Summary Poem Analysis of 'When You Are Old' by W.B. Yeats
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Course
Poetry
Institution
CIE
Here’s a full analysis of the poem ‘When You Are Old’ by W. B. Yeats tailored towards A-Level students but also suitable for those studying at a higher level.
Includes:
VOCABULARY
STORY / SUMMARY
SPEAKER / VOICE
LANGUAGE FEATURES
STRUCTURE / FORM
CONTEXT
ATTITUDES
THEMES
When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
VOCABULARY
Nodding - bobbing the head up and down / drifting off to sleep
Grace - softness, goodness, blessings
Pilgrim - a person on a spiritual journey
Sorrows - things that cause sadness
Murmur - whisper / mumble
Amid - in the middle of
STORY/SUMMARY
When you’re old and your hair has turned grey and you’re tired, starting to sleep as
you sit by the fire, take a look at this book (the book that has this poem in it), and read
slowly, dreaming of the soft look that your eyes used to have, their deep shadows.
(Stanza 2) How many people were affected positively by your happy and graceful
moments, and either falsely or truly loved your beauty? One man loved the spiritual,
searching soul in you, and the sadness of your face. (Stanza 3) Bending down beside
the glowing fire, mumble to yourself, a little sadly, about how Love ran away - he ran
up the mountains overhead, and hid his face in a crowd of stars.
, SPEAKER/VOICE
The speaker uses a wistful tone to speak nostalgically about the past. However, this
is curiously not a first person poem, the speaker uses direct address ‘you’ / ‘your’ to
project this experience onto the addressee of the poem. The essential story is that
the subject of the poem, the woman, will be old and half asleep and she’ll suddenly
remember her past, including those who loved her truly and those who loved her
falsely. She’ll remember one particular person who loved her differently - for her
soul, and her sadness - and then she’ll think of how Love (true love) escaped her. We
can assume therefore that the speaker may in fact be this person, the man who loved
the woman truly and differently, although tragically the relationship didn’t work out.
LANGUAGE
● Syndetic listing - ‘old and grey and full of sleep’ - the syndetic listing (using
the word ‘and’ between nouns) creates long, drawn out imagery that
emphasises the idea that the subject of the poem has had a long life and also is
in the process of beginning to sleep after a long day, sleep is often used
symbolically in poetry as a metaphor for death so Yeats may be playing around
with these two meanings and layering them.
● Imperative verb / metafictive reference - ‘take down this book’ - the imperative
phrasal verb ‘take down’ is a direct command to the subject to think of the poet
in her old age. It is also a metafictive device as it says ‘this book’, breaking the
boundary between literature and reality. It assumes that the subject will have
kept a copy of the poet’s book the whole time and suddenly think of reading it
by the fire in her old age - quite a bold claim.
● Sibilance - ‘soft look your eyes once had’ / ‘shadows’ - the use of ‘s’ sounds in
these images creates a sense of softness that imitates the sleepy state of the
subject, as well as the tenderness with which they look back upon their past.
● Alliteration - ‘glad grace’ - this phrase stands out at the end of the line with the
plosive ‘g’ sound providing a contrast to the abstract noun ‘grace’, which is
often a soft and spiritual emotion or state of being. This perhaps betrays a bitter
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