Topic > Yeats' exploration of the importance of history in 'September 1913'

September 1913 was the culmination of one of the most important industrial disputes in Irish history and the poem 'September 1913' is based on this. Yeats was, at the time, a great supporter of the lower classes and everywhere attacked middle-class businessmen and capitalism in general. The use of the phrases "until greased" and "add halfpence to pence" shows how shopkeepers took in large sums of money and even so the smaller sums were counted. There are many instances where Yeats uses the words "pray", "prayer" or "pray", which is obviously a reference to the Church which was an important part of the revolution and protests in Ireland because some people believed they could. change the country simply by praying to God and others were certain that the pressure on the government must be physical. Yeats was a supporter of the latter and shows the hypocrisy of remaining faithful to the Church which encourages everyone to give more money. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Yeats repeats the last two lines of each stanza (with a slight variation on the last stanza) that mention "O'Leary in the grave". This is a reference to John O'Leary, a friend who influenced Yeats after meeting him and encouraging him to join the Irish Republican Brotherhood of which O'Leary was a senior member. However, after his arrest and execution for high treason, Yeats believes that with his death will come the end or, at least, a pause in the country's long-desired reform. This may be the result or reason of the previous sentence stating that "romantic Ireland is dead and gone", meaning that any idealistic view of Ireland and its culture has been eradicated. Despite his belief that revolutions and change will need to pause until more leaders and heroes, like O'Leary, are found, Yeats writes about extremist revolutions in the second stanza. Yeats was initially pessimistic about the nature of these protests as he believed they would simply lead to the government being harsher. However, he came to the idea of ​​more radical solutions when he saw that little was being achieved from passive protests and this led him to praise the revolutionaries who became an immovable part of society because "names silenced your game childish". He is as aware as the men planning and carrying out the protests that they will likely have the "hangman's rope" waiting for them if they are caught. The third paragraph describes how "the wild geese spread" in reference to the many Irish soldiers who left the country to fight abroad as mercenaries. This is because they dislike or distrust the Irish government and Yeats claims that this has led to much "blood...shedding". It is in this stanza that he uses the names of three historically significant people, the first of which is Edward Fitzgerald, an English poet who served his country in the army before planning a rebellion in Ireland for which he was arrested and shot. In the next line, he mentions Robert Emmet and Wolfe Tone, the latter was the founding member of the United Irishmen's Organization which Emmet later joined and rebelled against. After his exile in Europe in 1800, he was able to form alliances with some French factions, who promised to support him with their armies. However, his plan failed and both Emmet and Tone were captured and executed. Yeats uses these three people, along with O'Leary, to represent the Irish heroes who showed courage in giving up their lives in an attempt to get what they wanted, but achieving little overall..