Among School Children 2d5x3l

Summary and Analysis of Among School Children by W.B Yeats “Among School Children” by W.B Yeats is considered as one of the most difficult poems. The subject of the poem revolves around the interpretation of matter and spirit. It was composed by Yeats after visiting a convent school in Waterford, Ireland in 1926. The poem reflects on the theme of meditation of life, love and the creative process and stands out for the poignancy and profundity that it holds. SUMMARY: Stanza 1: “Among School Children” was written after the poet’s visit to a convent school. This is how the poet describes his visit. The poet says that he was received by a nun who wore a white hood. She was assigned the task of showing the school to the poet and to answer his enquiries. The poet saw that the children were learning arithmetic and singing. They were also learning how to read books, how to cut and sew clothes and be neat and clean in everything that they did. The children were also learning history. The poet observed that all these were taught to the children through modern techniques of teaching. The children stared with wonder at the poet- who was then a sixty year smiling public figure to them. Stanza 2: The poet then es through the school and comes across the female students who remind him of another Ledaean beauty, Maud Gonne with her well chiseled Leda-like classic features. The poet stands there in front of those little girls and recalls Maud Gonne that she must have once been a little girl at school too. Yeats recalls an incident when Maud Gonne told him about those petty incidents of reproofs imposed on her by her teachers and how the teachers caused great unhappiness to her and turned her entire into a tragedy. The poet had always sympathized with her till their souls had blended into one like the yolk and white of an egg. Stanza 3: The poet thinks of the sad event that his beloved Maud Gonne once told him, he starts looking from one girl to another wondering if any of them resembled Maud Gonne in her childhood. Maud Gonne was even compared to ‘daughters of Swan’ i.e., Helen who was a very beautiful woman. The poet finds resemblance in one of the girls who have the same color of cheeks and hair like his beloved had.

The poet’s imagination runs wild and he sees his beloved standing before him as a living child. Stanza 4: The poet, W.B Yeats continues to dwell upon the image of his beloved, Maud Gonne. He recalls her when she was an old woman. According to the poet, when Maud Gonne was old, she had hollow cheeks and looked old and decrepit but still she looked beautiful like a piece of some Renaissance art. Then the poet thinks of his own old age. The poet says that though he was not very handsome but he was presentable. But now, he looks like a scarecrow. However, he believes in the idea that no matter how he looks he should have a smiling face. There is no profit cribbing over the loss of youth and beauty. He tells us that we must keep smiling and love the way we are and even if we have turned into a scarecrow, we should be comfortable being a scarecrow. Stanza 5: The poet then talks about the mothers who could see how ugly their sons have turned in their old age. If they could see the ugliness off their sons, they would not take the trouble of bearing children. Therefore, in such situations, sons would no longer bring joy to their mothers for the pain they have to bear during childbirth. The ‘honey of generation’ is the drug which makes the new born forgets the memories of pre-natal freedom. Thus, the process of life will continue and mothers too must forget how their child will look in their old age. Stanza 6: Here, the poet refers to some of the eminent philosopher’s theories. Plato explained the world as the reflection of God’s ideas. Aristotle whipped Alexander to make him learn but the latter learnt very little from him. Then the poet brings up another great philosopher and mathematician, Pythagoras who claimed that he had golden thighs. He was a great musician and claimed that he could hear the musical sound of the planets that moved around the orbits. What the poet wants to say is that all these qualities of these philosophers were of no use to them. They could stop old age from coming. Despite, being so knowledgeable and wise, they became old with time and looked like scarecrows. Hence, time is omnipotent. The poet concludes that it is useless to mourn over the loss of youth and beauty. Stanza 7: The poet talks about holy nuns and mothers who worship illusions and mere phantoms. The images that saints worship are different from the

images that are worshipped by mothers. The images in the churches which are lighted by candles are made of marble ad bronze but the images worshipped by mothers are of human figures. Both the images cause grief to their worshippers. Sons break their mother’s heart by growing old and stones cause grief by never changing. Therefore, neither the living nor the non-living gives any permanent satisfaction to their worshippers. Stanza 8: In the last and final stanza of “Among School Children”, the poet compares life to a chestnut tree. He says life is made up of opposites, very much like the chestnut tree which has neither leaf, nor blossom, nor trunk but a combination of all three. Similarly, the poet says that dancing movements of a human body cannot be separated from the dancer. The dancer and her dancing movements cannot be separated from each other. The body should not be tortured for the sake of the soul and vice versa. Both of them should exist in harmony. ANALYSIS: Structure: The poet comprises of eight stanza each containing eight lines and employs a rhyme scheme, ababaabcc, known as ottava rima. Style: “Among School Children” by W.B Yeats is well known for the gracefulness and the flexibility of the language it holds. There is also a dramatic coherence in its construction. The excellence of language of the poem is peculiarly Yeatsian. No matter how prosaic his words are, they are also luminous and noble. Among School Children The speaker paces around a classroom, looking at the schoolchildren. The nun says that what they learn in school is to read and to sing. They learn about history, sewing, and how to be neat “in a modern way.” The children stare at the speaker, an old politician. He dreams of a Leda-like body bent over a fire in a domestic scene. She is telling a story of how a small interaction with a child turned its day to tragedy. Together, over the story, they share a great deal. Looking at the children, he wonders what she was like at their age. He sees her as a child and is mad with love. Her current, gaunt image comes to mind. She once was pretty, but she is now comfortable and old. Did the speaker’s mother, when carrying

