The Song Of Wandering Aengus Analysis

Dreamstates: The Triumph of Familiar and Fantastic in “The Song of Wandering Aengus” William Butler Yeats is unique among his famous contemporaries Eztra Pound and T.S. Eliot in that his poetry arose in evolution from traditional poetic forms, whereas the work of Pound and Eliot was the result of a kind of poetic revolution. Pound’s and Eliot’s poetry is defined by its rebellion against established form, while Yeats’ poetry grows out of and reinvents the romantic tradition which preceded it. Yeats therefore is not a self-consciously ‘modern’ poet, and because of this his poems are in many ways more accessible than those of his equally celebrated peers. While some have criticized Yeats’ early poetry as exquisitely crafted but lacking in …show more content…
He establishes the otherworldly nature of the poem in the first two lines: “I went out to the hazel wood, / Because a fire was in my head,” (1-2). The poetic voice (presumably, although not necessarily, Aengus), in explaining his action, presents us with a fantastic and enigmatic image, more bewildering than enlightening. A fire in the head has a great many possible connotations. It is suggestive of fever and feverish delusion, of lust, love or madness, of obsession and compulsion. The poem does not restrict itself to a single meaning, and shades of each are evident throughout. A delusional or dreamlike state is strongly hinted at. The reader is given the impression that the poem’s speaker has had a sleepless night, driven at last into the woods in the early morning by the ‘fire’ in his head. The image of “moth-like stars…flickering out” (6) establishes a scene where the strange light of imminent sunrise plays tricks on the eyes, and the choice of the word “wand” (3) is perhaps intended to conjure associations of magic wands, creating by the stanza’s end a kind of anticipation of the