English notes

W.B Yeats is often regarded ad the most outstanding modern poet.The famous Irish poet ,he began his career and a leader of the Irish National movement popularly known as the Celtic Renaissance .It is Yeat himself who boldly announced that he was the ''Last Romantic" of English poetry.                                 As a poet W.B Yeats along with T.S Eliot ,Ezra Pound carried on the symbolist  tradition in English poetry.They believed that the subject matter and the style of poetry should not simple and lucid .Rather poetry should be laden with symbols and images to provoke the thought of the reader . Through Yeats adopted the simple and plain poetic style in his earlier poems ,Yet his later poetry is his best. The cardinal characteristics of his poetry are - 1.Evocative ,Symbolism and imagery,2. Occultism or sense of mystery ,3. Unrequited love for Maudgonne,4. Yeats' Romantic attitude begins with ...

In the fourth stanza the poet draws a vivid picture of the animal sacrifice performed by the people of a small town by river or sea shore .They have left their sweet homes witness the killing of the heifer lowing at the sky as if praying to God before the loss of her innocent life.The whole stanza is contrast between life of motion and the motionless art.

The stanza is remarkable for a contrast between actual life and art .when actual life is characterised by weariness ,stickness or morbidity implied by the words 'Burning forehead' & 'Parching tongue' ,the world of art is free from all these unhappy experiences it is happy and ever green.

The second stanza is replete with a series of auditory images as the poet takes the reader to the world of songs and music.The stanza ends with a classical myth of Apollo legend of love twisted by Keats.

The opening lines of ' Grecian Urn ' represent the paradoxical thought of Keats as the  is Urn is imagined by him both as a bride as well as a foster child of silence and slow time .The lines shock and surprised the reader the way Keats gives the double role to time .What is impossible in real life is made possible by the the poet in the world of art.