Political Poems: 'Easter 1916' by W.B. Yeats

Close Readings

Yeats’s great poem about the uprising of Irish republicans against British rule on 24 April 1916 marked a turning point in Ireland’s history and in Yeats's career. Through four stanzas Yeats enacts the transfiguration of the movement’s leaders – executed by the British shortly after the event – from ‘motley’ acquaintances to heroic martyrs, and interrogates his own attitude to nationalist violence. Mark and Seamus discuss Yeats’s reflections on the value of political commitment, his embrace of the role of national bard and the origin of the poem’s most famous line.

Mark Ford is Professor of English at University College, London, and Seamus Perry is Professor of English Literature at Balliol College, Oxford.

Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen in full and to all our other Close Readings series, sign up:

Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/ppapplesignup

In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/ppsignup

Read more in the LRB:

Terry Eagleton: https://lrb.me/eagletonpp

Colm Tóibín: https://lrb.me/toibinpp

Frank Kermode: https://lrb.me/kermode2pp

Tom Paulin: https://lrb.me/paulinpp

---

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.