September 1913 Essay Questions

Describe the poem's meter and rhyme scheme. How do these shape the poem as a whole?

"September 1913" is written in iambic tetrameter. In other words, each line consists of four iambs, which are themselves two-syllable units in which emphasis falls on the second syllable. The rhyme scheme is ABABCDCD, meaning that each eight-line stanza contains two distinct sets of rhymes. Iambs produce a conversational tone, mimicking the typical pattern of English-language speech, so that the poem's speaker sounds almost as if he is speaking naturally and spontaneously. Meanwhile, each of the four stanzas ends on the word "grave," prompting a rhyming sound that recurs at the close of every stanza, regardless of the new rhyming sounds that have been introduced in the earlier parts of the stanza. This creates a feeling of fatedness and inevitability, reproducing the bleak historical cycles described throughout the work.

Briefly describe at least one of the historical events alluded to in this work.

With his reference to "wild geese," Yeats introduces a 1691 event often referred to as the "flight of the wild geese." In the late seventeenth century, Ireland's Jacobite armies fought on behalf of a Catholic monarch, James II, against the reign of the Protestant William of Orange. The fighting on the Irish front ended with the Treaty of Limerick, which specified that these Irish armies would be permitted to continue fighting for the Jacobite cause in continental Europe and specifically in the French army. While the term "flight of the wild geese" refers to this specific 1691 event, the phrase "wild geese" generally can be understood as referring to the historical trend of Irish soldiers fighting in the armies of other European nations.