Fisherman Flashcards
Yeats takes the opportunity to describe the…
…perfect man/his perfect audience to him. This is embodied in the persona of a fisherman.
The words and sentence structure…
…are remarkably restrained and plain. It is written for people like the “Wise and simple man” he described.
“Wise and simple”.
Implies intelligence. But is a man without the need of materialistic extravagancies. The lack of extravagancies demanded by the mans lifestyle is mirrored in the lack of pretension in the form of his verse.
The poem shifts focus to Yeats describing the…
…how he despises the masses, clearly showing his anger.
“The beating down of the wise” and “And great art beaten down”.
Art in Ireland, especially poetry, is slowly being diminished by the ignorance of the general public, that the culture is being slowly destroyed by those who look no further than a “drunken cheer”.
Beginning for third stanza. It’s almost as though…
…Yeats has taken a breath and calmed down slightly before continuing.
After his furious rant, he now reflects upon…
…what he has previously written, displaying more clarity and less naivety than he did at the beginning.
Once again Yeats begins to describe his…
….embodiment of the ideal man. However, this time he admits that he is “A man who does not exist/A man who is but a dream”, showing that he is no longer fantasising about how people should be.
Link: September 1913.
Wise and simple - needs no materialistic extrav- unlike the rich shopkeepers who “fumble” in their “greasy tills”.
Link: Sailing to Byzantium. An image is created of Yeats…
…being isolated and alone as an ageing man - in Fisherman the idea of Yeats feeling separated from his society is also created, from how he describes modern Ireland with hatred.
The poem is about…
…Yeats’ disdain of the masses and their disrespect of the art and their inadequacies.
