Scribd Logo
Upload

Welcome to Scribd!

  • 8 views

    Close Reading Essay Draft 1

    Uploaded by

    anh.hd0711

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Close Reading Essay Draft 1

    Uploaded by

    anh.hd0711
    8 views2 pages

    Copyright

    © © All Rights Reserved

    Available Formats

    PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Did you find this document useful?

    Is this content inappropriate?

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    8 views2 pages

    Close Reading Essay Draft 1

    Uploaded by

    anh.hd0711

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    You are on page 1of 2

    Close Reading Essay Draft 1

    10/6/2024

    English 2010

    Close Reading Essay

    Time

    When you are old and gray and full of sleep, And nodding by the dire, 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 you 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 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 (William Butler Yeats,

    When You Are Old).

    In this poem When You Are Old, William Butler Yeats uses many different styles of

    writing to convey the true meaning of romance, nostalgia, and acceptance of change. The author

    gravitates its readers to cherish deeper connections that go way beyond physical features and to

    really appreciate the type of true love that is timeless and even if time goes on and changes how

    we age that the love will always stay the same. At the beginning of When You Are Old feelings

    are expressed as nostalgic, warmth, and melancholic. Making readers truly think about what it

    means to explore the deeper aspects of love and that memory as they connect to aging. Towards

    the middle feelings change to be more complicated beginning with experimenting with the

    different types of love, and appreciation for time. At the end feelings combine a mixture of a

    sense of loss and reflection of life is brought up. As this poem goes through a rollercoaster of

    constant changes of emotions and feelings the style helps create a sense of imagery,

    personification, rhythm, tone, and symbolism.

    Rawlings 1
    Close Reading Essay Draft 1

    This poem has such a strong sense of detail and realism simply because Imagery plays an

    important role. The imagery allows the reader to envision and relate the raw emotions to their

    past, present, and future. The imagery wouldn’t be possible without the personification of the

    emotions such as how the ‘love fled’. This allows the reader to feel the remorse of losing the

    sense of love as we age because of the possibility of relationships dwindling overtime. This

    poem also doesn’t only highlight surface level love, but it looks past the surface and personifies

    the soul of the individual. Having someone love the ‘Pilgrim Soul’ that is within each of us

    means that this person loved us even when we were naive and full of life. The rhythm of this

    poem only enhances the story by starting off fast paced and full of life, just as we are in our

    youth, and progresses towards a loss of speed that is inevitable, similar to the aging process we

    all will endure. The tone plays into a similar pattern of being fast-paced and excited but then

    slowly turns into a more reflective piece of work where you reminisce on the different kinds of

    love “And loved your beauty with love false or true” that you have felt throughout your lifetime.

    This piece wouldn’t be complete without the symbolism it portrays. The symbolism that stands

    out to me reads “And loved the sorrows of your changing face” because this line shows that this

    person loves you through the good and bad that life has in store. This love is deeper than lust or

    infatuation and it’s more about loving this person in their entirety.

    At first read, this poem seems to be about the infatuations you experience throughout

    your lifetime. However upon close reading and deciphering, this poem is about the depths at

    which love is experienced through different stages of life. This poem acts as a reminder that love

    is fleeting and to approach life with love.

    Rawlings 2

    You might also like