him, know that seeing this woman would be enough compensation for her child’s birth? Platothought nature to be imperfect; Aristotle contemplated the nature of things, as did Pythagoras...but these are all merely subjects for students to study. Nuns and mothers adore images, but the mothers’ images are their children. The speaker questions life’s very location, wondering what part of a tree is the essence of the tree, what part of a dancer is a dancer, and which is the dance itself. Analysis The subject matter of schoolchildren contrasts greatly with that of the earlier historical poems in this collection. Here is evidence of civil society, of progress, and of modernity - none of which were possible during the Anglo-Irish War or the Civil War. From this, and from the implication that the speaker is a senator (as Yeats was after 1924), one may deduce that this is a later poem, written from the standpoint of a more peaceful Ireland. The children are poignant for the speaker because they are associated both with an obvious type of innocence and with the woman whom the speaker loves. By comparing her child self and her current incarnation, it is sharply evident to the speaker how she has aged. The imagined conversation between the two, in which she seems to be a schoolteacher rather than a revolutionary, is wishful thinking on his part. Yeats’ musings on whether it was destined that he should fall in love with this woman is related to “Leda and the Swan” in that it presupposes a series of events that must come to . The final stanza is a philosophical riddle concerning whether man acts or is acted upon, and serves as a connection to Yeats' uncertainty as to whether he loves or was destined to love. Introduction Being among school children, Yeats confronts human frailty, reflecting on the impact and worth of his life. Frightened by the inevitability of death, Yeats initially chooses to wear a mask of acceptance and reconciliation, while internally, he agonizes over the most basic of questions—the value of life itself. By comparing Maude Gonne’s current appearance to her appearance in youth, Yeats realizes

time’s toll on the physical being. After finally understanding the mortal implications of humanity, Yeats searches for any possible way to subvert his certain death. As Yeats discovers from his assessment of the great ancient thinkers, there is no way to separate “the dancer from the dance.” He learns that one cannot divide life into “the leaf, the blossom, or the bole,” analyzing each individual part. Instead, one must view life with a “brightening glance,” seeing the beauty in its entirety. Through this intense examination, Yeats comes to with himself, realizing the necessity of a peaceful, self-honest existence I. 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. Amongst youth itself, Yeats can see his age clearly, able to perceive himself as the “sixty-year-old smiling public man" that he is. From this moment, Yeats realizes the fleeting nature of life and begins to question his legacy and accomplishments. He wants to know if his education was similar to the children, who learn in the “best modern way.” Understanding what knowledge is helpful in life, he walks “through the long schoolroom questioning” whether the lessons they are being taught are really relevant to life. They learn “to cipher and to sing, to study reading-books and history," but Yeats realizes that life’s true lessons do not come from the classroom.

II. 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. Envisioning what these innocent children will someday have to realize, Yeats imagines the rape of Leda by Zeus, turning a “childish day to tragedy.” Leda’s body “bent/ Above a sinking fire” is symbolic of her diminishing youthful spirit; Leda loses the gayness and purity of her youth through one “trivial event." Also, Yeats strategically uses line 11 of the poem for the first alteration in meter. This six feet line deviates from the typical five feet of each preceding line. This change parallels Leda’s, and the children’s, transition from innocence to knowledge. Although an extreme example, Yeats knows that later in life, these children, with the same Leda-like innocence, will have to be stripped of their purity. From this rape of Leda, Helen of Troy is born, thought to be the most beautiful woman on earth. She serves as a comparison to Maude Gonne, Yeats’s youthful first love. He imagines the two of them, like Plato’s parable, with no sex differentiations, being together as the “yolk and white of the one shell." III. 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. After envisioning the two of them together, youthful again, Yeats searches through the children, wondering if he can see a little of Gonne in any child. He said, “Wonder if she stood so at that age.” He then describes Gonne’s swan-like beauty, saying, “even the daughters of the swan can share something of every paddler’s heritage.” Slipping deeper into his imagination, Yeats ionately portrays Gonne, until “she stands before me as a living child.” The image of Gonne’s youthful purity hypnotizes Yeats, evident in the song-like rhyme scheme of the

stanza (abababcc). Yeats’s only way to match this youthful beauty is to express it as poetic beauty. Tragically, Yeats knows that this perfection will eventually be corrupted, causing Yeats to have a “fit of grief or rage” (17)

