Write the summary of the poem entitled "In Memory of W. B. Yeats".

Write the summary of the poem entitled “In Memory of W. B. Yeats”.

Ans.

Summary of the poem

Introduction- The poem “In Memory of W. B. Yeats” was composed by W. H. Auden as an elegy to commemorate the death of the great Irish- poet nd dramatist Yeats, who-died in the south of France on 28 January, 19-39 Auden had arrived in New York only two days earlier, lie must have read the notices about the death of Yeats in newspapers as well as in prose piece entitled “The Public versus the Late Mr. William Butler Yeats.”

In Memory of W. B. Yeats is one of the most significant poems of W. H. Auden. Yeats was one of the greatest of modern poets and there are indications that Auden was strongly influenced by Yeats and this poem is in the form of an elegy. The poem is divided into three Sections. The first Section deals with the occasion of Yeats death; the second with the -idea that “poetry makes nothing happen while the third goes on to a more generalized consideration of the nature of poetry.”

Section 1 of the poem describes the death of Yeats, who died in the South of France where the climate is comparatively warm. Yet Auden asserts that Yeats. died in “the dead of winter” when the “brooks were frozen, the airports almost deserted.” Auden seems to describe the weather in New York when he got the news of the death of Yeats. The poet says that the nature remained indifferent to the death of Yeats-everything continued on its course undisturbed by the news of his death. But, asserts Auden, though Yeats has died his poetry will remain to be read, enjoyed and appreciated by the coming generations. Yeats has died physically but his poetry lives coming generations. Yeats has died physically but his poetry lives on. The last eight lines of the Section seek to emphasis the fact how “a few thousand” will think back on the day of Yeats’s death as a special day and remember it in the “importance and noise of tomorrow.

The second Section is the shortest of the poem-consisting of only ten lines. The Section emphasizes the fact that “poetry makes nothing happen.” Poetry fails to make any changes of produce any revolutions in society. What lives after the poet is his style. This style continues to dwell in the subliminal depths of the human psyche. Still, says Auden, poetry survives, because it is “a way of happening” that is to say, it is the embodiment of a particular experience that can be universalized.

The third Section of the poem considers the function of the poet in society and contrasts his continuing function with changing political and social situations. With the death of Yeats Ireland is emptied’ of its poetry. Time. which is indifferent to the faults of character or physical charm worships language’. The second part of this Section refers to the Second World War and the death of Yeats-in 1939. The mystery of Yeats’s death is set against a overhung with the clouds of war. In such times it is the duty of the poet to pursue the hidden truth, to explore the subliminal depths. With the gifts of his poetry a poet can rejoice even in the face of the curse of war. The poem ends on a note of affirmation by suggesting although man spends life in “the prison of his days” the poet can contribute positively to human life by starting the ‘healing fountain’ of awareness and understanding.