the “refusal” is a bit meta, as he DID supply a poem, and the title we know it by now wants us to notice that state of incongruity. In a letter of the same year, sent to John Quinn, Yeats wrote that the First World War was ‘merely the most expensive outbreak of insolence and stupidity the world has ever seen and I give it as little thought as I can.’ These remarks leave us in little doubt about how Yeats viewed the conflict, and help to explain why he wrote ‘On Being Asked for a War Poem’. Or an old man upon a winter’s night. My reading of this poem is that Yeats was making a sly comment in linking “a poet” and “a statesman” within the confines of his one-sentence, very short poem. We have no gift to set a statesman right; Read these renowned poets' thoughts on war, with lines ranging from Stephen Crane's "war is kind" to William Shakespeare's "I am afeard there are few die well that die in a battle." Regardless, I ask park rangers and guides for stories on Mexican soldiers, receive shrugs. This is how I think veterans feel a lot of the time when they return to "normal No, I’m only a reader and admirer of this blog. [6] In the poem "Politics", Yeats begins the poem where "On being asked for a War Poem" finishes with the opening lines: Although "Politics" describes a different political situation facing the world in the 1930s, Yeats again chooses not to focus on politics but the "girl standing there."[8]. Van de kamp, Peter and Peter Liebregts. ‘On Being Asked for a War Poem’ is a poem by W. B. Yeats (1865-1939), written in 1915 and published the following year. It’s one of Yeats’s shortest well-known poems, comprising just six lines, and sets out why Yeats chooses not to write a ‘war poem’ for publication. On Being Asked for a War Poem Analysis by: Gavin, Danny, Neil, and Timothy An Analysis An Explanation Organization of poem Rhyme scheme Use of metaphor poet's mouth Use of juxtaposition publication and in poem Tone Questions raised by poem Should a poet get involved in politics? A poet’s mouth be silent, for in truth War Poems and Anti-War poems. The mention of the word "silent" in the title published in Wharton's collection, appears contrary to the construction of poetry or the poetic voice. Why did Yeats refuse to write a ‘war poem’? Recording is mine. On Being Asked For A War Poem by William Butler Yeats I think it better that in times like these A poet keep his mouth shut, for in truth We have no gift to set a statesman right; He has had enough of meddling who can please A young girl in the indolence of her youth, Or an old man upon a winters night. On Being Asked For A War Poem William Butler Yeats 1865 (Sandymount) – 1939 (Menton) I THINK it better that in times like theseA poet's mouthbe silent, for in truthWe have no gift to set a statesmanright;He has had enoughof meddingwho can pleaseA younggirl in the indolenceof her youth,Or an old man upon a winter's night. Battle-Hymn of the Republic. It’s the same in the post office, the market, the antique shop with KKK books on … Obviously tired, and starting to feel the deep futility that would gradually set in all across the European art world, Yeats offered this. On being asked for a War Poem Language: English I think it better that in times like these A poet's mouth be silent, for in truth We have no gift to set a statesman right; He has had enough of meddling who can please A young girl in the indolence of her youth, Or an old man upon a winter’s night. The poem's original title, "To a friend who has asked me to sign his manifesto to the neutral nations," appears, in the words of Jim Haughey, to have a "toysome evasiveness" regarding the politics surrounding the war. Fortune Of War Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. [5] Although there are minute variations in the wording of the version published in The Book of the Homeless and the one found in The Wild Swans at Coole, the poem's overall form remained the same even as the title changed. In terms of its form, the poem is written in iambic pentameter, rhymed abcabc. Or an old man upon a winter’s night. ON BEING ASKED FOR A WAR POEM I THINK it better that in times like these A poet's mouth be silent, for in truth We have no gift to set a statesman right; He has had enough of meddling who can please A young girl in the indolence of her youth, Or an old man upon a winter's night.
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