IV. Her present image floats into the mind-Did Quattrocentro 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. Understanding that his portrayal is not reality today, “her present image floats into the mind.” Still, in her growing age, he sees Gonne as if “Quattrocento finger fashion it,” comparing her cheeks to the wind. The wind image takes on a double meaning. The brevity of the wind also symbolizes the brevity of life. Yeats realizes that he, like Gonne, is ageing, saying he “had a pretty plumage once.” Wanting to hide his sudden realization of mortality, Yeats assumes a pleasant demeanor, able “to smile on all that smile.” This façade is a metaphoric mask of an “old scarecrow," allowing Yeats to conceal his true, frantic feelings.

V. 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?

With the odd number of feet in line 33 , Yeats alerts the reader to a fundamental shift in the poem, turning the emphasis from the personal to the universal. Envisioning a “youthful mother,” Yeats questions whether the mother would think the pains of childbirth were worth the degenerated stature of her sixty-year-old son. Although this is a universal vision, Yeats still relates it to himself, having the child be at least sixty. In this part, Yeats is asking the most fundamental of questions—what is the real value in life. After all, the child is said to have lived sixty winters, not sixty years. This gloomy winter image further suggests that life is but suffering, and to live is to suffer. The last line of the stanza addresses the mother’s uncertainty about the child’s future. She knows that someday he will have to come of age, realizing the many faults of the world.

VI. Plato thought nature but a spume that plays Upon a ghostly paradigm of things; Soldier 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. Desiring to somehow avoid ageing and death, Yeats looks to the great men of the past for answers. He investigates Plato’s Cave Allegory, with its “ghostly paradigm of things,” minimizing the importance of his idea, showing how Plato thought life was a mere shadow of reality. Next, he shows the idiocy of Aristotle’s work with Alexander the Great, saying he was merely playing “upon the bottom of a king of kings.” Lastly he shows the ridiculousness of Pythagoras’s work, by saying he only “fingered upon a fiddle-stick or strings." Yeats discovers that these men were nothing more than “old clothes upon old sticks to scare a bird.” This minimization of achievement makes Yeats realize that although these men are world-renowned, they too grew old and died. As a result, Yeats comes to the desperate realization that

although man can produce lasting works, they themselves can never be lasting.

VII. 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 ion, piety or affection knows, And that all heavenly glory symbolize-O self-born mockers of man's enterprise; This section deals largely with the issue of love and expectation. There are two distinct different types of love—a motherly love, an earthly, and a religious love, like the nun’s love. In their respective ways, these two figures have an object of worship. But, like the nun’s eventual disappointment with God and the mother’s eventual disappointment with her child, overly high expectations bring nothing but discontent. Yeats is saying that everyone who worships any type of perfection, either earthly, or heavenly, will become “self-born mockers of man’s enterprise.”

VIII. 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? In the final stanza, Yeats recognizes that although people are the sum of their separate deeds, life is an amalgamation of actions. Instead of viewing life in parts, like “the leaf, the blossom, or the bole,” Yeats

argues for one, united view of life. Like one’s inability to separate the “dancer from the dance” (64), one cannot separate life from death. These two parts are not independent. Instead, they are one in the same. No one has life, without death. So, one should not view them independently, choosing to takes all areas of life in one wide swath.

Conclusion While in the presence of youth, Yeats realizes the fleeting nature of life, accepting human frailty and the inevitability of aging. After wearing the false mask of acceptance for so long, Yeats finally allows himself to confront mortality. He realizes that no matter who the man, and irrespective of his deeds, death is an inevitable part of life. But, while looking back in the past, one should not view life in extreme parts. Instead of looking at actions as examples of failure or victory, one should see life in moderation, observing it in its entirety. Among School Children Notes by Oriel Steel Form: Ottava Rima – 8 Stanzas with 8 lines, regular rhythm, regular rhyme scheme of abababcc. A Roman numeral heads each stanza. The form Ottava Rima was traditionally used for heroic or epic poetry; it is likely no co-incidence that this form is chosen for this particular poem of ‘epic reflection’. Stanza 1: The start of the poem is presented realistically with Senator Yeats carrying out one of his public duties by visiting a convent school (in Waterford). This event did indeed happen in real life. The atmosphere seems relaxed and agreeable and the children seem undisturbed by their important visitor. The tone is humane and acceptant. Important quotes: ‘sixty-year-old smiling public man’ – reference to Sailing to Byzantium with the description, and ambiguous reaction to, age. The ‘public’ man is referring to his status as an Irish Senator, although as a well-known poet, his views and poetic verses were also appropriated by others (especially for political means). This poem (alongside Sailing to Byzantium) is ironically one of Yeats’ most private

