A Coat, by William
By MªJosé Jorquera Hervás
The poem: A coat
I made my song a coat
Covered with embroideries
Out of old mythologies
From heel to throat;
But the fools caught it,
Wore it in the world's eyes
As though they'd wrought it.
Song, let them take it,
For there's more enterprise
In walking naked.
William
The Green Helmet and Other Poems (1910)
Analysis
of the poem
In
this paper I will try to analyse A Coat,
a delightful poem of the Irish poet William Butler Yeats. Although at first it
may seem simple, short and easy to read, it hides an over-symbolist depth that
we will see through this study.
The first time I read this poem, it
caught my eye because of the simplicity of the structure, but at the same time
of several key words that were determinant for me to understand. I changed the
poet’s words into mine and I found there were attitudes that concerned with
strong patriotic questions. For me the poet sets himself up as a strong man,
hard and firm at his convictions, a man with clear ideas and a pronounced
heroism, which I suppose he dedicates to his native land,
We can see that the poem opens with
the poet himself talking, although in a delicate way, directly about his song,
about his poetry, his whole art. He tells us about something that worries him,
or something that has hurt him. We can find here a poet entirely dedicated to
his first passion, this is the verses, the poetry itself. He gives it away to
all of us, but even more, he gives it away devoutly to his immediate receiver,
that it is his land, his country.
Through a beautiful melody that may
seem rather a song for children, we are to find a poet who feels proud of his
origins, his nature and human condition, he appears to us as the one who
defends his way of thinking against those who are sceptical and coward. He
feels he is such a fighter, a hero, a seeker and a finder of some truth, but
his own truth.
I think he tries to communicate that
after he had expressed himself in a public way, after he had come out, someone
tried to snatch the ideas from the poet, or maybe his own opinions were not
shared and well respected by others, and also it seems somehow he has suffered
mocking and moreover he has not been recognized, as if he was living in a
non-free speech society.
So I come to think that the poem
seems to deal on the one hand with the topic of the honour, the dignity, the
expression of sincere feelings and thoughts from the bottom. This is, fighting
for an ideal and the strong belief in something. But, on the other hand I find
some reminiscences about some treason, the lack of consideration, the snatching
of ideas from those coward ones who don’t dare to erect themselves to the world
defending their ideals. In this last sense, the poet would be telling us that,
after he had expressed in a public way, either through poetry or through some
speech, that fact was frustrated because he suffered some kind of attacking,
the stabbing in the back from someone that didn’t respected him. I do relate
all these ideas because of the strong symbolism it looks like to me.
I think he has created an important
symbolism that it is shown throughout the whole poem. If we analyse the poem
through the literal verses, we can stop at the first one and say that it is
funny how the author looks at his own work, his poetry or this very poem;
whatever it is he calls it “song” (line one) in that way, “song” would
represent all his ideas, his poetry at all, his entire way of thinking
expressed by words, while “coat” (line one) would be someone’s identity, in
this case it’d be the poet’s one, the thing that covers himself and gives
security and dwelling to him, this coat is covered as well with beautiful
“embroideries” (line two), as he tells us in line two, made from “old
mythologies from heel to throat” (line three), or in other words, made from the
history of his country, but he found the oppressors caught it in an opportunist
moment and left him apart from the world, without admitting who the success
owner of the “song” was, in order to be them the successful ones. The poet
faces his creation, his thought that is only his, and speaks to it, as if it
was an animated thing: “Song, let them take it / For there's more enterprise /
In walking naked”, he feels he has a clear conscience and, as he talks to his
“song”, he is talking to himself indeed. He is telling him that no matter what
happens as far as one is in peace and has clear conscience with oneself, free
of sin. He achieves, this way, a spiritual peace with himself and, therefore,
he is a hero.
By these words and my personal point
of view I come to establish another relation between the message the poet wants
us to send and the message of Jesus in the holy scripture, that is well-known:
don’t judge the sinner ones but judge yourself because the important thing is
that you analyse yourself and your soul is in communion with Jesus, in spiritual
peace, sincerely, in self respect and honour (which would correspond to the
last verses “For there's more enterprise / In walking naked”, lines nine and
ten).
