Joyce Dubliners and Yeats Selected Poems - Essay Example

Relationships between place and identity in Irish writing - Focusing on Joyce Dubliners and W.B. Yeats Selected Poems A thought that gets ‘seeded’ into creators’ or authors’ mind will get outputted in their works. That ‘seeding’ of thought could be initiated by the ‘system’, in which the author lives or has lived. ‘System’ constitutes everything, including culture, people, events, etc, etc, which ‘surrounds’ an individual and influences that individual’s thought process and physical action. Most times an author writes based on what he/she sees, hears and feels. The authors after observing and hearing about the ‘system’ of a particular place or country like Ireland or city like Dublin will ‘interpret’ it in a written form. There are many written works including short stories by James Joyce and poems by W. B. Yeats, which have been constructed by the writers basing on people, events and culture of a particular place as the subject matter. When that happens, authors will be able to reflect those real life aspects on their characters, particularly on their identity. It is clear that real life aspects that are visible in a particular place could get reflected in the identity of the fictional characters, thus showing there can be a relationship between place and identity. So, this paper focusing on the Irish works, James Joyce’s Dubliners and W.B. Yeats Selected Poems, will discuss the relationship that is visible between the place of Ireland, in particular Dublin and the identity of characters/narrator. Background James Joyce, born in Dublin, Ireland, spent majority of his adult life outside of Ireland, leaving for Paris in his early twenties. However, that did not change or even extend Joyces fictional universe beyond Dublin, as he created plots, characters and themes mainly based on the real life aspects he saw, heard and felt in Dublin. ‘For myself, I always write about Dublin, because if I can get to the heart of Dublin I can get to the heart of all the cities of the world. In the particular is contained the universal.’1 William Butler Yeats was also born in the Irish capital of Dublin and he spent his childhood reading the poetic and play versions of Irish legends and the occult. Although he lived in London for fourteen years of his childhood, Yeats maintained his cultural roots, featuring Irish legends and heroes in many of his poems and plays.2 He also joined the revolutionary organization called Irish Republican Brotherhood because of his sensibilities for the Irish freedom struggle and politics. Although both Joyce and Yeats spent sizable part of their lives outside Ireland, they were in the ‘midst’ of all the happenings in Ireland in particular Dublin, thereby observing and getting influenced to come up with creative works, including themes and characters with Irish specific identities. Relationship between place and Identity in Joyce’s Dubliners As the title itself suggests, Dubliners is a book of 15 short stories which naturally as well as thematically depicts the Irish middle class life with wide variety of characters settled in and around Dublin, in the initial years of the 20th century. As all the stories were set in a period, during which the Irish people were searching for their sense of identity, Joyce came up with universal generalizations about people’s identity based on his knowledge of Dublin. In-depth emphasis was given by Joyce to the specific political boundaries and geographic details of Dublin, while coming up with the stories. With Dublin as a city being encompassed as provinciality in early 19th century, due to the English rule and because of the control of the Catholic Church, the city was not able to break free and appeared constricted. Joyce reflected this constricted nature of Dublin on the various characters in Dubliners, with those characters living a constrained life and avoiding to search for their identity. ‘Joyce depicted the stunted lives resulting to a degree from the provinciality of Dublin, a provinciality arising from the domination of the Catholic Church and Ireland’s status as a country dominated by English rule.’3 Joyce has featured through out the book, examples of how Dublin as a place constricted the characters and prevented them from going in search of their true identity. In "An Encounter", when Father Butler sees in Leo Dillon’ hand a copy of The Halfpenny Marvel. He says, “The Apache Chief! Is this what you read instead of your Roman History? Let me not find any more of this wretched stuff in this college”4. Father Butler by preventing the collage boys from reading about adventure and asking them to read just the Roman History, is indirectly restricting them from exploring new things and also not allowing them to go in search of their true identities. In “After the Race”, college student Jimmy Doyle tries his best to fit in with his rich friends and in their company enjoys the evenings with drinks and card games. Although, his rich friends allow him to play with them, he appears ‘restricted’ because he is unable to pay for their expenses and thus cannot dominate or gain an upper-hand among the group. This subdued identity of Jimmy is again a reflection of Dublins provinciality, as Dublin and the Irish identity had only a peripheral status, when compared to the powerful countries of the world at that time. Through many other stories as well, Joyce exhibits the relationship between Dublin’s shunted nature and the characters’ restricted life. Because of that restricted life, they get trapped, without any chance to exhibit their identity or go in search of their identity. ‘Trapped by alcoholism, sexual repression, and poverty, Joyces citizens cannot summon Gallahers energy to "revolt against the dull inelegance" of the city. When characters make an effort to escape their conditions, they often end up in prisons of their own making.’5 Thus, it is clear that Joyce influenced by the lives of Dubliners or Irish people, came up with characters which exhibited a relationship between place and identity. Relationship between place and Identity in W.B. Yeats Selected Poems Yeats’ Selected Poems is a collection of poems selected from the breadth and depth of Yeats creative works. Editor M.L. Rosenthal selected all the poems representing Yeats