poems – it is a poem of self-reflection, rather than of overt political metaphor. Stanza 2: Yeats is portrayed as not wholly concentrating on the schoolroom but instead his thoughts are elsewhere and in comparison with the ‘I walk’ of stanza one, it is replaced by ‘I dream’. The poetry now becomes more urgent as the rhythm is broken at the line endings (enjambment). ‘A Ledean body’ relates to the child being dreamed of which is Maud Gonne – the ‘Ledean’ theme (Leda/Helen/Swan) is often used as a metaphor for Maud throughout Yeats’ canon (see blog page on Yeats’ women). This stanza evokes a scene of ‘youthful sympathy’. The two images of Maud and Yeats’ unity are offered, first the ‘sphere’ (attributed to Plato’s writings) and then the earthly image of ‘the yolk and white of an egg’. These two images start off the emerging argument of the poem, which is concerned with Platonic and alternative ways of seeing reality. Stanza 3: Yeats is shown as looking at the girls in the school-room and wondering whether Maud ‘stood so at that age’. The memory of her drives his heart so ‘wild’ that she appears to ‘stand before me as a living child’. The rhyming couplet makes this an auhoritive statement – the poet’s imagination is triumphant over time and circumstance. Stanza 4: Yeats compares ‘her present image’ with the imagined sight of the beautiful, young Maud which seems to ‘float into mind’; the verb float which is used gives the situation a spectral quality – the present is less powerful than the past. Yet the present is the reality, however grotesque and disturbing Maud is described. Yeats references her to the 14h century painting of the Italian ‘Quattrocento’, which suggests a hollow-cheeked ethereal beauty far from youthful vitality. Yeats implies that he was once handsome but abandons the fruitful idea by using a cutting caesura to emphasize wishful thought. He says that its ‘better to smile on all that smile’ at him, the ageing man, and to show that he can bear the process of ageing without complaint. The scarecrow imagery is reminiscent of ‘Sailing to Byzantium’ where he describes old age as ‘a

tattered coat upon a stick’. However here Yeats is trying to avoid bitterness. Stanza 5: Here Yeats shows how bitterness is hard to avoid and he looks at the ageing man from a different perspective, that of the mother. Yeats questions whether the sufferings of women in childbirth are compensated for by such a ‘shape with sixty or more winters on its head?’ He presents an argument to the effect that ‘all things spoil over time’. It raises slight theological questions – If Jesus had not been crucified, would his teachings have been corrupted by bitterness and age? Stanza 6: In this stanza Yeats mentions three famous philosophers, who might be expected to answer the difficult, ongoing questions so far raised about human identity and worth: 1)

‘Plato’ the idealist, dismissive of nature

2) ‘Soldier Aristotle’, more of a materialist, but ed here as the tutor of Alexander the Great, whom he punished with ‘the taws’ (a Scottish word for a schoolmaster’s leather strap) 3) ‘Pythagoras’ the mathematician and astronomer who believed in the music of spheres – music unable to rouse the interest of the ‘careless muses’. The stanza ends with the same scarecrow imagery repeated throughout the poem, ‘old clothes upon old sticks’ which dismisses all the three philosophers as no more than scarecrows since their ideas have failed to save them from the humiliations of the ageing body. Again, this makes a subtle nod to the value (or questions the value) of Christian belief. Stanza 7: The transition to stanza 7 is abrupt by immediately questioning why we are in the world of ‘nuns and mothers?’. Yeats suggests that mothers are able to survive the sufferings of labour because they are sustained

by an image of the child which they can worship just as a nun is sustained by contemplating the ‘repose’ of a statue. ‘And yet they too break hearts’ implies that all worship of this kind is an attempt to go beyond the human; after the broken heart, there may be peace. However this vision is repudiated in the ecstatic vision to which the poem now moves with rhythmical power achieved by the enjambment going onto stanza 8. The representations of this ‘heavenly glory’ known to ‘ion, piety or affection’ – interpreted as the emotions of lover, nun and mother in their perfection mock ‘man’s enterprise’ (the pun on enterprise is either just simply to live or in order to live takes courage). Stanza 8: The final stanza begins with a declaration about a state of perfect being in which ‘labour’ is transferred into ‘blossoming or dancing’. The labour being Adams curse, but also that of Mothers, in both cases involving effort and suffering due to the Fall in the creation of Adam and Eve. Blossoming and dancing are two evocative images of vital beauty. Here, all the usual antinomies of human existence are actually resolved: 1)

The body is not sacrificed to the soul

2)

Beauty is not created by despair

3)

Wisdom is not won by arduous toil.

