Poem 12: “Easter, 1916”
Sunday, April 12th, 2009 | British Literature, poetry
If the beginning of April must be marked with The Canterbury Tales and The Waste Land, Easter must be celebrated with a reading of William Butler Yeats’s "Easter 1916." I think I learned 99% of what I know about Irish history from Yeats’s works. Maybe 75% would be more accurate. Need to make room for Synge, Shaw, and Joyce. Oh, and Swift.
I could spend this entry explaining all the historical allusions in "Easter 1916," but the Wikipedia entry has done a reasonable job of that already. I do wish their analysis addressed the duality of some of the imagery as religious motifs. Expanding that entry a bit would make a nice student assignment actually.
As I was exploring resources for this entry, I found an online exhibition from the National Library of Ireland (Flash required) that includes audio and images of Yeats’s artifacts and papers. Launch the exhibition, click on the "Interactives" button, and choose the "EASTER, 1916" resources. The manuscript images for the poem are represented by the four pages in the lower right corner of the exhibit case. Click on the pages in the case, and details appear below the case. From there, you can reach images of each of the 4 pages of the manuscript.
Those who know me know that I’m a sucker for a manuscript. While I can identify most of the words on the manscript, I do wish it were about twice the size so I could study the details more carefully. A bit more information on the manuscript pages would be nice as well. Page three shows the most revision. The other pages are relatively unchanged. Still, it’s the poem, in the poet’s hand—and that is always a glorious thing, especially to the part of me who would love to be a special collections librarian, free to frolic in manuscripts all day, every day!
1 Comment to Poem 12: “Easter, 1916”
I was just looking to see what people had posted about Easter, 1916, and I really enjoyed this entry – thanks for linking to the National Library of Ireland exhibit! I hadn’t seen that one before.
I do have a few thoughts about this poem, if you’re curious: analysis of Easter, 1916. But I know next to nothing about the actual historical impact of the poem; I just muse, perhaps, on what it aspires to be.
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April 28, 2009