The World of Weeping: Pain and Pleasure in "The Stolen Child" Anonymous College

The narrative contained within “The Stolen Child,” a poem written in 1866 by William Butler Yeats, is borrowed from a well-known tale in Irish mythology – that of the Changeling. This myth proposed that fairies would often steal away a human child and replace it with a fairy child, a ‘changeling.’ The difference between the two children was supposedly profound, with the changeling often appearing sickly, physically deformed, and possibly having a ravenous appetite. During a time period where infant mortality rates were high and knowledge of physical and mental disabilities were low, changelings created an explanation for otherwise frightening and devastating occurrences in the lives of early Irish peoples. Nevertheless, Yeats infuses the fairies’ act of theft with positive connotations, creating an ambiguous twist on this common myth. This is accomplished mainly through exploration of the experience of pleasure and pain, the former belonging to the fairy-world and the latter to the human world.

The poem displays many characteristics often attributed to the ballad form, an oral storytelling tradition which has recently moved into the written language. Though it lacks a regular rhyme scheme and the 4 line stanzas typically...