W.B. Yeats was an immensely popular poet in his time, and for good reason. His poems resonate with readers for their beauty and themes. In fact, his poem, “When You Are Old,” very simply identifies aging in a creative way. These themes include universal ideas of nature, solitude, and peace. In this post, we examine his poem “The Lake Isle of Innisfree,” which discusses these ideas. While one of his most popular, the poem is eternal in its meaning.
Format Structure of Innisfree
The poem has three quatrains, and it is written in iambic tetrameter. It also has an ABAB rhyme scheme. There is simplicity to its form, but this is intentional. Additionally, it uses repetition to repeat the important ideas of determination to escape from the confines of their life. There is peace in this simple verse.
Themes of Innisfree
The themes in the poem include those of solitude, nature’s healing, and imagination. To begin, the solitude of this poem is found in the speaker’s disdain for “pavements gray,” and his want of a “small cabin” that consists “of clay and wattles.”
Likewise, there is an emphasis on the healing power of nature. Yeats writes, “Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee, / An live alone in the bee-loud glade.” Yeats’s yearning for such agrarian existence shows his interest in the natural world. In addition, the themes of imagination come through in Yeats’s want of this faraway, natural world. Imagination, in this way, takes Yeats to a land of carefree calm.
Conclusion
Yeats’s poem “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” speaks to the authors need to escape the world as we know it. In pining for nature, he imagines himself in a land of peace. The structure of this poem speaks to this simplicity. As in one’s desires and love of imagined worlds, Yeats simplistic poem gives way to complex understandings. Leaving the concrete jungle of urban life for rural serenity is a dream of many.
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