To a Shade Essay Questions

How does Yeats draw parallels between the Shade and the other man described in the poem?

Though he does not reference them by name, Yeats uses this poem to address the paired legacies of Charles Stewart Parnell and Hugh Lane. Through the figure of the Shade, which allows Yeats to bring Parnell rhetorically back from the dead, Yeats is able to directly compare the two. Parnell was an Irish politician, while Lane was a gallerist and art dealer—yet Yeats presents them both as, essentially, Irish patriots. He argues that Parnell and Lane both devoted themselves to bettering Ireland for future generations. Yet he also parallels their misfortunes, arguing that each one was rebuffed by a cruel and insufficiently grateful public.

Explicate the poem's final line.

In the poem's closing line, the speaker instructs the Shade to return to the grave rather than remain in modern Dublin, pointing out that he will be "safer in the tomb." This is a surprising, ironic turn, in which death—typically conceived as something to avoid—is instead depicted as a place of security. Through this irony, Yeats is able to drive home his greater point, which is that Parnell faced disproportionate and intolerable abuse at the hands of his fellow Irishmen. This injustice was so intense, the speaker hints, that it has altered the usual paradigm of life and death, forcing the Shade to seek refuge in death and flee from life. The speaker does not merely state that the Shade should return to the grave, but indeed urges him with the command "Away, away!," adding to the urgency of his statement while simultaneously revealing a feeling of protectiveness over the Shade.