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Critical Analysis of Poem The Lake Isle of Innisfree by W.B.Yeats

Updated on January 10, 2020

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Andrew Spacey  more

Andrew has a keen interest in all aspects of poetry and writes extensively on the subject. His poems are published online and in print.

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W.B.Yeats

W.B.Yeats | Source

William Butler Yeats And A Summary Analysis of The Lake Isle Of Innisfree

The Lake Isle Of Innisfree is perhaps the best known of all Yeats' poems. It has been a popular choice of anthologists since it was first published in 1890 and has made Innisfree, a tiny island in lough Gill in County Sligo, Ireland, now a place of pilgrimage.

This green and watery landscape is where the young Yeats spent time as a child and the idyllic imagery remained strong in his memory. He wrote the poem when he was in his early 20s, stuck in the metropolis of London, homesick, struggling to get his name known and his poems out in suitable form.

Unbeknown to many, the basic theme is based on the day-dreams of a character in a novel Yeat's wrote in 1891, John Sherman. And the catalyst for the poem was a jet of water in a shop window on the Strand in London. Yeats saw and heard the water spout, set up for a drinks advertisement, and the tinkling sound reminded him of lough Gill's Innisfree. And don't forget that Yeats had also been influenced by the writings of H.D.Thoreau, who wrote Walden.

When Innisfree was finished, Yeats finally declared that it was 'my first lyric with any thing in its rhythm of my own music.'

It had taken him a long time to complete the poem. Originally it had a different rhythm and many more syllables in long rambling lines but, with perserverance and skill, he cut and polished the lines to reach a final successful outcome.

As he matured however, he became disenchanted with his earlier work, including Innisfree, and said to his publisher in 1920 that 'the popular poems I wrote before I knew better' ought to be included in an anthology about to be published, to maximise sales. Yeats thought that his celtic period, so called, was not modern or cutting edge enough.

Yet he still did important readings in the 1930s of this poem and others written at around the same time. His highly formal aging voice can be heard on the BBC as he reads out the lines with 'great emphasis on the rhythm'. Seamus Heaney thought the readings were great, saying that Yeats' speaking voice was like an 'elevated chant.'

Some poets, and many people, will always yearn for quiet, out of the way places, where noise, pollution and crowds do not exist. The Lake Isle of Innisfree, with its Irish folk resonance and liturgical undercurrents, taps into the soul's desire for peace, harmony and natural surroundings.

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