A Comparison between YEAT'S "The Lake Isle of Innisfree" and "The Circus Animals Desertion" Themes and Language and Tones

William Butler Yeats(1865-1939)

1. The Themes

"The Lake" is a poem that bears a main theme which is nature impact on people of the city and how this can provide great relaxation and relief from city life anxiety and noise. Yeats tries to describe how peaceful and beautiful it is to live in a natural world free from pollution and technology so he describes how he will get up and escape all the city noise and fatigue to go to the calm lake life as he says in the first stanza:

"I will and arise and go now, and go to Innisfree"

The poet is escaping from city life with all its components to a simple life with simple components such as a small house to live in which is only made of clay and wattles as natural components without man's interference as he says in the first stanza:

"And a small cabin build there,

Of clay and wattles made."

The poet tried to use natural elements to express his main theme which is nature and he referred to "bean rows", "honey bees", "veils of the morning", "cricket", " lake water" and" shore" in order to confirm his deep feelings and love for nature with all its elements. (Driscoll, 2011)

In the poem "The Circus" there are more complicated themes such as "aging and career" and "exploration and truth", the poet is discussing his career after he aged through time and compares it with a circus and that his literary works were not expressing his real life events. Poetic imaginations were compared to beasts that within time they disappeared then he tries to say that there is nothing new to present for his audience who read his poems in the past. He thinks that there are no new themes to be expressed by him in his works as he says in the first stanza:

"I sought a theme and sought for it in vain,
I sought it daily for six weeks or so."

Exploration and truth is another theme expressed clearly and in a severe manner as Yeats explores how truth became clear for him as he remembered some of his works and feels not satisfied with the symbols they represented but it was his feelings that forced him to write about them as he says in the second stanza:

"And then a counter-truth filled out its play,
The Countess Cathleen' was the name I gave it;
She, pity-crazed, had given her soul away,
But masterful Heaven had intervened to save it.
I thought my dear must her own soul destroy
So did fanaticism and hate enslave it,
And this brought forth a dream and soon enough
This dream itself had all my thought and love."

Then the poet discusses that his works were good enough to the extent that he should stop working again.

Language and Tone

The poet uses very simple language and clear relaxing and calm tone in "The Lake" that can take the reader to an imaginary world of a lake and the language expresses all feelings of comfort that the poet has. The poet uses figurative language to express his idea of being happy alone in nature such as using words that bear natural meanings such as: " honey, clay, wattles, small, cabin, hive, alone, glade, peace, slow, sings, glimmer, wings, water and deep heart.".

The poet uses a very simple tone in his poem "The Lake" to reflect his idea of the simple life of nature as he only uses three stanzas written in a flow of tones and a simple ABAB rhyme scheme to reflect harmony and easiness in order to express how simple and relaxing the life in the lake is.

Yet the language in "The Circus" is completely different from that in "The Lake" as the simple language that is relaxing disappeared, as the language and the tone are reflecting sad themes or feelings of a man who is going to die soon, the writer used tough words such as: "old themes, allegorical dreams, vain, battle, starved, pity-crazed, destroy, hate, enslave, refuse, sweepings, old bones and broken can." These words expressed the deep feelings of suffering the poet's reminding and analyzing his works and the themes he presented throughout his own career. The poet used a hard tone compared with that soft one in "The Lake" as the lines were full of words and the tone wasn't relaxing or calm but the rhyme scheme was complicated than that of "The Lake" as it was ABABABCC without inner music but the most obvious thing is that the poem resembled a traditional epic but it wasn't which perplexes the readers and makes them worried and suffering just as Yeats was suffering. (eNotes, 2015)