A few questions on Yeats...

straight_As

Hi guys,

I'm studying Yeats atm and am wondering could ye help me tidy a few things up please?

Firstly, is it "Yeats's poetry or "Yeats' poetry"? I know this is elementary, but I'm not sure and well, it look very unprepared if I kept making that mistake. I was just reading about him and it came up as Yeats's. I always thought that for a noun ending in 's', the rule was just add an apostrophe but from the looks of it I've been wrong all these years

Secondly, do ye think I'd be covered if I had a few points on the following themes prepared; politics, violence and conflict, old age, immortality, and maybe escapism? Also, technical aspects such as his symbolism, imagery and his language patterns? I'm not trying to learn off paragraphs or anything, but rather have a few quotes by heart so I could have a solid base on which I could build a paragraph that would answer the question set in the exam?

Cheers

-L

MavisDavis

straight_As wrote: »

Hi guys,
Firstly, is it "Yeats's poetry or "Yeats' poetry"? I know this is elementary, but I'm not sure and well, it look very unprepared if I kept making that mistake. I was just reading about him and it came up as Yeats's. I always thought that for a noun ending in 's', the rule was just add an apostrophe but from the looks of it I've been wrong all these years

Grammatically, it is acceptable to add an apostrophe to the end of a noun ending in 's' or to add the usual apostrophe and an s.
Personally, I prefer "Yeats'", I think it looks neater.

straight_As wrote: »

Hi guys,
Secondly, do ye think I'd be covered if I had a few points on the following themes prepared; politics, violence and conflict, old age, immortality, and maybe escapism? Also, technical aspects such as his symbolism, imagery and his language patterns? I'm not trying to learn off paragraphs or anything, but rather have a few quotes by heart so I could have a solid base on which I could build a paragraph that would answer the question set in the exam?

Cheers

Yes, that's pretty much what everyone will talk about. You could also mention his relationship with Ireland - you can see Irish links in quite a lot of his poetry that's prescribed for the course.

Looks like you're set!

straight_As

Cheers mate, that's fantastic

Just a few more general questions on poetry, though. Will examiners punish students for missing (or indeed misunderstanding) poets' attitudes towards themes? Just taking Yeats, for example, and his treatment of violence. When I read his poetry, I got the impression he saw violence as ultimately ineffective and in a way wasteful. Now this may not have been what he intended, and I may have completely misinterpreted, but would I be penalised for misinterpreting or is it acceptable that his poetry speaks to me in that way?

Just that your man on the wireless mentioned Yeatsie as a tip so I don't want to make a balls of it

MavisDavis

straight_As wrote: »

Cheers mate, that's fantastic

Just a few more general questions on poetry, though. Will examiners punish students for missing (or indeed misunderstanding) poets' attitudes towards themes? Just taking Yeats, for example, and his treatment of violence. When I read his poetry, I got the impression he saw violence as ultimately ineffective and in a way wasteful. Now this may not have been what he intended, and I may have completely misinterpreted, but would I be penalised for misinterpreting or is it acceptable that his poetry speaks to me in that way?

Just that your man on the wireless mentioned Yeatsie as a tip so I don't want to make a balls of it

Key word: interpretation. Poetry is all about it. Back it up with quotes and you're set. If you're stuck, look at notes on the poets for guidelines for inspiration from places like www.skoool.ie and www.sparknotes.com.

Good luck!

ldxo15wus6fpgm

straight_As wrote: »

Cheers mate, that's fantastic

Just a few more general questions on poetry, though. Will examiners punish students for missing (or indeed misunderstanding) poets' attitudes towards themes? Just taking Yeats, for example, and his treatment of violence. When I read his poetry, I got the impression he saw violence as ultimately ineffective and in a way wasteful. Now this may not have been what he intended, and I may have completely misinterpreted, but would I be penalised for misinterpreting or is it acceptable that his poetry speaks to me in that way?

Just that your man on the wireless mentioned Yeatsie as a tip so I don't want to make a balls of it

There's no real wrong answer on the themes, once you're not contradicting yourself and not going against something blatantly obvious in the poem

e.g. Lake Isle of Innisfree is certainly NOT a celebration of Yeats' time living in London city, in fact it is pretty much the opposite.

johnmcdnl

You can't be wrong with your answers about Yeats' as long as you back yourself up...

Yeats' isn't hard but just make sure to link all the poems together just to get a nice flow about your language... eg if talking about September 1913 link it to how Yeats' admitted his misjudgment later in easter 1916 where he idolises the rebels but then again in the stares nest he returns talks about how violence doesn't seem to solve problems..

then just talk about how we see his ambivalent attitude towards politics in "politics" and how he prefers beauty and love.... which leads to talking about the lake isle of inisfree and the beauty of nature leads to wild swans at coole...

etc etc etc etc... mix and match your poems as such and back any statement about Yeats' attitude or emotions or anything by quoting to the poetry or making reference to other poems with a similar theme...

just make it flow naturally and don't force it