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  • Essay / Yeats's exploration of the importance of history in “September 1913”

    September 1913 was the climax of one of the most significant trade union conflicts in Irish history and the poem 'September 1913' is based on this. Yeats was, at the time, a great supporter of the lower classes and attacked middle-class businessmen and capitalism in general everywhere. The use of the expressions "grease the cash register" and "add a penny to a penny" shows how merchants took in large sums of money and even so, the smallest sums were counted. There are a number of instances in which Yeats uses the words "pray", "prayer" or "prayer", which is obviously a reference to the Church which played an important role in the revolution and protests in Ireland because that some people believed they could change the country by simply praying to God and others were certain that the pressure on the government had to be physical. Yeats was a supporter of the latter and shows the hypocrisy of remaining loyal to the Church which encourages everyone to give more money. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Yeats repeats the last two lines of each stanza (with a slight variation from the final stanza) which mention "O'Leary in the grave." . This is a reference to John O'Leary, a friend and influence on Yeats after meeting him and encouraging him to join the Irish Republican Brotherhood of which O'Leary was a senior member. However, after his arrest and execution for high treason, Yeats believed that his death marked the end or, at least, a pause in the reform of the country that he desired. This could either be the result or the reason for the previous sentence that "romantic Ireland is dead and gone", meaning that any idealistic view of Ireland and its culture has been eradicated. Despite his belief that revolutions and change will have to pause until other leaders and heroes, like O'Leary, are found, Yeats writes of extremist revolutions in the second stanza. At first, Yeats was pessimistic about the nature of these protests because he believed that they would simply result in a toughening of government. However, he came up with the idea of ​​more radical solutions when he saw that passive protests achieved little, leading him to praise revolutionaries who have become an immovable part of society by saying that “the names stopped your childhood games”. The men who plan and execute the protests are also aware that they will likely have a "hangman's noose" waiting for them if they are caught. The third paragraph describes how "the wild geese spread" in reference to the many Irish people. soldiers who left the country to fight abroad as mercenaries. This is because they do not like or trust the Irish government and Yeats claims this led to a lot of "bloodshed". It is in this stanza that he uses the names of three historically important people, the first being Edward Fitzgerald, an English poet who served his country in the army before planning a rebellion in Ireland for which he was arrested and shot down. In the next line he mentions Robert Emmet and Wolfe Tone, the latter was the founding member of the United Irishman Organization which Emmet later joined and rebelled with. After his exile in Europe in 1800, he was able to form alliances with certain French factions, who promised to support him with their armies. However, his plan failed and Emmet and Tone were.