To sum up, we can see here a poet
devoted to the truth, the spirituality, the purity and clearness of conscience,
a sincere man who does and let the others do, without condemn them.
Let’s
go now to know some useful information that can help us to understand better
this amazing poet and his literary production. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
on the net or Yeats Sligo
Company provide the widest and most interesting source of research.
About
the outstanding figure as Yeats was, Wikipedia states
in a more general sense: “William Butler Yeats (13 June
1865 – 28 January
1939) was an Irish poet, dramatist, mystic
and public figure. He signed his works W.
B. Yeats. Yeats was one of the primary driving force behind the Irish Literary
Revival and was co-founder of the Abbey Theatre.
Yeats also served as an Irish Senator in his later years. He was awarded
the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1923 for what
the Nobel Committee described as “his always inspired poetry, which in a highly
artistic form gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation”. “Yeats is
generally considered to be one of the twentieth century's key English-language
poets. Yet, unlike most modernists who experimented with free verse,
Yeats was a master of the traditional verse forms. The impact of modernism
on Yeats' work can be seen in the increasing abandonment of the more
conventionally poetic diction of his early work in favour
of the more austere language and more direct approach to his themes that
increasingly characterises the poetry and plays of
his middle period, comprising the volumes In the Seven Woods, Responsibilities
and The Green Helmet.” (Wikipedia)
Something we can prove at
the present poem A Coat, regarding
the question of religion, is told about later: “Even before he began to write
poetry, Yeats had come to associate poetry with religious ideas and thoughts of
sentimental elements. Describing his childhood in later years, he described his
"one unshakable belief" as "whatever of philosophy has been made
poetry is alone permanent... I thought... that if a powerful and benevolent
spirit has shaped the destiny of this world, we can better discover that
destiny from the words that have gathered up the heart's desire of the
world".” (Wikipedia)
If we
should state the different periods Yeats’ literary production went through, it
is said that “In Yeats's early poetry, up to the
volume, In the Seven Woods (1904), we can see the influences of English
Romanticism, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and Symbolism, as we will see
later. Two further influences were the occult and the languorous world of the
Celtic twilight poets of the 1890s. Yeats saw himself as writing for
Moreover, “Yeats' early poetry drew
heavily on Irish myth and folklore and drew on the diction and coloring of pre-Raphaelite
verse. Major poetic influences in these years - and probably throughout the
rest of his career as well - were William Blake
and Percy Bysshe Shelley.
He worked on the first complete edition of Blake's works with a friend of his
father's, Edwin Ellis,
and discovered an unknown poem, Vala, or the Four Zoas. In a late essay on Shelley he wrote,
‘I have re-read Prometheus Unbound... and it seems to me to
have an even more certain place than I had thought among the sacred books of
the world’. “Yeats' first significant poem was The Isle of Statues, a
fantasy work that took Edmund Spenser for its poetic model. It
appeared in Dublin University Review and was never republished. His
first book publication was the pamphlet Mosada:
A Dramatic Poem (1886), which had already appeared in the same journal, and
this printing of 100 copies was paid for by his father. Following this was The
Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems (1889).”.
“The long title poem, the first that he would not disown in his maturity, was
based on the poems of the Fenian Cycle of Irish mythology.
