musings - Yeats, 1916, and "The Dreaming of the Bones"
I don't believe I've ever read any of the works of W.B. Yeats before, I was aware of him, thought he was a 19th c. English poet - which should reveal the depths of my ignorance.
And then a couple of years ago, my fascination with Alan Rickman led me to watching Michael Collins and I learnt, for the first time ever, of the Easter Uprising of 1916. I suppose it's not so surprising, American History tended to skip from the Civil War to the second World War with only a light mention of the first and the emphasis was on the Nazis to the fascination of the males in my classes. In the face of it, and perhaps to my young self, 16 men executed by firing squad seems small beside the thousands and hundreds of thousands slaughtered on battlefield and concentration camps of the two wars.
Last year, while repairing a book in the high school library, I came across a poem Easter, 1916. It was perhaps the first of his works I'd ever read and because of the movie, I understood the references, which I would not have before.
This week, we were doing inventory on the 800s section, and I selected two books to bring home with me, a collection of rhymes and poetry and The Collected Plays of W.B. Yeats.
There is a play within the latter called The Dreaming of the Bones and it had me with the lines, Stranger : You have fought in Dublin?
Young Man : I was in the Post Office, and if taken I shall be put against a wall and shot.
The play touches me, it speaks of things that most interest me - of Irish history, of the Rebellion, of history and the haunting of spirits, the penance of sin. I had heard of Diarmaid Mac Murchadha, the deposed king of Leinster who invited the English and Normans into Ireland; but never of Dearbhforghaill (Dervorla), wife of Tiarnán Ó Ruairc, whom he carried away. Yeats puts all the blame of the English occupation squarely and equally upon the two of them. I had always blamed Adrian - the only English Pope - for that crime.
I wonder, too, if Helen of Troy would have been remembered so gently if the Trojans had not been overthrown so completely, if they had continued to hold out as the Irish did. Would she be as forgotten and despised as Dearbhforghaill?
And then a couple of years ago, my fascination with Alan Rickman led me to watching Michael Collins and I learnt, for the first time ever, of the Easter Uprising of 1916. I suppose it's not so surprising, American History tended to skip from the Civil War to the second World War with only a light mention of the first and the emphasis was on the Nazis to the fascination of the males in my classes. In the face of it, and perhaps to my young self, 16 men executed by firing squad seems small beside the thousands and hundreds of thousands slaughtered on battlefield and concentration camps of the two wars.
Last year, while repairing a book in the high school library, I came across a poem Easter, 1916. It was perhaps the first of his works I'd ever read and because of the movie, I understood the references, which I would not have before.
This week, we were doing inventory on the 800s section, and I selected two books to bring home with me, a collection of rhymes and poetry and The Collected Plays of W.B. Yeats.
There is a play within the latter called The Dreaming of the Bones and it had me with the lines, Stranger : You have fought in Dublin?
Young Man : I was in the Post Office, and if taken I shall be put against a wall and shot.
The play touches me, it speaks of things that most interest me - of Irish history, of the Rebellion, of history and the haunting of spirits, the penance of sin. I had heard of Diarmaid Mac Murchadha, the deposed king of Leinster who invited the English and Normans into Ireland; but never of Dearbhforghaill (Dervorla), wife of Tiarnán Ó Ruairc, whom he carried away. Yeats puts all the blame of the English occupation squarely and equally upon the two of them. I had always blamed Adrian - the only English Pope - for that crime.
I wonder, too, if Helen of Troy would have been remembered so gently if the Trojans had not been overthrown so completely, if they had continued to hold out as the Irish did. Would she be as forgotten and despised as Dearbhforghaill?