The prayer of Yeats to the welfare of his daughter is modest and touchy. the powerpoint brief the prayer here and there

1. A Prayer for My Daughter
- William Butler Yeats
SUBMITTED to:
S. Mohan Raj
Assistant Professor,
Indo-American College, Cheyyar.
SUBMITTED BY:
B. Kalaiyarasi III B.A,[English Literature]
2015-2018 Batch
Assignment
on

2. Why Yeats pray for his
daughter?
 William Butler Yeats Pray for
his newborn child. He do so as he
was in a kind of gloom about the
future of his daughter.
 It was the time of First World
War. Though the War ended but
Ireland was still in disturbance.
 Yeats love for his daughter is
high and so, he pray for his
daughter.
 Her name is Anne Butler
Yeats.
 The poem was composed in
1919 and appeared in 1921.

3. William Butler Yeats: Biography
Born on June 13, 1865. He was educated at
Erasmus school, London.
His father John was a painter and lawyer.
His style is Essentially symbolistic.
Master of Traditional Verses.
Peak of his achievement in poetry are The
Towers (1928) The winding stair and Other
poems (1933)
Yeats wrote 20 plays. Concern with Irish
Theatre .
lacks with essential qualities as a dramatist.
In December 1923, was awarded Nobel
Prize for Literature.
His friends..
 G.B. Shaw
 Oscar Wide
 Maud Gonne.

4. A Prayer for My Daughter
I
Once more the storm is howling, and half hid
Under this cradle-hood and coverlid
My child sleeps on. There is no obstacle
But Gregory’s wood and one bare hill
Whereby the haystack- and roof-levelling wind, 5
Bred on the Atlantic, can be stayed;
And for an hour I have walked and prayed
Because of the great gloom that is in my mind.
II
I have walked and prayed for this young child an hour
And heard the sea-wind scream upon the tower, 10
And under the arches of the bridge, and scream
In the elms above the flooded stream;
Imagining in excited reverie
That the future years had come,
Dancing to a frenzied drum, 15
Out of the murderous innocence of the sea.
III
May she be granted beauty and yet not
Beauty to make a stranger’s eye distraught,
Or hers before a looking-glass, for such,
Being made beautiful overmuch, 20
Consider beauty a sufficient end,
Lose natural kindness and maybe
The heart-revealing intimacy
That chooses right, and never find a friend.
IV
Helen being chosen found life flat and dull 25
And later had much trouble from a fool,
While that great Queen, that rose out of the spray,
Being fatherless could have her way
Yet chose a bandy-leggèd smith for man.
It’s certain that fine women eat 30
A crazy salad with their meat
Whereby the Horn of Plenty is undone.
V
In courtesy I’d have her chiefly learned;
Hearts are not had as a gift but hearts are earned
By those that are not entirely beautiful; 35
Yet many, that have played the fool
For beauty’s very self, has charm made wise,
And many a poor man that has roved,
Loved and thought himself beloved,
From a glad kindness cannot take his eyes. 40

5. VI
May she become a flourishing hidden tree
That all her thoughts may like the linnet be,
And have no business but dispensing round
Their magnanimities of sound,
Nor but in merriment begin a chase, 45
Nor but in merriment a quarrel.
O may she live like some green laurel
Rooted in one dear perpetual place.
VII
My mind, because the minds that I have loved,
The sort of beauty that I have approved, 50
Prosper but little, has dried up of late,
Yet knows that to be choked with hate
May well be of all evil chances chief.
If there’s no hatred in a mind
Assault and battery of the wind 55
Can never tear the linnet from the leaf.
VIII
An intellectual hatred is the worst,
So let her think opinions are accursed.
Have I not seen the loveliest woman born
Out of the mouth of Plenty’s horn, 60
Because of her opinionated mind
Barter that horn and every good
By quiet natures understood
For an old bellows full of angry wind?
IX
Considering that, all hatred driven hence, 65
The soul recovers radical innocence
And learns at last that it is self-delighting,
Self-appeasing, self-affrighting,
And that its own sweet will is Heaven’s will;
She can, though every face should scowl 70
And every windy quarter howl
Or every bellows burst, be happy still.
X
And may her bridegroom bring her to a house
Where all’s accustomed, ceremonious;
For arrogance and hatred are the wares 75
Peddled in the thoroughfares.
How but in custom and in ceremony
Are innocence and beauty born?
Ceremony’s a name for the rich horn,
And custom for the spreading laurel tree. 80

6. Maud Gonne
Maud Gonne was born on December
21, 1886 near Surrey, England. She
founded the Irish Nationalist group
‘The Daughters of Ireland’. She had a
relationship with poet, William Butler
Yeats and was the inspiration for some
of his poems. In 1903, she married
Major John MacBride and the couple’s
son, Sean MacBride, was awarded the
Nobel peace Prize in 1974.

7. Helen and Great Queen
“Helen being chosen found life flat and dull
And later had much trouble from a fool,
While that great Queen, that rose out of the spray”
Helen was a woman of incomparable and exquisite beauty. Married to the
Greek warrior Menelaus, her beauty made her so vain that she found life with
Menelaus to be unsatisfactory. The impulsive Helen eloped with her lover who
was the Trojan prince. It paved the way for a destructive and proved to be
detrimental not only to her but to many others.
Aphrodite (Venus), the Goddess of love and beauty had no father and led a
dissipated life. Driven by instinct, she got married to the lame god, Hephaestus.
Her hasty decision led her astray; resulting in her having an illicit affair with
another God.

8. Literary devices
Personification- “the storm is howling” represents threatening external forces e.g. riots,
evilness. Roof-levelling wind represents turbulent forces.
Symbols- “Storm” represents outside forces which threaten Anne’s safety. “cradle hood”
represents Anne’s innocence and infancy. “Coverlid” represents innocence and ignorance, frail
protection. “Wind” represents turbulent forces. “One bare hill” may represent Robert’s death.
Metonym- The author may be mistaken but “Atlantic” may be the United States of America.
Alliteration- “Stranger’s eye distraught”.
Metaphor- “crazy salad”-an inferior spouse.
Paradox - “murderous innocence of the sea”
Rhyme scheme- aabbcddc
Tone: Frightening, precarious, gloomy.

9. My favourite lines from the poem…
“May she bed granted beauty and yet not…”
“Beauty to make a stranger’s eye distraught…”
“Or hers before a looking-glass, for such..”
“Consider beauty a sufficient end…”
“Lose natural kindness and may be…”
“The hear-revealing intimacy…”
“That chooses right, and never find a friend...”
He wishes that his daughter be given beauty, but her beauty is capable
of making proud and pride which leads to losing nature kindness.
Those who have excessive beauty are unable to make the right choices
do so and never find a good friend in the true sense of the world.