William Butler Yeats And Flickr

William Butler Yeats and Flickran ethnographic approach

prepared by Arthur Hall as coursework for

the MSc in E-learningat the University of Edinburgh

W B Yeats: four poses

Introduction to Yeats• In the picture that follows there are two seats• On the left one, imagine if you will, Yeats himself seated• On the right one, all that Yeats carried intellectually as background

to his poetic work piled upon that seat• The cultures, traditions and myths of Ireland, Greece, Rome and the

Byzantine empire• The horror of the potato blight and the consequent mass emigration,

living in the folk memory• His concept of poetry; to be sung as by the bards of antiquity; his

founding of the Abbey Theatre in Dublin• An Ireland struggling to free itself from the Cromwellian yolk – by

violence if necessary• His own confused Anglo-Irish roots and his strange, imposing

appearance

...and now to flickr photos and Yeats‘ poetry

• http://www.flickr.com/groups/literaryreference/discuss/72157594169912321/

• http://www.poetry-archive.com/y/yeats_w_b.html

http://www.flickr.com/groups/literaryreference/discuss/72157594169912321/



http://www.poetry-archive.com/y/yeats_w_b.html

http://www.poetry-archive.com/y/yeats_w_b.html

Introduction

• The approach I adopted was to link three concepts in this small project:

• Firstly, my study of Yeats with my 13th class for the German Abitur

• Secondly, to look at the interplay between the visual and poetic text

• Finally, to offer my basic comments as my first ethnographic attempt

to start the ball rolling; from mquest - 41 months agohttp://www.flickr.com/photos/mquest/sets/72157594401381511

• Choose your companions from the best; Who draws a bucket with the rest soon topples down the hill.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mquest/sets/72157594401381511

highlighted by the picture

• The closeness of childhood companions• The intensity they bring to their friendship• The unconsciousness of the significance of this

instinctive choice• Rapt attention• The predominance of the foreground in childhood

friendships• The ability to shut out peripheral vision

not touched by the picture

• Think alone; don‘t follow the crowd

• Think where this may lead

• Pride comes before a fall

mquest again; also 41 months ago

• O but there is wisdom In what the sages said; But stretch that body for a while And lay down that head Till I have told the sages Where man is comforted.


• Focuses on physical warmth and proximity

• Relaxes the body

• Shows closeness in loving relationships

• The isolation from others within a relationship


• The wisdom of sages

• The laying down of the head

mquest again; once again 41 months ago

• No expectation fails there,No pleasing habit ends,No man grows old, no girl grows cold,But friends walk by friends.


• Pre-pubescent simplicity

• Lack of expectation

• Daily continuity

• No coquetry

• Friends not taken for granted


• The unendingness of pleasing habits

• No growing old

Örgdög Peter; 5 months agohttp://www.flickr.com/photos/pityke/

• I have spread my dreams under your feetTread softly because you tread on my dreams

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pityke/


• The blurred nature of dreams

• Leaves spread like a carpet beneath people

• I (represented by nature) have spread my dreams

• Figurative for leaves?


• Treading softly

mquest; once again 41 months ago

• People who lean on logic and philosophy and rational exposition end by starving the best part of the mind.


• Science representing logic and philosophy?

• Rational exposition represented by a concrete invention?


• People

• Reliance on logic and philosophy

• Starving the best part of the mind

Bluepeony; 41 months ago

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bluepeony/

• A young man in the dark am I,But a wild old man in the light,That can make a cat laugh, orCan tough by mother witThings hid in their marrow bonesFrom time long passed away.

from The Wild Old Wicked Man

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bluepeony/


• Youthful feeling

• Wild man

• Elderly guitarist – exercise of ‘mother wit‘

• Time passing between the two figures


• Making a cat laugh

• Hid in their marrow bones

Lynn Morag; 41 months ago

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lynnmorag/

• 'Put off that mask of burning goldWith emerald eyes.''O no, my dear, you make so bold"To find if hearts be wild and wise,And yet not cold.''I would but find what's there to find,Love or deceit.''It was the mask engaged your mind,And after set your heart to beat,Not what's behind.''But lest you are my enemy,I must enquire.''O no, my dear, let all that be;What matter, so there is but fireIn you, in me?'"

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lynnmorag/


• Mask of burning gold

• What‘s behind the mask

• Mask (masquerade) hides the unknown

friend or enemy


• The underlying dialogue

• Love or deceit

• Fire in you or me

Lynn Morag; also 41 months ago

• "These are the clouds about the fallen sun,The majesty that shuts his burning eye:The weak lay hand on what the strong has done,Till that be tumbled that was lifted highAnd discord follow upon unison,And all things at one common level lie.And therefore, friend, if your great race were runAnd these things came, So much the more therebyHave you made greatness your companion,Although it be for children that you sigh:These are the clouds about the fallen sun,The majesty that shuts his burning eye."


