The Fisherman - W.B Yeats

First Stanza

Description of the Fisherman "Freckled man" "Wise and simple man" - oxymoron, full of wisom yet has simple desires, Yeats believes he is the ideal irishman 

"Gray place" "Gray connemara clothes"- The Fisherman blends in with the setting/landscape- pathetic fallacy, grey represents connemara as does the fisherman 

"The living men that I hate, The dead man that I loved" - Juxtaposes Old Ireland vs. New Ireland, shows his negativity towards modernism and  a new Ireland. 

"Beating down of the wise and great Art beaten down" - repetition of 'beaten' highlights his anger of people not appreciating art and the destruction in Ireland. Links to September 1916- 'Romantic Ireland's dead and gone'- shows attitude towards modern Ireland Ireland hasn't changed. 

Second Stanza 

"Scorn" - Reflects his disgust for moden Ireland 

"Where stone is dark with froth, and the down turn of the wrist" - He depicts the fisherman at work in his romantic setting- Romantic Solitude 

"A man who does not exist"- forgotten/replaced "A man who is but a dream"- his utopian, world/vision 

"Poem maybe as cold and passionate as the dawn" - Oxymoron used- what life is like for the fisherman. The oxymoron contrasts the fisherman vs. new man; old Ireland vs. new Ireland; Ireland vs. England; romantisism vs. Modernism

ABAB repated and Iambic tetremeter used-  movement in time, simplicity of the fisherman, old Ireland and romantisism 

The first stanza is split in two halves where he begins by talking about the fisherman and then contrasts this with the new modern Irish man. 

The second stanza is shorter compared with the first as it is the end of the fisherman-> represents changes taking place in Ireland and modernism is taking over romantisism 

- Old Ireland vs. New Ireland 

- Represents his love for Nature and art and how modern Ireland does not appreciate these things (romantisism vs. modernism) 

- Yeats is concerned with the changes in Ireland- industrilisation 

- War is causing Ireland to lose it's nature and art. 

- Yeats is also concerned with ageing by this point due to the wars have taken place as The Fisherman is written in 1919