One of a kind.
Honours English. ‘OMG it’s so hard!’, that’s often the response you hear from students when I mention these two words. It consists of a Shakespearean drama, a film, a novel and a play, a reading comprehension, essay writing, unseen poetry and of course not forgetting, the prescribed poetry. To some students the prescribed poetry is the most difficult and daunting part of the course! If I’m honest it isn’t my favourite topic either, that is until I decided to look at it from a more optimistic angle. You’re given eight poets to study in detail, take approximately six poems from each poet, learn a few quotes and have at least some clue what the poems are actually about. I mean you’re actually being given a massive hint about what is coming up on your Leaving Cert! Hello!! It’s not that daunting now is it?
But I’m not writing this article on advice on how to magically overcome the fear of prescribed poetry. I’m sitting here writing, because I want to give you a little boost and hopefully help all you Leaving Cert students! I want to give you a bit of information about a poet which I have grown to admire. This poet is one of the greatest Irish poets in history, W.B. Yeats.
I think everyone, worldwide, has some knowledge about this man. Some might call him the greatest poet of our time for others he was a womanizer. For me he was one of many great Irish poets. In my opinion Yeats was figure who went against ‘the norm’, he was fearless, he stood up for what he believed in, had a vivid imagination, he was quite protective of people he admired and had something of an obsessive personality. Of course we all know who he was obsessed with, ‘Maud Gonne’ herself. A powerful and attractive woman. Yeats had no shame in defining his unrequited love for this woman. In almost all of his poems he manages to make a reference to her in some shape or form. What’s interesting is that his poems were written at all...