• The reversal of up and down / high and low through reflection

• All things at one common level

• Clouds about the sun

• Majesty that shuts the

burning eye


• The weak and the strong

• Discord

• Greatness as companion

• Sighing for children

Lynn Morag; still 41 months ago

• "I will arise and go now, for always night and day I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore; While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray, I hear it in the deep heart's core."


• Lake water lapping

• Low sounds by the shore

• Person out of view standing

• Image of deep heart‘s core


• Getting up and going

• Grey pavements

dnzwoman; 41 months ago

http://www.flickr.com/photos/78179407@N00/

• "What they undertook to doThey brought to pass;All things hang like a drop of dewUpon a blade of grass."



• Hanging like a frop of dew

• Blade of grass


• What was undertaken

• What happened

Up the Banner; also posted 41 months agohttp://www.flickr.com/photos/mikal/sets/405914/

• Easter, 1916Poem lyrics of Easter, 1916 I have met them at close of dayComing with vivid facesFrom counter or desk among greyEighteenth-century houses.I have passed with a nod of the headOr polite meaningless words,Or have lingered awhile and saidPolite meaningless words,And thought before I had doneOf a mocking tale or a gibeTo please a companionAround the fire at the club,Being certain that they and IBut lived where motley is worn:All changed, changed utterly:A terrible beauty is born.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikal/sets/405914/


• Vivid face

• thought

• The greyness

• The meaningless of words

• A terrible beauty created


• Counter, desk and houses

• Nod of the head

• Meaningless words

• Group of people

• Fire at the club and motley

Musicmuse_ca; 41 months ago


• The WheelThrough winter-time we call on spring,And through the spring on summer callAnd when abounding hedges ringDeclare that winter's best of all;And after that there s nothing goodBecause the spring-time has not come --Nor know that what disturbs our bloodIs but its longing for the tomb.



• The wheel of time

• Echoes of Leonardo da Vinci

• The cycle of the seasons

• The limitations of mortality

• The feeling of age


• The spring time that will not come

• The disturbance of longing for the tomb

Legends2k; 5 months ago

http://www.flickr.com/photos/legends2k/

• That is no country for old men. The youngIn one another’s arms, birds in the trees—Those dying generations—at their song,The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer longWhatever is begotten, born, and dies.Caught in that sensual music all neglectMonuments of unageing intellect.

~ Sailing To Byzantium

http://www.flickr.com/photos/legends2k/


• No country for the old

• Dying generations

• Commendation of the created, born and death


• Young in one another‘s arms

• Birds in trees

• Salmon falls, mackerel crowded seas

• Sensual music

• Monuments of unageing intellect

Marcin; 41 months ago: “ A great idea Mike.“http://www.flickr.com/photos/sankos/

• "tread softly because you tread on my dreams" (He wishes for the cloths of heaven)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sankos/


• Foot and treading

• dreams


• It‘s all there!

mquest; once more 41 months ago

• The Meditation Of The Old Fisherman

YOU waves, though you dance by my feet like children at play,Though you glow and you glance, though you purr and you dart;In the Junes that were warmer than these are, the waves were more gay,When I was a boy with never a crack in my heart.The herring are not in the tides as they were of old;My sorrow! for many a creak gave the creel in the-cartThat carried the take to Sligo town to be sold,When I was a boy with never a crack in my heart.And ah, you proud maiden, you are not so fair when his oarIs heard on the water, as they were, the proud and apart,Who paced in the eve by the nets on the pebbly shore,When I was a boy with never a crack in my heart.


• When I was a boy with never a crack in my heart


• Waves

• Children at play

• The tides

• The cart

• Sligo

• Maiden

• Nets on the pebbly shore

...and finally my flickr offering today

• Dance there upon the shore;What need have you to careFor wind or water's roar?

William Butler Yeats To a Child Dancing in the Wind


• The innocence of childhood symbolized by a cloudless sky

• Child dancing

• Breakers in the wind

• Sea and shore

The last stanza of Yeats‘ ‘Under Ben Bulben‘

• Under bare Ben Bulben’s headIn Drumcliff churchyard Yeats is laid.An ancestor was rector thereLong years ago, a church stands near,By the road an ancient cross.

• No marble, no conventional phrase;On limestone quarried near the spotBy his command these words are cut:

• Cast a cold eyeOn life, on death.Horseman, pass by!

Yeats‘ own epitaph

Education

William Butler Yeats And Flickr