A Prayer for My Daughter by W. B. Yeats
Question - 1 : Write a detailed analysis of the poem A Prayer for My Daughter in your own words.
Answer:
This poem was written by William Butler Yeats for his infant daughter, Anne. He worries about her. Maud Gonne was a radical, opinionated intelligent woman he had. loved, but who had rejected his proposals. In this poem he vents his thoughts on her.
In his age of 52, he marries a half aged women to him named Georgie Hyde Lees and Anne was their first child.
Stanza - 1 :
A terrible, violent storm is raging outside. This “haystack and roof-leveling wind,” blowing directly from the Atlantic is obstructed, by just one naked hill and the woods of Gregory's estate. While my infant daughter sleeps in her cradle, well covered and protected from the onslaughts of the violent storm raging outside, I have kept pacing up and down and praying for my daughter because there is a storm raging within my soul as well. My mind is full of foreboding for the future of humanity.
Stanza - 2 :
The shrill sound of the sea-wind upon the tower and below the arches of the bridge which connects the castle with the main road, and in the elms above the flooded river is heard by me. I have been praying for my young daughter for an hour and I am disturbed by the shrill sound of the sea-wind. My mind is haunted with fear. In the excitement and fear, I imagine that the future years have come out of the sea (“the murderous innocence of the sea”) dancing to the frenzied beat of drum (the shrill noise of the sea-wind). So, like an affectionate father, I pray for my daughter.
Stanza - 3 :
I pray that my daughter may be 'granted beauty' but not so much of it that it disturbs and distracts others. Women who are beautiful, begin to take it as an end in itself Such women, forget their 'natural kindness' and are unable to respond to the advance of even the sincere love. Thus, they ultimately fail to find a suitable life partner. (The reference obviously is to Maud Gonne, who was very beautiful and who had rejected Yeats's proposal of marriage to marry MacBride, a worthless person).
Stanza - 4 :
Helen, the daughter of Zeus and Leda, was a very beautiful woman. She eloped with Prince Paris of Troy, the outcome of which was the destruction of Troy. Aphrodite (Venus) too, who 'rose out of the spray' married Hephaestus, the lame iron smith of the gods unwisely and betrayed him later on. In the same manner Maud Gonne too had married very foolishly a worthless person as MacBride and was not happy with him. It seems certain that beautiful women eat something special which makes them proud and foolish and miserable, thus, becoming the cause of their undoing.
Stanza - 5 :
I pray for my daughter that more than bewitching beauty, she should have virtues like courtesy. The hearts of people can be won permanently by the virtue of courtesy alone. Even those who are not very beautiful can win the hearts of others by being courteous. (Yeats's wife was not very beautiful yet she won his heart). Like many others, I too had acted like a fool in the case of the bewitching beauty, Maud Gonne. I thought that she loved me as I loved her but very soon I found myself to be in the wrong. Ultimately, it was courtesy and not mere beauty that won my heart.
Stanza - 6 :
In continuance of the prayer, I plead that the soul of my daughter should flourish and reach self-fulfillment like a flourishing tree. Like the linnets, happy and innocent thoughts should cluster around her inner life. These little creatures, symbols of innocence and cheerfulness make others happy as well as by their songs. So, I wish my daughter to be happy within and infuse that happiness among others as well. The tree symbolizes inner life as well as constancy in place and a life rooted in tradition. I consider such a life to be a happy one and for this reason, I wish that my daughter's life should be rooted in one place and in tradition as well.
Stanza - 7 :
On looking into my own mind and heart, I find hatred within myself because of the experience of my life and the sort of beauty I loved. To me hatred is the worst of all evils. I pray for my daughter that she should be free from such an evil. If the soul is free from hatred, no misfortune can possibly ruin the innocence and cheerfulness of a person.
Stanza - 8 :
I feel that intellectual hatred is the worst kind of hatred and a great flaw in character. So, I would like my daughter to shun strong or stubborn opinions on any subject-political or otherwise. I would like my daughter to avoid the weaknesses of Maud Gonne. It was because of her strongly held opinions that Maud Gonne was led to act foolishly. All her beauty and her good upbringing proved to be useless. She ruined her happiness in life by choosing a worthless person as John MacBride for a husband.
Stanza - 9 :
If my daughter is free from all intellectual hatred, she will be capable of enjoying an inner peace and happiness. In such a case her soul will be able to find its fulfillment within itself and not in working on the happiness of others as Maud Gonne was prone to do. Thus, she would be able to keep herself happy even in the midst of misfortune and the hostility of the world.
Stanza - 10 :
I pray that my daughter may be married in a good, aristocratic family. I hope she would get a husband from such a family who would take her to a house where life is led in the aristocratic tradition i.e. where life is based on high, spiritual values. Arrogance and hatred should be absent from such a house because only in the atmosphere of custom and ceremony, can innocence and real beauty flourish. Arrogance and hatred is the trait of the masses or the commoners. The aristocratic way of life, however, is rooted in custom and tradition-culture preserve spiritual values and is itself preserved by ceremony and tradition.
Question-2: 'May she be granted beauty, and yet not
Beauty to make a stranger's eye distraught,"
What is your interpretation of these lines?
Answer:
Yeats prays that Anne will be beautiful but not excessively. Beauty can be distracting and destructive, because it draws the attention of all even if he is an unknown person. The much beauty makes him "distraught" and unhappy as if he cannot fulfill his desire to possess this beauty.
Thank You!!!
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