An Irish Airman foresees his death

AN IRISH AIRMAN FORESEES HIS DEATH

• Realises he is going to die 'I know that I shall meet my fate'
• Fallen representative of Irish culture and aristocrat culture.
• Rejects the characteristic reasons for war and flying- soars above politics and instead sees his action as an expression of romantic individualism and paradoxical self assertion.
• Dramatic monologue- poetic speaker addresses either the reader or an internal listener at length.- link to Man and the Echo and Cat and the Moon. His death is going to be so much more than the 'waste of breath' that his life is.
• Liminal- 'among the clouds'- in between state- Timelessness like Wild Swans at Coole.
• 'Drove to this tumult in the clouds…