/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.1567219]

Hello /lit/
I absolutely adore Yeats and - if I want to - I could write my next coursework essay on some of his poems. This seemed like a wonderful and exciting concept until I came to realize exactly how airy-fairy and intangible my appreciation of Yeats is. I more or less accepted the mystery of a lot of his imagery with barely any understanding of what most of it means. I knew his poems were a lot to do with his personal philosophy as described in A Vision, but I didn't realise they were quite as esoteric as they are. Do you have any suggestions of poems that would allow me to explore symbolism and metaphor without getting too 'out there'? Since I'm going to be writing an essay, I want to have a fairly good grasp on what I'm talking about. I also think my enjoyment comes mostly from slowly unravelling his meanings - I don't want to just look it all up and know it straight away.
So, recommendations of Yeats poems to write about would be nice. My ideas at the moment are 3 poems out of these: The Second Coming, Sailing to Byzantium, The Circus Animals Desertion, and All Souls' Night. Recommendations from other poets would be fine as well. If I don't do symbolism and metaphor, I'll most likely end up doing feminism/marxism in Carol Ann Duffy poems, which I find a bit yawn. Thanks /lit/

tl;dr Recommend poems which have enough symbolism/metaphor to write an essay about.

[Anonymous No.1567222]

*The Circus Animals' Desertion

I forgot to mention, I don't read an awful lot of poetry, but I also like Philip Larkin.

[Pseudemys !!dTByB66LPhO No.1567225]

"The Fisherman"?

[Anonymous No.1567247]

>>1567225
I've just whipped out my complete Yeats poems and given it a read. I'll have to read it a few times before I can come to a decision though. I have to take my time with poems. I'll make a note of it. Thanks for the help anon!

[Anonymous No.1567298]

bump for recommendations

[Anonymous No.1567379]

one last bump