Easter, 1916

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1921

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Background

Historical Context

“Easter, 1916” is, at its heart, a historical poem written in direct response to the Easter Uprising of 1916 in Ireland, when Irish rebels mounted an Uprising against oppressive British rule. Their failure resulted in the execution of key leaders, including those Yeats names in the fourth stanza of his poem. Although Yeats always valued Irish culture, narratives, and mythologies in his writings and works, he had ambivalent feelings about the methods many of the rebels employed in response to British tyrannical rule. Despite this, Yeats was compelled to memorialize the rebels and the Rising in verse. Critic Ange Mlinko notes, “Yeats calls upon the act of writing to preserve collective memory […] In the end, ‘Easter, 1916’ is less of a political poem than an elegy. We read it because it is, in the strange way poems are, alive. And by naming, it animates the dead in turn” (Mlinko, Ange. “William Butler Yeats: ‘Easter, 1916’.” Poetry Foundation, 15 Apr. 2014). Although Yeats had reluctant feelings about the politics and actions of the rebels, he nevertheless identified the value of memorializing the specific Irish men and women in history.

Literary Context

As modernism grew in influence at the turn of the century, with poets like T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound enacting new manners of writing and espousing new values, Yeats’ work also began to change. While his earlier verse had more in common with English Romantic verse and writing, later poems, like “Easter, 1916,” began to address the chaos of the modern world. Yeats continued to value traditional rhythms, meters, and forms, and would use them, or variations on them, to great effect in his work, creating tension and speed that echoed the sentiments he conveyed. Written during World War I, a seminal event in Modernism, “Easter, 1916” identifies the “terrible beauty” (Lines 16, 40, and 80) that Yeats and other poets would grapple with over the era. Modern poems were defined by their grappling with complex, modern advances in innovation and industrialization, and subsequent social, political, and cultural changes. “Easter, 1916” deftly embodies these concerns within Yeats’ homeland.