In the poem Easter 1916, the author W.B. Yeats having an ambiguous attitude towards the Easter Rising is because of the contradiction between his values and nationalism, his personal feelings of love and respect, people’s attitudes before and after the rebellion.
To start with, I would like to give a brief background of the poem. The poem Easter 1916 was written between May and September back in 1916, which was right after the rebellion movement conducted by the Irish called The Easter Rising. The movement aimed for independence of Ireland but failed after six days due to much more powerful weapons suppressed by the British army, leading to a number of casualties including many civilians.
One of the themes of this poem is to express the author's personal view towards the Easter Rising insurrection. One point which is worth mentioning is that Yeats opposes using violence as the methods or means for the independence of Ireland, which can be seen in the poem as he wrote “a mocking tale or gibe,” referring to satiric responses author used to talk about the revolutionary’s ambitions.
One of the reasons why Yeats’s attitude was ambiguous towards the insurrection is because of the contrast of his identity and his personal view towards the rebellion. Yeats was an Irish poet born in 1865. However, he opposed using violence as a solution whereas the insurrection was an armed insurrection, leading to a dilemma inside his mind. A repetition of “a terrible beauty is born” is a great example of showcasing the dilemma in his mind along the poem, I will use the one in stanza one as an example. The word “terrible” and “beauty” are the words that won’t be used together as “terrible” resembles horror, scary and frightening while “beauty” resembles pretty, gorgeous and charming, but these two words were used together despite their opposite lexical concept. Therefore, we can see that there’s struggles created inside the author’s head; we may assume that the author actually agreed with the idea of acquiring independence for Ireland. However, when he saw that the movement was filled with weapons and bullets, he realized that this is a ridiculous act which completely violated his moral values and infeasible. Meanwhile, he realized many of his clans even the innocents were killed by the British army during the rebellion, resulting in a collision between clan-identity and moral values of oneself. The violence methods used in the rebellion resemble “terrible” while the idea of Ireland’s independence resembles “beauty.” We could see that the author combined words with contradictions together in order to resembles his perturbed thoughts since he sympathized with his clans and country, but he also believed in his point of view, believing that the violence act was a bad idea. Therefore, Yeats having an ambiguous attitude is reasonable.
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Another reason for Yeats’s ambiguous attitude is because of the contradictions of the author’s different feelings. As I studied, I found out that Yeats fell in love with a woman named Maud Gonne who was married to a man named John MacBride instead of Yeats himself. Later, history says John mistreated his wife and daughter, resulting in a great displease from Yeats. However, John was also one of those military leaders who got executed by the British after the rebellion. “A drunken, vainglorious lout He had done most bitter wrong to some who are near my heart, Yet I number him in the song.” Various rude and negative adjectives were used to describe John as Yeats was angry about the fact that John mistreated “some who are near my heart” which should be referring to the author’s be loved Maud. However, as I said Yeats had a great sense of nationalism and somehow the one, he hated has “sacrificed” for the country, leading to another perturbation. “Yet” is the conjunction used to showcase Yeats’s sudden changes in feelings, resembling Yeats’s utterly and sudden changes due to John’s “sacrifice” for the country. As we can see, there’s various reasons for Yeats to despise John. However, considering that John was brave enough to fight for the independence of the country, Yeats had to put his personal feelings aside in order to acknowledge for what John did for the movement and the country while still hating him deep down, resulting in another change in attitude while creating more ambiguousness towards the rebellion.
Finally, Yeats’s ambiguousness is formed due to the difference in the public’s attitude before and after the rebellion. Through the last stanza, we can see a change in the author’s attitude, “Was it needless death after all?” resembling the author’s discontent towards this violent rebellion as he always doubted the possibility of success and methods used in the Easter Rising. This line may act as a rhetorical question, which consist of a tone of blaming, blaming those leaders of the rebellion for their impulsive act, leading to a number of unnecessary casualties and sacrifices due to the leader’s contempt towards the British. However, at the end of the same stanza Yeats showcased a different approach towards the rebellion. “Wherever green is worn, are changed and changed utterly” is what the author’s used to describe the changes of Irish, since many Irish civilians were killed and executed in the incident, Irish has become more cooperative and united since then, which benefits the future liberation of Ireland. Therefore, the author said no matter where the color green is worn, which represents the color of Irish, people has been completely changed. The author had a feeling of gratified as the people of Ireland was more united, but when he realized that this unity was built upon the blood of Irish, he felt a sense of sorrow and even a bit disappointed to those movement leader’s decisions. As we can see, the author felt both thankful and displeased towards the rebellion movement regarding to its effect and cost, leading to an ambiguous attitude towards the Easter Rising.
The ambiguous among the poem is complicated as it was mixed with various concepts and feelings. His feeling is actually understandable as it is similar to Hong Kong’s situation nowadays. As a Hong Konger, I hate to see our people hurting each other both verbally and physically due to different political standings , I also oppose using violence as a means to settle things as I am both sure and concerned that unnecessary deaths and sacrifices are what comes next if the violence continues. Besides, I can also see that Hong Kongers are more united due to the incidents that happened in the past six months. However, it is built upon the disharmony of the society, the casualties of different citizens, the differentiation of the society etc. Just like the feeling Yeats had after the Easter Rising incident.
This kind of ambiguous not only reflects the perturbation between Yeats’s personal opinions and social crisis, it also reflects the antithetic of our emotional and objective side. There are many things that will be both trigger our emotions and require us to make the objective act in our lives, just like many of us, the author has great feelings and sense of belonging towards a certain groups, but we cannot just follow our feelings even if we want to when it comes something moral. This poem did a great job in showcasing these ambiguous and fidget feelings when people have to make choices that require us to stand on the morality’s side for something or someone we care or love.
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