Yeats, Synge, and Kipling: Poems Analyzed
No Second Troy – W.B. Yeats (1865-1939)
This poem was written in 1910.
“No Second Troy” uses rhetorical questions.
The initial question is “why” should he blame “her” for his unhappiness and for her reckless manipulation of the emotions of Irish commoners to incite political violence.
He then asks whether it would even have been possible for “her” to be a “peaceful” person. He believes her character and beauty have an old-fashioned quality, more like a figure from Greek tragedy than a contemporary woman. She belongs to another age.
Finally, because there was no “second Troy” for her to destroy, she had to destroy other things – like the speaker’s happiness, and the lives of Irish commoners. The first Troy, of course, was destroyed because of a quarrel over Helen, another politically troublesome beauty from another “age”.
Maud Gonne was very beautiful. Yeats adored her for most of his life.
The poem takes the form of a sonnet, which is associated with love poems. There are some aspects of the love poem, for example, the praise of Maud Gonne’s physical beauty.
The Curse – J.M. Synge (1907)
The poem was in answer to one of the critics of his Playboy of the Western World. In reply, Synge attacked the critic’s sister! It is likely that the poem was never intended for publication, but Yeats got his hands on it and sent it to Lady Gregory, and she never lost anything.
Big Steamers (1910) – R. Kipling
The Secret of the Machines – Kipling
“The Secret of the Machines” was written by Rudyard Kipling at the beginning of the twentieth century. The poem is about the importance of machines in our lives. The author starts by describing how machines are created and wrought, and says that they were taken from the ore-bed. They only need some water, coal, and oil. Then, R. Kipling enumerates the skills of machines, such as pulling, racing, flying, or writing. He explains the ability of machines to transmit information across the world. This is followed by a depiction of how brilliant ships can be. He also tells us that machines can nearly do everything on Earth if they get the exact instructions. Then, the author makes clear that machines have no feelings and that the wrong handling of machines can be dangerous. At last, he says that for all their power, machines are only things which are invented by humans.
Rudyard Kipling wants to show us the manifoldness of machines. He wants to clarify that the progress of machines is a good thing for humankind. They make many things easier and facilitate the work of humans, particularly during the time of industrialization, in which R. Kipling lived. Also, he wants to express that a machine can never replace a human because a machine cannot feel anything (lines 37-39). Besides, he says that machines are only children of the human brain (line 48), and through that, he shows that humans control them. Machines are always dependent on humans. By choosing the headline “The Secret of the Machines,” the author also wants to clarify that machines also have secrets, maybe weaknesses; that they, as mentioned before, cannot feel anything; and that they are dependent on humans. At the time of industrialization, surely many people said that machines were everything. So, Rudyard Kipling wanted to explain to such people that machines possess some, maybe many advantages, but they cannot do everything.
If – Kipling (1895)
The poem was written in 1895.
The poem ‘If’ is inspirational, motivational, and a set of rules for ‘grown-up’ living. Kipling’s ‘If’ contains mottos and maxims for life, and the poem is also a blueprint for personal integrity, behavior, and self-development. ‘If’, perhaps, is an ethos and a personal philosophy.
The beauty and elegance of ‘If’ contrasts starkly with Rudyard Kipling’s largely tragic and unhappy life. He was starved of love and attention and sent away by his parents; beaten and abused by his foster mother; and a failure at a public school that sought to develop qualities that were completely alien to Kipling. The deaths of two of his children also affected Kipling deeply.