varied interests, particularly poems which reflected Yeats’ interpretation of Ireland as well as Dublin as the epitome of Irish Identity. In majority of his poetic works, Yeats description of landscapes and importantly places are often Irish, even if he avoids including a specific place name. However, on few occasions, he adopted a more precise approach to the Irish landscape, by including real Irish places particularly the ones in and around his birthplace Sligo, as a reflection of the character or narrator’s identity. Yeats has told of the deep emotional reserves in Sligo.6 In the poem, “The Lake Isle of Inisfree”, Yeats reflects upon how rapid urbanization of Dublin makes it a difficult place to live. Ireland was viewed historically both by the Irish people as well as by others as an agrarian land, with agricultural centric aspects like change of seasons, harvest cycles being very central to Irish identity and life. Yeats’ view of Ireland was also on the same lines, however with urbanization of Dublin, he felt constricted by the place and wanted to settle in a serene rural setting. Yeats, as the narrator in, “The Lake Isle of Inisfree” longs for the calmness and tranquillity of Innisfree, as he resides in Dublin. He particularly wants to escape form the noise-filled city life and want to settle along the lake of Inisfree and enjoy the “lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore.”7 Thus, his wish to settle amidst the scenic beauty of Irish rural landscape clearly exhibits his particular Irish Identity, thus showing the relationship between place and identity. His poems were influenced by the political events of those times and the most prominent one is the poem titled, “Easter 1916”, which alludes to the rising of Irish Nationalists against the British rule on the Easter Monday in 1916. Yeats as the narrator exhibits mixed emotions about the uprising and how it would impact Ireland as a nation or place. ‘Yeats expresses a range of emotion vividly in the poem, from fear of what lies ahead, to fond recollections of the men, to disgust for crazed ideologues.’8 Even while congratulating and praising the Nationalists for their effort, he criticizes John MacBride and some others. So, the poem was a mixture of praise with subtle criticisms spread all over it. ‘Although Yeats had long held strong and decided feelings concerning the plight of the Irish nation; they had generally been expressed on a far loftier plane, cloaked in oracular intimations and couched in bardic utterances’9 The lines, “All changed, changed utterly/A terrible beauty is born.”10 clearly sums up his identity crisis, in relation to the place. That is, although he wishes for the birth of Ireland as a free nation, he refers Ireland as a “terrible beauty”. He refers so because to achieve Ireland’s independence many lives are being lost and that makes it a blood stained independence. “The terrible beauty, in this sense, is it the free Irish state, burdened by the human sacrifices made to achieve it?”11 Thus by addressing the place of Ireland as “terrible”, even while welcoming its independence, Yeats exhibits a kind of identity crisis, even while exhibiting place and identity relationship. The other well known poem scripted by Yeats, “The Second Coming” reflects the changing lifestyle in Dublin and how it is changing the identities of young men and women. This poem was written in 1919 in the aftermath of the First World War with Dublin as a city undergoing many changes. It discusses Yeats anguish over the declining nature or breakdown of the Europe’s society in particular Dublins society. It discusses how young Irish men and women are ignoring the old set standards and are going after a new way of life, thus in a way destroying the old way of life altogether. “…the young people who have given up the standards of their parents and grandparents for the new art, the new literature, the new music, and the other novelties of Yeats time.”12 Here also, the changes that took place in a place or city are having a direct and indirect impact on the identities of its people or characters or narrators. Conclusion From the above analysis of Joyce and Yeats’ works, it is clear that both the writers had incorporated various characters, plot setting and other aspects, which clearly exhibit the place and identity relationship. Every author will reflect on ‘system’ influenced personal experiences on their characters. James Joyce did that by reflecting the constricted and restrictive nature of Dublin on its characters. Yeats on the other hand, reflected modernization as well nationalistic tendencies or identity of Ireland and Dublin on the characters or himself as the narrator. Joyces portraits of the streets of Dublin take the reader deep into the heart of the city, while Yeats contributed to the establishment and progression of an Irish identity.13 Thus, a deeper relationship between place and identity is clearly visible after pursuing the connections in Joyce’s Dubliners and Yeats’ Selected Poems. Bibliography Bogan, Louise, William Butler Yeats, The Atlantic Monthly, 161. 5 (1938) [accessed 21 November 2010] Davison, Peter, Philip Levine, Richard Wilbur, and David Barber, W. B. Yeats "Easter 1916", The Atlantic online (1998) [accessed 21 November 2010] Dubliners: An Outline Commentary, Joycean Essay Archive, [access ed 21 November 2010] Great Books Foundation (U.S.), The common review: the magazine of the Great Books Foundation, Volume 2 (Bloomington: Indiana University, 2002). Joyce, James, Dubliners (London: BiblioBazaar, 2003). Milesi, Laurent, James Joyce and the difference of language (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003) OBryan, Brendan Yeats and the Literary Voice of Irish Identity, The Brownstone Journal, 7 (2005) [accessed 21 November 2010] Trosky, Susan M, Contemporary Authors: A Bio-Bibliographical Guide to Current Writers in Fiction, General Nonfiction, Poetry, Journalism, Drama, Motion Pictures, Television (London: Gale, 1989). Waters, John L, William Butler Yeats Poem "The Second Coming" Analyzed, Humboldt State University (2001) [accessed 21 November 2010] Yeats, William Butler, ‘The Isle of Inisfree’ and “Easter 1916”, in Selected poems and two plays of William Butler Yeats, ed. by, Macha Louis Rosenthal (London: Collier Books), Read More