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    When You Are Old - W. B. Yeats

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    Luthfan
    William Butler Yeats' poem "When You Are Old" is written from the perspective of an elderly woman looking back on her life. In three quatrains with an ABBA rhyme scheme, she reflects on how her beauty has faded with age. While many loved her in the past, one man truly loved her soul. As an old woman sitting by the fire, she murmurs sadly about how love once fled and hid among the stars.

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    When You Are Old - W. B. Yeats

    Uploaded by

    Luthfan
    626 views13 pages
    William Butler Yeats' poem "When You Are Old" is written from the perspective of an elderly woman looking back on her life. In three quatrains with an ABBA rhyme scheme, she reflects on how her beauty has faded with age. While many loved her in the past, one man truly loved her soul. As an old woman sitting by the fire, she murmurs sadly about how love once fled and hid among the stars.

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    When You Are Old by W. B. Yeats

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    William Butler Yeats' poem "When You Are Old" is written from the perspective of an elderly woman looking back on her life. In three quatrains with an ABBA rhyme scheme, she reflects on how her beauty has faded with age. While many loved her in the past, one man truly loved her soul. As an old woman sitting by the fire, she murmurs sadly about how love once fled and hid among the stars.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    626 views13 pages

    When You Are Old - W. B. Yeats

    Uploaded by

    Luthfan
    William Butler Yeats' poem "When You Are Old" is written from the perspective of an elderly woman looking back on her life. In three quatrains with an ABBA rhyme scheme, she reflects on how her beauty has faded with age. While many loved her in the past, one man truly loved her soul. As an old woman sitting by the fire, she murmurs sadly about how love once fled and hid among the stars.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
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    You are on page 1of 13

    WHEN YOU ARE OLD

    By
    William Butler Yeats

    11/11/19 1
    INTRO

    Yeats’
    personal
    experience

    LOVE

    Broken
    heart
    11/11/19 2
    ANALYSIS
    When You Are Old
    by William Butler Yeats point of
    symbol
    view
    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 theme tone
    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,
    poetic
    But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you, analysis style
    And loved the sorrows of your changing face; devices

    And bending down beside the glowing bars,


    Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
    And paced upon the mountains overhead
    And hid his face amid a crowd of stars. 11/11/19 3

    Source: The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats (1989) Click here to listen to the poem!
    alliteration
    POETIC DEVICES

    meter

    rhyme
    Poetic
    Devices
    imagery

    repetition 11/11/19 4
    RHYME

    End Rhyme

    11/11/19 5
    METER

    This poem uses iambic pentameter.


    Iambic, the poem is started by unstressed and followed by stressed, two syllables.
    Pentameter, the poem consist of five foots.

    11/11/19 6
    REPETITION

    The author utilizes the word “and” several times, for instance, in the first stanza. This
    gives the stanza a rhythmic beat and structure and extends the pome giving it a feeling
    of old age.

    11/11/19 7
    ALLITERATION

    Alliteration of long sounds, esp. l’s and w’s, in essence to give the poem a very drawn
    out and sleepy feel.
    Also, the author employs spondaic foot.

    11/11/19 8
    STANZAIC FORMS

    Quatrain i.e. four lines in each stanza with a rhyme pattern of “a b b a”

    11/11/19 9
    IMAGERY

    Personification of “love”. It elaborates the themes of romance and loss.


    Besides, the capitalization of the word “Love” may entail personification about whom
    she loved.

    11/11/19 10
    Theme
    • Regret

    Point of View
    • Second person

    Tone
    • Sad
    11/11/19 11
    SYMBOL

    Words/Phrases Interpretations
    “Gray and old and full of sleep” An elderly woman
    “Fire” Warmth or comfort and her want for the
    fiery love she once rejected

    “mountains overhead” and “crowd of something the elderly woman can always
    stars” see and always know is there, but never
    fully reach

    11/11/19 12
    COMMENT

    Distressing ending of this poem suggests the readers esp. women to


    reconsider their future and not to grow old without anyone by their side.
    You won’t notice the real value of the things you have until you don’t
    have them anymore.

    11/11/19 13

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