[Joseph Figliolia]

In light of our recent discussion about the symbolic function of roses in Yeats’ poems, I found this poem particularly interesting. In the poem, the narrator appears to lament the discrepancy between the mundane material world, and the ultimate reality symbolized by the rose. The narrator also expresses his longing to recreate existence in the image of the infinite in order to align with his ideal. I was wondering if anyone else had any other interpretations, or would like to share other examples where Yeats compares and contrasts corporeal existence with transcendent reality

[Andrew Mowrer]

One example that sticks out in my mind is “The Song of Wandering Aengus,” in which the speaker fritters his youth away chasing an unattainable and fantastical girl formed out of a trout. Aengus’ obsession with the girl is as unexplained and illogical as her initial appearance. To an emotionally symbolic mind, however, none of that is important. It is also interesting that Aengus’ “hazel wood” seems to echo Dante the pilgrim’s “dark wood” from the opening stanza of Inferno. In both cases, the speaker finds himself lodged between everyday life and an idealized world.

[Rob Doggett]

One of the things that interesting about “The Lover tells of the Rose in his Heart” is the phrase, “casket of gold.” There’s a sense of something at once important (gold) and dead (casket), as if what the lover wants of his beloved is to freeze into pure essence–to become, in other words, a beautiful (but dead) statue.  On this reading, the lover desires the end of desire, the point, that is, at which the beloved is captured. The final line, though, returns us to the realm of desire: “for my dreams of your image….” We get a “dream” (which is about desire) for an “image” (the golden statue but now rendered as something considerably less ‘solid’) that results somehow in the blossoming of the rose (a symbol). In this way, we can see the poem as essentially about poetry: the longing (the dream) for the end of desire (the golden statue / image) produces the rose (the beautiful poem). This, of course, all ties in now with Andrew’s point: “The Song of Wandering Aengus” does what this poem theorizes. “The Song” is the rose, the beautiful thing, produced out of the desire for an image.

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