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Analysis of the Poem “A Prayer for My Daughter” – By William Butler Yeats
The poem presents the love that the poet had for his daughter. It starts with the poet praying for Anne, her innocent infant child who was sleeping during the storm. Yeats uses weather symbols in the poem to demonstrate his feelings. The poem can also be said to be about survival in a world where reason or logic has been separated from passions. The speaker in the poem is the poet himself, and he is talking to Anne, his daughter. The poem’s setting is unspecified, and the tone used by the poet is didactic, gloomy, frightening and precarious. At the beginning of the poem, we are presented with the image of a young girl-child who is soundly sleeping through a storm. The storm symbolizes the violence caused by the “Irish War of Independence.” The external unrest concretizes the poet’s internal trauma while the innocent child sleeping by the haystack symbolizes Christ. Just reading through the poem, one cannot help but notice that the speaker is so concerned about the chaos in the modern world. He is concerned about the uncertain political situation and the future of his daughter, and he wonders how he can protect his beautiful daughter from the storm that is raging outside. Therefore, he not only gives her advice, but he also prays that she will be able to live successfully in the cruel world.
Owing to the poet’s contemplation, he seems to be in a state of trance. He senses the screaming or the rising sea wind: “And heard the sea-wind scream upon the tower, And under the arches of the bridge, and scream In the elms above the flooded stream.” The presence of the wind can be felt because it traverses all realms. It suggests “the frenzied drum,” the spontaneous frenzy that will characterize the coming or future years. Here, the future vision is apocalyptic. The beating of a drum symbolizes a call for battle and the impending future revolution is a response to the drum beating.
When the poet says “Let God grant her beauty,” he uses his daughter to symbolize his country – Ireland. However, the poet is suspicious of the “evil eye” that would befall this magnificence. He states that she shouldn’t’ break the heart of a stranger and that she should not be conceited by her reflection: “Let her be given beauty, but the more important thing is that her beauty should not be of a kind which may either make her proud of her beauty or distract a stranger’s mind and eyes.” Similarly, Ireland’s glory should not be shallow or superficial. Instead, its warmth should be from within. Too much beauty has always been considered to be a bad thing, and the poet exemplifies this by making reference to Greek mythology. In Greek mythology, Helen was a very beautiful woman. When she married Menelaus, the Greek warrior, she found her life to be unsatisfactory, and she ran away with the Trojan prince who was her lover. Helen’s actions paved were for a prolonged and destructive war. Her beauty was detrimental not only to her but also to many others. What the poet is trying to ascertain is that superficial and shallow beauty does not win gifts and hearts. What is important is the love that one gains through compassion, consideration and courtesy. The poet does not support any love that is earned through revolution and ambition.
It is also the wish of the poet that her daughter will be like the tree that flourishes away from the public eye. He hopes that her songs will radiate magnanimity and that her thoughts will be like “linnet”. He hopes that his daughter thoughts will not create conflicts and instigate fights, and he expects that she will not be involved in quarrels unless it will be for the sake of “jest.” He also prays that his daughter’s goodness will remain in one place but branch all around, just like the green laurel tree: “May she become a flourishing hidden tree.” The poet uses the colour green to symbolize fruitfulness and being evergreen. The idea of constancy used by the poet symbolizes stability in relationships. He criticizes Maud Gonne who had two illegitimate children with Lucien Millevoye and later married marry John McBride. Unlike Maud Gone, the speaker wants his daughter to stick to one man.
Here, Yeats presents womanhood in a conventional way. When he says that he wishes his daughter to be a “flourishingly hidden tree,” he denies her the freedoms that male children are always given. He wants his daughter to be married into an aristocratic and good family that adheres to traditional courtesies and manners, a family that is without arrogance or hatred. The poet considers hatred and arrogance to be qualities of the masses, and that innocence and beauty are derived from established traditions: “For arrogance and hatred are the wares Peddled in the thoroughfares. How but in custom and in ceremony Are innocence and beauty born?” The whole poem is a reflection of the poet’s love for aristocratic and traditional values; the same values which he wishes his daughter to follow.
Works Cited
Yeats, William Butler. “A Prayer for my Daughter.” Poetry 15.2 (1919): 59-62.