This poem, which took two years to complete, shows the influence of
Yeats’
patriotism might be strongly set when “In 1889, Yeats met Maud Gonne,
a young heiress who was beginning to devote herself to the Irish nationalist
movement. Gonne admired Yeats' early poem The Isle of Statues and sought
out his acquaintance. Yeats developed an obsession with Gonne, and she was to
have a significant effect on his poetry and his life ever after.” . “Also in
1896, he was introduced to Lady Gregory by their mutual friend Edward Martyn, and she encouraged Yeats' nationalism
and convinced him to continue focusing on writing drama. Although he was
influenced by French Symbolism, Yeats consciously focused on an identifiably Irish
content and this inclination was reinforced by his involvement with a new
generation of younger and emerging Irish authors.”. “Together with Lady Gregory
and Martyn and other writers including J.M. Synge, Sean O'Casey,
and Padraic Colum,
Yeats was one of those responsible for the establishment of the literary
movement known as the Irish Literary Revival (otherwise known as
the Celtic Revival).”. “Apart
from these creative writers, much of the impetus for the Revival came from the
work of scholarly translators who were aiding in the discovery of both the
ancient sagas and Ossianic poetry and the more recent
folk song tradition in Irish. One of the most significant of these was Douglas Hyde,
later the first President of Ireland, whose Love Songs of
Connacht was widely admired.”. “One of the enduring achievements of the
Revival was the setting up of the Abbey Theatre. In 1899 Yeats, Lady Gregory, Martyn and George Moore founded the Irish Literary Theatre. This survived for about
two years but was not successful. However, working together with two Irish
brothers with theatrical experience named William
and Frank Fay, Yeats' unpaid-yet-independently
wealthy secretary Annie Elizabeth Fredericka Horniman (a wealthy Englishwoman who had
previously been involved in the presentation of George Bernard Shaw's Arms and the Man
in London
in 1894), and leading West End actress Florence Farr
(who originated the part of Aleel in The Countess Cathleen), the group
established the Irish National Theatre Society.” (Wikipedia)
Fort
and Kates participate here too by saying: “In the
Abbey Theater under the sponsorship of the Irish
National Theater Society, these playwrights found a
group of sympathetic actors preeminently fitted to
interpret Irish dramas many of which were destined for a lasting fame outside
of
But
going back to the establishment of the literary periods he went through, we
find A Coat is a poem that belongs to
Yeat’s middle period poetry (The Green Helmet and
Other Poems, 1910). To
better understand and set our poem into Yeats literary production, Yeats
Society Sligo tells: “Yeats's middle period poetry
can be read in the volumes from The Green Helmet (1910) to Michael Robartes
and the Dancer
(1921). Subject matter and attitude change. Love is dealt with in a more
direct, questioning manner. Yeats still writes about
Moreover,
“The poetry of this middle period moved away from the Celtic Twilight mood of
the earlier work. His political concerns moved away from cultural politics. In
his early work, Yeats' aristocratic pose led to an idealisation
of the Irish peasant and a willingness to ignore poverty and suffering.
However, the emergence of a revolutionary movement from the ranks of the urban
Catholic middle class made him reassess his attitudes.” (Wikipedia)
About
his interest on politics it is said: “Yeats' new direct engagement with
politics can be seen in the poem September 1913, with its well-known
refrain "Romantic Ireland's dead and gone,/It's with O'Leary in the
grave." This poem is an attack on the
Thus,
we arrive to the third and last period of his poetry, which closes his literary
production. “The final
phase of Yeats's poetry begins with "The
Tower" (1928). Yeats constructs himself as a very self-conscious bard
in poems like "The Tower" and "Sailing to Byzantium".
He publicly celebrates
About
his style and topics, “In
this later poetry and plays, Yeats wrote in a more personal vein. His subjects
included his son and daughter and the experience of growing old. Yeats himself,
in the poem "The Circus Animals' Desertion", published in his final
collection, describes the inspiration for these late works in the lines
"Now that my ladder's gone,/I must lie down where all the ladders start/In
the foul rag and bone shop of the heart".” (Wikipedia)
To
conclude, we have seen this official information supports the first impression
I got when I read and analysed the poem. I must say I have enjoyed reading and
analysing this poem because of the topic I found in it. I think Yeats points
out important philosophical questions as we have seen, such as religion, origin
roots, politics, truth, honour, growing up as a human being, etc. all them
essential questions that are always present in our lives and may worry at once.
This high-level of commitment for life makes him be such a great man, with a
strong sense of humanity, in other words, a genius.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
http://www.uv.es/fores/poesia/12yeats.html, Dr Vicente Forés, 2006 Universidad de
http://www.yeats-sligo.com/html/wbyeats/poetry.html,
Yeats Society Sligo, Hude Bridge 1958 Sligo,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._B._Yeats#_note-0,
2007 “Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia”
(21/05/07)
Minute History of the Drama. Alice B. Fort & Herbert S. Kates.