POEM ANALYSIS
WHEN YOU
ARE OLD
When
you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
William
Butler Yeats
1.
PARAPHRASE
The
speaker is a lover addressing his beloved and wondering how she would look when
she grows old. The speaker describes his lady with gray hair as old, sleepy,
and sitting by the fire. The speaker asks her to take the book of his poems
written for her and read it. When she starts reading from his book, she will
dream of the tender stare her eyes had when she was young, and of their
profound gloominess. The speaker describes her beauty and how she was loved by
everyone for that beauty. She will remember these men that have loved these
instants when they were rejoicing her beauty and her charm either sincerely or
falsely. Yet, the speaker stresses that there is only one man who truly loved
her for her spirit, and not only for her beauty. Finally, the speaker portrays
his lady bending down by the fireplace to whisper with sadness telling us that
she rejected his love out of pride.
2.
RHYTHM
The
first line When you | are old | and grey | and full | of sleep,
This line consists of ten syllables
with five meters. Each meter consists of unstressed and stressed, so it is
called Iambic Pentameter.
The use of punctuation, and the repeated use of
“and”, Yeats manipulates the pace of the poem and encourages the reader to slow
down. This
also gives the stanza a rhythmic beat and structure and extends the poem giving
it a feeling of old age.
3.
RHYME
When
you are old and gray and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
‘When You Are Old’ is a poem that
makes use of a number of sound patterns. As we can see in the first stanza, it
uses ABBA rhyming scheme. The use of rhyme and the fixed rhythm gives the poem
a romantic and beguiling quality.
The poet’s use of alliteration adds
to the pace and mood of the poem, as well as giving certain lines a hypnotic
and memorable quality. If we look at the third stanza we can see a good example
of this:
And bending down beside
the glowing bars
Also,
in the second stanza, notice that the poet uses repetition. Three times we see
the key word “loved”, which of course emphasizes the central theme of the poem.
How many loved your moments
of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
Assonance occurs when the same
vowel sounds are used close together, often in the same line. This adds to the
music of the poem and helps to create a rich and nostalgic feeling. If we look
at line 8 we see the pattern of ‘u’ vowel sounds repeated in the same word
“murmur”:
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love
fled
Looking at the entire stanza we can
see a number of examples of assonance with the slender “e” and broad “a” and
“u” vowel sound:
And bending down beside the glowing
bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love
fled
And paced upon the mountains
overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of
stars.
Assonance
only occurs when the vowel sound is the same in two words. So, while “bars” and
“stars” have assonance, “bar” does not have assonance with “paced” because the
“a” sound is different in the two words. “Paced” is, however, assonant with
“face”. If we look at the words with the “e” sound we will again see that only
words that have the same “eh” sound have assonance (‘bending’, ‘fled’,
‘overhead’).
4.
FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE
Metaphor
1. “When you are old
and gray and full of sleep”
The
phrase “full of sleep” is a metaphor.
·
Denotative meaning: sleeping that leads to dreaming.
·
Connotative
meaning: the death.
2. “And nodding by the fire, take down this book”.
In
this line, “Nodding by the fire” is used as a metaphor.
·
Denotative meaning: an old person who
lower and raise her head slightly and briefly by a fire place.
·
Connotative meaning: an old person who
is slowly falling asleep by a fire place with the weight of time on her
shoulders bringing her down.
3.
“And bending down beside the glowing bars”
· Denotative
meaning: lean the body downwards beside the fire place bars.
· Connotative
meaning: seeking warmth or
comfort -- suggesting the desire and need for the fiery love she once rejected.
Personification
1.
“Murmur,
a little sadly, how love fled”
Love
is a noun, but the poet made it as a person who can flee.
·
Denotative meaning: love which ran away.
·
Connotative meaning: the man who loved
her was gone and left her forever.
2.
“And hid his face amid a crowd of stars”
The word “his” refers to love as in
previous line. It is also a personification because love cannot hide.
·
Denotative meaning: love hid its face
among the stars in the night sky.
· Connotative
meaning: the man has become part of the immortal group of artists whose name
will live on forever.
Imagery
“When you are old and grey and full of sleep”
In the first
stanza, Yeats uses words such as old, grey and full sleep which describes a
lady with grey hair as old, sleepy, and sitting by the fire remembering how
once she use to be young and beautiful.
5.
SYMBOLISM
Denotative: the state of burning, in which
substances combine chemically with oxygen from the air and typically give out
bright light, heat, and smoke.
Connotative: the fiery rawness of a
past love.
Denotative: a written or printed work consisting of
pages glued or sewn together along one side and bound with covers.
Connotative: reading someone’s face.
Denotative: an elevation of the earth’s surface
rising abruptly and to a large height from the surrounding level.
Connotative: love that is very distant.
Denotative: a very intents dark area or shape
produced by body coming between rays of light and a surface.
Connotative: expressing the difficulties and sadness
hidden in the look of the eyes that can only be seen by someone who really
cares.
Denotative: a person who journeys
to a sacred place for religious reasons.
Connotative: the long walk that her
soul has had searching for real happiness.
Denotative: a long rod or rigid
piece of wood or metal to place the fire.
Connotative: showing how her beauty has faded over
time; like the fire, she was once vibrant.
6.
SUBJECT MATTER
The subject
matter of “When you are Old” is unrequited love.
7.
THEME
The
theme of “When you are Old” is that it is important to recognize
a true love when one is young, because things change when one grows old and one
will feel regretful.
8.
REASON
In this poem,
the speaker pointed out how a woman was loved by so many men when she was young
and beautiful. However, there was only one man who really loved her soul and
body, whether in her happiness or sadness. But, the woman rejected the man’s
love and now, when she is old, she realizes the value of the love she lost, she grows
regretful that she did not see how he loved her and how unwise she was for not
taking notice of it which made her lives alone in her
impending death.
