[Deven Coulter]

Although we have not yet discussed Yeats’ transitional works in depth, I immediately noted the contrast between “Adam’s Curse” and the works we have read previously. It seemed to me as if <i>In the Seven Woods</i> contained a meta-discourse on Yeats’ poetry, and a paradoxical one at that. In “Adam’s Curse,” when the speaker is talking of poetry, he states, “A line will take us hours maybe;/ Yet if it does not seem a moment’s thought,/ Our stitching and unstitching has been naught.” Yet this poem, which discusses the writing of poetry, calls attention to itself with its strict rhyme scheme. Yeats again calls attention to himself as a writer with the poem “Red Hanrahan’s Song about Ireland,” as Red Hanrahan is a reoccurring fictional character Yeats invents. I found that I remained hyperaware of Yeats as a writer, and the poems as a part of a defined collection, as I read the rest of the poems in <i>In the Seven Woods</i>. It seems that many poems are related to one another with the repetition of particular words (like “marrow” in “The Arrow” and “marrow-bone” in “Adam’s Curse”). Did anyone else feel the similarly when reading poems <i>In the Seven Woods</i>?

[Joseph Figliolia]

This observation is especially interesting after our recent discussion about Yeat’s careful placement of his poems within this collection. For example, the concerted decision to transition from” Adam’s curse” to  “Red Hanrahan’s Song about Ireland” is imbued with a layer of self conscious irony in light of the concluding stanza of the first poem. For example, yeat’s allusions to the celebrated Cathleen Ni Houlian, and by extension, Maud Gonne, ring hollow and empty after “Adam’s curse,” and Yeat’s lament about  love, and art in the ideal, and love and art in reality.

[Author]

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