The Wild Swans at Coole:
Usually when you think about swans you picture a beautiful creature floating on the water. Swans have a special meaning to me because I went to a boarding school for high school and we had swans on the lake at our school. They were very peaceful animals, very elogant, and when you sat by the lake to watch the swans they were beautiful. We loved the swans at our lake, and the school was very proud of them. Usually any place that you see swans the surroundings are nice. I have not seen to many swans floating around ugly lakes. I do not know, but I suppose swans a fairly expensive animals to obtain.
One thing I know from experience is that while swans are beautiful creatures when you mess with a swan they become very mean and will hiss. Being high school kids many of our pranks involved stealing the swans, chasing the swans, and just doing goofy things to the swans in our lake. The animal that is so beautiful to look at suddenly becomes a fierce animal when messed with!
The reason I point the opposite side of the swans is because this poem like many observations focuses on the beauty of the swans. There is also a mystery to swans which the narrator points out. They prefer to not be near people. Also, the reason this poem reminded me of my boarding school was because Coole was the place where an Irish king had lived, but he decided to move in order to hunt and do other things. Here again this would be a very nice setting in which the swans nested. Possibly swans prefer these nice places because they are left alone and admired for their beauty.
The narrator is also talking about how so many things have changed in his life, but the swans have remained the same. This is exactly how I felt after four years of high school. So many things were changing we were all moving on, but the swans remained there on the lake floating and being admired by a new set of students entering the school. When I think back on swans just like the narrator I think of my high school years and smile. Just like the narrator says "Their hearts have not grown old" line 22.
The last line of the poem confused me a bit. I am not sure if the narrator is saying he is delighted they flew away or that it would deligh him. I do not recall swans flying to begin with. Secondly they seem quite territorial so I believe he is saying it would delight him if they did fly away and grow up, or move on just like he is.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Jenny,
Very interesting discussion of the poem by Yeats. You seem to have a lot of personal knowledge of swans, and you utilize it well in this post. I think another fact about swans you don't mention, though, is that they form pairs that mate for life. In this poem Yeats observes an odd number of swans in the lake, which means one of them does not have a partner (either through the death of the mate or some other cause). I think some of the melancholy tone of the poem might be Yeats projecting his own failed love for Maud Gonne onto the lone swan.
Jenny,
I really enjoyed how you brought your own personal experiences from high school in to your post...it made it very intersesting to read. Swans are such beautiful creatures and so peaceful to look at, but it is true that they become quite vicious when they are bothered. It is always good to examine every aspect of a creature because it is rare they only have one side. I did not think about the poem in the way that Dr. Glance did, but after reading his insight and going back to the poem it does make sense. There is a sense of sadness and that very well could be because Yeats sees his own loneliness in the swan without a partner.
Post a Comment