Yeats' Style

W. B. Yeats is one of the greatest poets of the English language. He had in common two main methods of writing poetry: one spontaneous and the other a laborious process involving much alteration and substitution. However, it was only in the early phase of his poetic career that he relied entirely on inspiration giving himself upto “the chief temptation of the artistic creation without toil”. In the later phase he became a conscious artist who took great pains and re-polish his verse. He was very painstaking artist and tried to say what he has to say in the best possible words. Following lines from “Adams’s Curse” throw valuable side light on...

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Irish elements in Yeats' poetry

Although Yeats used Irish mythology in his early poems, yet he is not simply intent to retell the Irish legends. Yeats’ impulse to transcend his folk-lore material is a constant pre-occupation with him. As an Irishman, he is passionately attached to his country by ties of ancestors and pride in his country’s history and legends. He gradually became disillusioned when he felt the violence and hatred of the Irish political leaders.The use of the inherited subject-matter and the mythology of Ireland were not something educational or poetic in a simple way but something more deeply political.Yeats is keen to show in a vision something of the face...

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Milton: Pandemoniun in "Paradise Lost"

Some angels rushed towards a nearby hill, Pandemonium, a hill not far from there that emerged fire and smoke. All the rest of the hill shone with a bright crust, which was a sure sign that in its interior was buried metallic ore or sulphur. Towards that hill a company of numerous angels moved with great haste like groups of miners, hurrying in advance of the royal army to dig trenches in some battlefield or to build a fortification.Those angels were guided thither by Mammon. He first taught human beings to pillage the earth, in order to obtain treasures buried. Soon had his companion made a huge opening in the hill and dug out large pieces of...

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Milton: Hell in "Paradise Lost"

This is how Milton describes Hell as Satan sees it after his fall from Heaven:At once, as far as Angles ken, he viewsThe dismal situation waste and wild:A dungeon horrible, on all sides round,As one great furnace flamed; yet from those flamesNo light, but rather darkness visibleServed only to discover sights of woe,Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peaceAnd rest can never dwell, hope never comesThat comes at all; but torture without endStill urges, and a fiery deluge, fedWith ever-burning sulphur unconsumed.Such place Eternal Justice had preparedFor those rebellious; here their prison set,As fat removed from God and light of HeavenAs from...

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Milton: Character of "Satan"

Satan occupies the most prominent position in the action of Paradise Lost. Though the main theme of the poem is the “Man’s first disobedience” yet it is the character of Satan which gives a touch of greatness to this epic. Al the poetic powers of Milton are shown on the delineation of the majestic personality of the enemy of God and Man, i.e. Satan.As it is shown in Paradise Lost Book-I that the character of Satan is a blend of the noble and the ignoble, the exalted and the mean, the great and the low, therefore, it becomes difficult to declare him either a hero or a wholly villain.In Paradise Lost Book-I we can hardly doubt his heroic qualities...

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