WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
The Biography
“Brown Penny”
“The Second Coming
THIS GUY HERE
Early life
Born in Dublin, Yeats studied Law and then later art in
school due to his artistic background in his family. After a short
lived art career, Yeats decided to follow his passion of writing
poetry so he enrolled at the Godolphin School in west London.
He was a very mediocre student and a terrible speller. Due to
lack of money to pay for tuition, he went back to Dublin and
enrolled into Erasmus Smith High School.
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After finishing school, he wrote a few but controversial
poems that were called un-irish and broke dreams of many.
In 1889, he met his first love, Maud Gonne. Yeats proposed
to her four times but got rejected all four times. Gonne
married a man named, Major John MacBride, a man who
Yeats had deep hatred for. After the death of MacBride,
Yeats proposed to Gonne once more, but got rejected once
more. Yeats finally married a woman named Georgie HydeLees and had two children.
His poetry isn’t read as much by common people as much is
used for inspiration by other writers such as Máirtín Ó
Direáin and songwriter Mike Scott.
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"I WHISPERED, 'I am too young,'
And then, 'I am old enough';
Wherefore I threw a penny
To find out if I might love.
'Go and love, go and love, young man,
If the lady be young and fair.'
Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny,
I am looped in the loops of her hair.
O love is the crooked thing,
There is nobody wise enough
To find out all that is in it,
For he would be thinking of love
Till the stars had run away
And the shadows eaten the moon.
Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny,
One cannot begin it too soon. "
The poem "The Brown Penny" by William Butler
Yeats is a poem about love. In this poem, the speaker is
scrutinizing the complications of love. In the lines " 'I am
too young,/'And then, 'I am old enough'/;Wherefore I threw
a penny/To find out if I might love.", shows that the
speaker is wishing for and taking a chance with love. It also
shows that the speaker is contemplating whether 'loving' is
the right thing for him. He wonders if he is too young or
too old for love. When it says, "wherefore I threw a penny",
it is assumed that the speaker is throwing a penny into a
fountain/wishing well and is seeking an answer to his
mystery. The penny symbolizes the chance one takes with
love. It can either go right or wrong.
In these lines, "'Go and love, go and love, young
man,/If the lady be young and fair.'/Ah, penny,
brown penny, brown penny,/I am looped in the loops
of her hair." the speaker is showing how he is infatuated and
fascinated by his lover. By the line "Ah, penny, brown penny,/I am
looped in the loops of her hair", it shows a sense of distress over being
so entranced by his lover.
In the lines, " O love is the crooked thing,/There is
nobody wise enough /to find out all that is in it," the
speakers is expressing that love is very complicated and no one can ever
truly figure out love.
" For he would be thinking of love/Till the stars
had run away/And the shadows eaten the moon." ,
the speaker is saying that love is very complicated and how one can
speculate love for days on and on but never truly figure out the concept
of 'love'.
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I was drawn to this poem because I also agree
that the concept of love is very complex. This
poem is interesting in understanding poetry
because the way the penny symbolizes love
and its complexity is very poetic.
“The Second Coming”
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
Analysis by Sadik Miah
• “The Second Coming” is written in blank verse, which means it
has “a consistent meter but no rhyme scheme” ("The Second
Coming: Rhyme, Form & Meter"). The meter is an iambic
pentameter, the most common, and was the preferred meter in
all of Shakespeare’s plays. It has five two-syllable "iambs" in
each line, “each of which approximates the rhythm of a heartbeat (ba-dum, ba-dum, etc.)” ("The Second Coming: Rhyme,
Form & Meter."). This iambic rhythm is described as an
unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one. The second
stanza has fourteen lines, the same amount of lines in a
sonnet and though at eight lines, the first stanza can be
considered as a fragment of a sonnet. Many times used in
“The Second Coming” is alliteration and metaphors.
◦ “The Second Coming” is one of Yeats’s famous poems and is also one of the most difficult to
understand. The structure of the poem is quite simple though; the first stanza describes the
“conditions present in the world and the second stanza summarizes from those conditions that a
monstrous ‘Second Coming’ is about to take place” ("Yeats’s Poetry"). The structure is not terribly
complicated but the question of what it signifies to a reader is different story. “The Second
Coming” was intended to describe the current historical movement and “Yeats believed the world
was on the threshold of an apocalyptic revelation, as history reached the end of the outer gyre and
began moving along the inner gyre” ("Yeats’s Poetry"). In other words, “The Second Coming” is
about the conflict between the modern world and the ancient world.
Meaning?
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“I was drawn into this poem because of the way
it was written; “the poem is a riddle” (Waters,
"William Butler Yeats' Poem "The Second
Coming" Analyzed"). Yeats had ended the poem
with a question in which he might hint the
answers in the poem and makes the reader
want to ‘figure-out’ the answer. This poem also it
taught me more about the ‘hidden’ meaning in
poems and why poetry is important to literature.”
Significance
She walks,
with her head held high,
shining,
with all her pride.
And every night,
she would break,
tears tumbling down,
crouched in ache.
But in the morning.
she wakes up with a smile,
because its a new day,
and things will be good for a while
*
Underdogs all year long, .500 season
Playoff bid, gives our team a reason
To go into the postseason, with some hope
All those who doubt just say nope
“Cinderella story, we’ll win the whole thing”
“Pull off upsets, become the king”
Win in the first two rounds
But we still hear the sounds,
Of all those who doubt saying, “you don’t have a chance, no way you’ll advance”
Quarterfinals, semifinals, tough battles but came out with the win
Star player out, broke his shin
City championship, us versus number one
All those who doubt, say it can’t be done
Walk in, packed house
Fans in the bleachers ready to bounce
Powerhouse team, undefeated
Game started, things got heated
Dives for loose balls, upset with bad calls
Clutch game-winning shot in overtime
Finished the climb
Raise a banner; bring the school pride, and most of all
Shut up, all those who doubt, as we made them fall
Success does not occur over night.
Success is not about becoming wealthy.
Success does not come at a certain age.
Success is not about fame and game.
Success is for working for happiness.
Success is about accepting others for who they are.
Success is about learning from failures.
Success is from hard work and determination.
Success
by Sadik Miah
SELF DESTRUCTION
BY KEITH CAMACHO
The world, it suffers as we hurt it Torn and scarred, it strains as we work it.
Government and anarchy, there is no difference. No tears are shed, We don’t even wince
Out shines a hero, bold in shining armor. But he too is consumed forever in its slumber
Money and power corrupt in its own, The one who is just, all alone
As authority fails, society crumbles. Guess who was right, that man that mumbles
The world will end, in eternal war. The deaths wont shake us, to the core
For we are corrupt, we want money. More, More!
We go down in flames, we had a good run, At this rate, The human race is done
There is still time, save the race
The end is near, its in your face.
Made By
Sadik Miah (Group Leader. Led the Charge)
Samiha Syeda(Secretary)
Sebastian Harasim (Manager. Kept it clean)
Keith Camacho (Collaborator. Made the Powerpoint)
THE END!
:3