This is an idyllic state but the imagery of nature makes it an earthly paradise. The stanza ends with two rhetorical questions: 1) ‘The chestnut-tree’ is a whole living creature, the ‘blossom’ is inconceivable without the great roots. 2) ‘The dancer’ in the dance is an indissoluble unity. Once the ‘dance’ is over, the figure that emerges is no longer ‘the dancer’, only an ordinary human body. Conclusion and Criticism: The ending is overall ambiguous. The critic Frank Kermode suggested in ‘Romantic Image’ in 1957 that the poem ends with a satisfying and convincing assertion of value – “no static image will now serve, there

must be movement, the different sort of life that a dancer has by comparison with the most perfect object of art’. The American critic Yvor Winters remarked adversely the harsh truth that ‘the body is always bruised to pleasure soul; wisdom is always born out of midnight oil or something comparable’ which seems to deny Yeat’s right to use his imagination to create images of perfection which are ones of the few pleasures that literature and art can give. F.R Leavis sees the climax of the poem as coming with ‘a perfect cogency of musical logic’. In comparison to ‘Sailing to Byzantium’ where Yeats looks for an ideal out of nature, ‘Among School Children’ finds its solution to the dichotomy between the children and the ageing man of its first stanza in the contemplation of an ecstatic natural harmony. Yeats dreams of a ‘Ledean body’ and this can be related to ‘Leda and the Swan’ which suggests that beauty leads to destruction due to the rape of Leda forming the end destruction of Troy. In both poems, Maud Gonne is the ‘Ledean body’ because she is beautiful to Yeats and her obsessive work and devotion to the politics of the IRB/A leads to her ‘disintegrating’ as a person due to the destructive and wholly-absorbing nature of her politics. Segment 1: Introduction to the Poem (3:15) • Harvard student Zachary Shrier comments on Professor Vendler's teaching. • "Among School Children" is an example of a philosophical poem – a poem that considers some of the questions, or readings of the world asked by philosophers. • The poem names three famous Greek philosophers from the beginning era of philosophy: Plato, Aristotle and Pythagoras. • Yeats’ first aim is not to be perfectly clear. The poem is not easy to decipher. Rather, the poem contains the ruminations of a man who has read, thought, written and loved all of his life. • "Among School Children" was written after visiting a Montessori school in Dublin. A sixty-year-old man, a famous poet and a winner of the Nobel Prize, Yeats was asked to visit such institutions to provide encouragement to students. Segment 2: Three Greek Philosophers (6:00)

• Yeats points to three different constructions of the world: • Platonic forms: where nature is only a transient phenomenon. • Aristotle: the philosopher of the natural world, his experiments grounded in scientific objectivity. • Pythagoras: the philosopher of aesthetics, famous for establishing musical ratios and the ideal form of the golden triangle. • These philosophers were preeminent in establishing the philosophy of thought, science and aesthetics. However, Yeats states that while their philosophical ideas might linger, even great luminaries grow old, become objects of ridicule and die. Describing them as old scarecrows, Yeats reflects upon their and his own impermanence. • Another area for Yeats’ contemplation is the arts. Yeats was involved in all the arts: music, dance, theater, poetry, painting and sculpture. He considered them as one art, all attempting to find the perfect Pythagorean aesthetic ratios. • The third area of Yeats’ reflection was his view of himself as a lover. Beset by love for one woman for many years, Yeats describes the intimate feeling when his beloved grants him a vision of the life that she led prior to their meeting. Segment 3: Yeats’ Philosophical Thoughts (6:08) • According to Plato’s myth of creation, originally everyone was once half of a sphere. The two halves of the sphere either consisted of a male half linked with another male half, a female half linked with a female half, or male/female or female/male divisions. • Upon birth, thought Plato, the sphere is split in two, and the divided parts were thrown into the world, thus explaining the phenomenon of human sexual attraction. • As he looks over the girls in the classroom, his mind wanders, and he wonders how his beloved looked at that youthful age. • The poem is also about labor, referring to Adam’s curse of having to earn his livelihood and Eve’s curse of having to endure the pain of childbirth. He also despairs at the length of the learning process.