Forum Replies Created
Viewing 1 post (of 1 total)
Viewing 1 post (of 1 total)
I think the utilization to understand “Michael Robartes and the Dancer” is an interesting one. Devon, I agree with your point that Yeats does not seem to be anti-woman or anti-feminist in this poem. Yeats, as we have discussed is class, is a very self conscious writer and deliberately creates the voice of both the man and the woman in the poem, and it is important to remember that just because he is a male doesn’t mean that the male voice in the poem necessarily represents his own. In fact, on the contrary, it seems as though Yeats is making fun of Michael Robartes using the female voice, as he uses elaborate and convoluted arguments and statements and the dancer simply replies, “You mean the argued.” It seems that Yeats is mocking the patriarchal superiority complex as the pompous attitude of the male voice in the poem inclines the reader to sympathize with the dancer as she is genuinely questioning and attempting to understand, likening her actions to seeking out self actualization whereas the male voice believes that he has already achieved it. For Yeats, having already reached a goal as large as achieving a unity of being would be detrimental to his aesthetic, therefore it is more likely that he would admire the dancer’s train of thought, and perhaps the poem isn’t quite as anti-woman as it at first seemed to be.