Among School Children
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Yeats wrote “Among School Children” in 1926, by which time he was famous as a Nobel Prize winning
poet and as a senator of the Irish Free State. It is a fairly long, complex poem and might be best
understood by being approached stanza by stanza.
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It is an example of a philosophical poem – a poem that considers the type of questions asked by
philosophers. The poem actually names three Greek philosophers: Plato, Aristotle and Pythagoras.
He wrote the poem after visiting a Montessori school in Dublin. As a publishe poet and winner of the
Nobel prize, Yeats was often asked to visit such institutions to provide encouragement to students.
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Yeats considers various questions in the poem and each stanza takes a step forward in his thinking. He
considers the importance of the philosophy of thought, science and aesthetics (represented by the
three named philosophers). However, he considers how even these great men grew old and died and
may at times be held up to ridicule. Yeats reflects upon their and his own impermanence. He also
contemplates the arts: music, dance, theatre, poetry, painting and sculpture. He considers them all as
one art – all attempting to find the perfect Pythagorean aesthetic ratios. The third area of this
reflection is his view of himself as a lover. He was in love with one woman for many years and
describes the intimate feeling of when his beloved grants him a vision of the life she led prior to their
meeting.
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According to Plato’s myth of creation, everyone was originally half a sphere. Upon birth, the spheres
split in two and the divided parts are thrown into the world, thus explaining the phenomenon of
human sexual attraction. As he looks over the girls in the classroom, his mind wanders and he imagines
what Maud may have looked like as a girl. He imagines her as a type of Mary Magdalene – evoking a
figure similar to Donatello’s 15th century emaciated, ravaged Magdalene.
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The final questions of the poem have been interpreted in many different ways. They can be looked at
in terms of identity: The “dancer” could be our inner self, which may differ from our “dance” which
could be our outer actions. Is it possible to separate the two? To what extent are we defined as
individuals by our outward actions?
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It appears that Yeats is asking whether any one thing or person can be defined by its parts. For
example: Can we define this poem by its words, its form or its tone? The answer is – we need to look
at all the parts to define it. Yeats applies this idea to education by suggesting that a holistic approach,
which balances intellect, emotion, body and soul in a creative expression of self, is the ideal. This is a
fairly utopian ideal of joyful learning.
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The poem is written in octava rima form, with each stanza consisting of 8 lines of verse. Each stanza
contains a unit of 6 lines followed by a unit of two lines, giving the poem an ABABABCC form. He often
used this form for his meditative poems.
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To Yeats, life is a series of fluid and self-invented steps, not governed by time but rather invented
against time. This poem appears to have a stream-of consciousness feel, with no one apparent focus
but ends with the ultimate questions: What is life worth once someone has grown old?