BBC World Service's Radio Programme Series on Poetry "The Lyrics"

William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) —
Irish poet, dramatist and publicist.

An inspirer of the 1890-s cultural movement "Irish Renascence". Poetry collections: "The Wonderings of Oisin" (1889), "The Celtic Twilight" (1893), patriotic lyrics collection "Responsibilities: Poems and a Play" (1914), patriotic play "Cathleen ni Houlihan" (1902), mask plays in the tradition of the Noh theater of Japan. He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923.

A transcript of the BBC World Service's radio programme

October 11, 1998, 17:01–17:30 GMT

A classic poem on national identity

William Butler Yeats was born in Ireland in 1865 on the verge of the political rising of the Irish national movement. As a young man, Yeats was passionately involved in this movement which sought the Irish independence from England. But during World War I, Ireland was still depending on Great Britain. Young Irish soldiers and airmen went to die for Britain in the war with Germany. For such soldiers the questions like "Where do I come from? Where is my country?" were really the questions of life and death. Yeats gives us the chance to delve into the thoughts of one of such airmen in his dramatic monologue "An Irish Airman Foresees His Death". Over the clouds an airman think about his home, an Irish village Kiltartan and about the death that is waiting for him.

Due to the fact that this is a well-known poem, it is quite often studied in the lessons at British schools, not always successfully, as it is thought by Moniza Alvi, a present-day English poet of Pakistani origin who we asked to commentate on this classic poem on national identity.

She says: "When I was a schoolgirl this poem seemed to me very masculine, and its language very direct, more direct I think for me to like it at that time. This poem did not impress me especially though I was interested by its very depressed tone. But later, I saw it as a war poem among other war poems and found it very moving."

Part of the masculine in this poem Moniza Alvi thinks is in its disregard of life. She says: "War is a masculine concept and it encourages indifference towards a human being's life. And the airman has got that together in himself. He doesn't care about his life. Maybe, it's due to the fact that he is young, that he is a man and passionately eager to fly, but also because he takes part in a war".

The airman conveys his apathy in a series of negatives in the very beginning of the poem.

Those that I fight I do not hate,
Those that I guard I do not love;

For him, as an Irish airman, this war for Britain against Germany means nothing.

I know that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere among the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate,
Those that I guard I do not love;

My country is Kiltartan Cross,
My countrymen Kiltartan's poor,
No likely end could bring them loss
Or leave them happier than before.

The airman belongs to one place, not to Ireland but to Kiltartan Cross, his home village. This makes Moniza Alvi think of many instances when people who find themselves between the poles of their national identity do get a feeling of the place they belong to. She says: "This poem makes us think how people shape their identity. The Irish airman certainly doesn't belong to Britain. It is hard to believe that he belongs to Ireland. He belongs to Kiltartan Cross. And I thought of the same situation in today's Britain where, for example, we have a Moslem girl who was in fact born here and grew up here. She divides the inland culture into the culture at school and that of home. And I wonder how her identity is being taken shape".

One of the remarkable features of Yeats' poem is that despite the series of negatives in its beginning, we see it being more than purposeful. According to Moniza Alvi, this purposefulness comes from the poem being determinate. She believes that "such a tone of the poem is one of its main features. The mood appears to be that of resignation to fate, reflective but not showy. Yeats seemed to have said that he had wanted to write a poem which would be as cool and passionate as daybreak. And I see that this poem is both cool and passionate."

All these cool, determined negatives bring us to one impulse. And this impulse — quite unexpectedly — is that of delight.

My country is Kiltartan Cross,
My countrymen Kiltartan's poor,
No likely end could bring them loss
Or leave them happier than before.

Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;

For Moniza Alvi this "a lonely impulse of delight" is the essence of the poem. She said: "There are two key lines:

A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;

Curiously enough, the word "lonely" is the only [sic!? — Scythian Dead] adjective in the poem. I think that this has great strength. Of course, war is a lonely situation. You face your death when you are alone and so is your flight. To my mind this is exactly of delight because the airman gets something delightful from his situation of ultimate despair."

The airman has neglected all he rejects — cheering crowds, public men and all peoples that in fact are on the ground below him. And above in the clouds there is a sweet roar of the battle egged on by his lonely impulse.

As his feelings and the movement of the plane become more visible, Moniza Alvi finds something attractive in the airman: "It definitely attracts me that he is going to get part of the pleasure out of his action before he dies. He certainly feels he is going to die. And now there would be something ecstatic in his action because he is going to take pleasure in what he enjoys the most — his flight — which is beyond belonging to some country or taking part in a certain war."

Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;

I balanced all, brought all to mind
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.

Here over the clouds the airman balanced his small plane and in addition to this he found the way to balance his life. "The fact that he would die in an instant made the airman look back at his past life and probably think it so dark as to feel his years wasted. And the years to come too are likely to be useless because he doesn't see his future, nor does he seem to see any future for his countrymen, the Kiltartan poor. But there does appear to be something he enjoys — this is an idea of a flight in a war, the action he takes delight in, and dying in an ecstatic state but not as a hero."

The balanced sentences ending the poem with balanced lines:

The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind

are giving the airman's voice the feeling of calm and reflecting the plane movement in the flight. And the repetition of "waste of breath" refers to the clouds behind and ahead of him. The airman is in harmony with where he is. He has found his place. It is in the plane. As Moniza Alvi notes, there is a sense of calm in despair. She says: "The last lines are well balanced. They make an illusion of the airman thinking reasonably. How actually can he think reasonably when he knew he was going to die? This also makes a feeling of the airman's presence in the air at the height, in the plane which balances itself over the ground."

I balanced all, brought all to mind
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.

After the analysis of the poem of William Butler Yeats, Moniza Alvi said that she took somewhat another look at her original definition of masculine in the poem: "I don't think it masculine, I think it manly. Actually it is more sensitive than I thought at first. This poem does not seem to me as cruel. Its rhythm is relatively stable, almost marching. In the traditional sense for me the poem is "less masculine" in its reflectiveness and its look upon the feeling of wastefulness which comes with war."

The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind...

Transcript translated from Russian by Scythian Dead, 8-11 February 2002
Copyright © 1998 The BBC World Service. All rights reserved.

Moniza Alvi-related Links:

Moniza Alvi: Presents from my Aunts in Pakistan

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/english/poemscult/presentsrev1.shtml

Although born in Pakistan in 1954, Moniza Alvi was brought up in England, the daughter of a Pakistani father and an English mother. This poem explores the dilemma of divided culture, divided families and a 'self' that feels the pull of somewhere else.

http://www.learn.co.uk/default.asp?WCI=Unit&WCU=2240

Moniza Alvi's poems:

And If
The Wedding
Grand Hotel

See Anthology of Twentieth-Century British and Irish Poetry
Edited by Keith Tuma

Crossing Borders: The Nationalization of Anxiety

By Orvar Lоfgren

(An analysis of "Rolling" by Moniza Alvi, 1996)

http://www.etn.lu.se/~orvar/borders.txt