"On Being Asked for a War Poem"

Rhyme: abcabc, end rhyme

Meter: pentameter, iambic

Form/Stanzaic Structure: reflection, slow

Speaker: implied author

Audience: imagined audience

Tone: Defensive

Diction: formal

Syntax: multitude of phrasing, only one complete sentence.

Sound Pattern:

Imagery: young girl, old man, gift, winter’s night

Symbolic Language:

Figurative Devices: metaphors

Theme: Poets should stay out of writing on political issues, because the intention of the author is misinterpreted or made extreme.

Argument: Separate art from politics

Rhetoric: States is argument as a type of reflection.

Flaws: Several of Yeats’s earlier poem were politically charged and provided fuel for Nationalism.

Summary: Yeats’s is refusing to write a poem that justifies the war against the British, because he now sees his intensions earlier Nationalist works as naïve. He wanted to support the Nationalist cause, but not fighting.