first published in the Macmillan edition of The Wild Swans at Coole in 1919. The poem is a soliloquy given by an aviator in the First World War

1. By
Laxmikant Kapgate
Department of English
Shivprasad Sadanand Jaiswal College,
Arjuni Mor Dist Gondia
www.ssjaiswalcollege.edu.in

2. 
 Place Of Birth
Dublin, Ireland on June 13, 1865
Place of Death
Menton, France, on January 28, 1939
Education
Metropolitan School of Art (Dublin)
 became involved with the Celtic Revival, a movement
against the cultural influences of English rule in Ireland
during the Victorian period, which sought to promote the
spirit of Ireland's native heritage.
 awarded the Nobel Prize in 1923 “for his always inspired
poetry, which in a highly artistic form gives expression to
the spirit of a whole nation”.
William Butler Yeats
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3. 
 started his literary career as a romantic poet and gradually
evolved into a modernist poet
 presents the spirit of the age in his poetry
 myth, symbolism, juxtaposition, colloquial language and literary
allusions as a device to express the anxiety of modernity
 After the World war-I, people suffered from frustration,
boredom, anxiety and loneliness. Yeats has used different type of
landscape to symbolize the spiritual and psychological states of
modern man.
 a Symbolist poet, using allusive imagery and symbolic structures
throughout his career
 W. B. Yeats as a Poet
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4. 
 The Irish Literary
Theatre (founded in 1899
by William Butler Yeats
and Isabella Augusta,
Lady Gregory, and
devoted to fostering
Irish poetic drama)
 Abbey Theatre
or the National Theatre of Ireland
Courtesy of the Abbey Theatre; photograph, Ros Kavanagh
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5. 
 The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems (1889)
 The Countess Kathleen and Various Legends and Lyrics (1892)
 In the Seven Woods (1903)
 Responsibilities and Other Poems (1916)
 The Wild Swans at Coole (1919)
 Michael Robartes and the Dancer (1921)
 The Tower (1928)
 The Winding Stair and Other Poems (1933)
 W B Yeats’s Major Works
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6. 
 War poem
 Heroism
 nationalism
 an Elegy
 Sense of helplessness
 Monologue
 set in World War I
 Death
 Major facts about the poem
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7. 
I know that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere among the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate,
Those that I guard I do not love;
My country is Kiltartan Cross,
My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor,
No likely end could bring them loss
Or leave them happier than before.
An Irish Airman foresees his Death
(First published in the collection The Wild Swans at Coole in 1919)
Glossary:
 Fate (Line 1) - Death. The speaker is
saying that he will die while flying an
airplane in the war.
 Guard (Line 4) - Fight for or on behalf
of.
 Kiltartan Cross (Line 5) - This refers
to the region of County Galway on the
southwest coast of Ireland.
Specifically, Kiltartan Cross is a
medieval Catholic church.
• Kiltartan's Poor (Line 6) - The poor
people who live in theregion near the
Kiltartan Church in County Galway,
Ireland.
• End (Line 7) - Outcome; the
resolution of the war.
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8. 
Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.
 An Irish Airman foresees his Death
Glossary
 Bade (Line 9) - Encouraged or
forced the speaker to fight.
 Public Men (Line 10) -
Politicians or other public
figures.
 Tumult (Line 12) - Chaos or
confusion. Here, the speaker
isreferring specifically to
dogfights between enemy fighter
planes.
 Balanced (Line 13, Line 16) -
Compared or measured; weighed
the good and the bad. In other
words, the speaker takes stock of
his life and considers all the
different aspects of his past,
present, and future.
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9. 
 written in a single 16-line stanza, divided into
four quatrains, each of which follows the same
basic rhyme scheme:ABAB
 four grouped “quatrains” of alternating rhymes:
ABABCDCDEFEFGHGH, or four repetitions of the
basic ABAB scheme utilizing different rhymes.
Rhyme Scheme
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10. 
 The speaker is an Irish fighter pilot in World War I. The
poem is based on the life and death of a real pilot,
Major Robert Gregory, who flew with the British Air
Force and died during World War I.
 Gregory was the son of one Yeats’s friends and the
poem was written as an elegy for him, which is why
this guide uses masculine pronouns to refer to the
speaker.
 Speaker in the poem
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11. 
 written in iambic tetrameter. Iambic tetrameter has a "da DUM"
rhythm, with four feet per line.
I know | that I | shall meet | my fate
(Iamb sounds like a heartbeat, sort of like duh-DUH. When
four beats are placed together in a line of poetry, it is called
tetrameter. When we combine iamb with tetrameter, it is a line of
poetry with four beats of one unstressed syllable, followed by one
stressed syllable, and it is called iambic tetrameter.)
 Meter
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12. 
 Metaphor
• Line 1: “I shall meet my fate”
• Line 12: “this tumult in the clouds”
• Lines 14-15: “The years to come seemed waste of
breath, / A waste of breath the years behind”
 Repetition
• Line3: Those that I fight I do not hate,
• Line 4: Those that I guard I do not love;
•
ASSONANCE
• Almost all of the poem’s rhymes involve assonance—as in the strong /a/ sound that
appears in “fate” and “hate” in lines 1 and 3 or the /o/ sound in “Cross” and
“loss” in lines 5 and 7.
 Rhetorical Devices
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13. 
 https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/poetry/irish-
airman/themes
 https://www.litcharts.com/poetry/william-butler-yeats/an-
irish-airman-foresees-his-death
 https://literariness.org/wp-
content/uploads/2020/05/LitCharts-an-irish-airman-foresees-
his-death.pdf
 https://study.com/academy/lesson/iambic-tetrameter-
definition-examples-quiz.html
 References
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14. 
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