Easter, 1916

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1921

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Download PDF

Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Refrain and Repetition

Yeats relies heavily on repetition throughout “Easter, 1916,” most notably with the refrain, “A terrible beauty is born” (Lines 16, 40, 80), which Yeats places at the end of the first, second, and fourth stanzas. Calling back to this line multiple times emphasizes the thematic concerns of the poem, including Yeats’ ambivalent feelings about the actions of the rebels he memorializes. Over and over, the poem treads ground as Yeats ruminates over the value of the loss of life in context with the martyrs’ own values of liberty and nationalism. By repeating the phrase multiple times, Yeats acknowledges the humanity and beauty of the dead and suggests that their martyrdom is neither pure nor without negatives.

Yeats repeats other phrases throughout the poem, like “polite meaningless words” (Lines 6, 8) in the first stanza, and “minute by minute” (Lines 48, 50, 55) in the third. This repetition both builds on and intensifies the pacing of the poem, underscoring the speaker’s perseverating thought process as he tries to make sense of the violence and death of his acquaintances.

Form and Meter

Throughout “Easter, 1916,” Yeats adheres mostly to an iambic (Unstressed stressed) meter, fluctuating between three- and four-beat lines. Yeats structures the poem into four stanzas, with an ABAB rhyme scheme, with some lines taking on slant, or partial rhymes, for a more subtle effect. Some critics note that the structure of the poem enforces the title and date of the Uprising, claiming that the 16 lines of the first and third stanza represent the year 1916 and the 24 lines of the second and fourth stanzas represent the date the Uprising began, April 24, with the four total stanzas representing April, the fourth month of the year.

The regularity of the meter and the rhyming draws the reader into the poem, enveloping them in the form and creating tension through the expectation of the pattern. The rhyme scheme draws attention to particular pairs of words and underscores Yeats’ major themes and concerns. For example, “heart” and “part” in stanza two, “alone” and “stone” in stanza three, “death” and “faith” along with “worn” and “born” in stanza four, all draw attention to the emotional heart of the poem and the speaker’s conflicted response to the rebels’ actions.

Metaphor and Simile

Yeats employs several key metaphors and similes over the course of “Easter, 1916.” The stone and the stream metaphors, discussed in detail in the “Symbols and Motifs” section of this guide, serve as an orienting guide to Yeats’ concerns and ambivalence about the actions of the rebels. In the final stanza, he introduces two further comparisons that illuminate his feelings toward the rebels. He claims that the survivors’ response to the martyrs’ sacrifices should be “To murmur name upon name, / As a mother names her child” (Lines 61-62). By explicitly connecting the memorializing of the names of the rebels with the intimacy of motherhood and the innocence of childhood, Yeats suggests empathy and love for the dead. He implies that the living must take care to nurture the memory of these fallen men and women. He continues to ruminate on their deaths, asking, “What is [death] but nightfall?” (Line 65), before dismissing this easy metaphor to declare that death is not simply night, but just death. He resists romanticizing the deaths and reasserts the plain violence of the Uprising.