The Lake Isle of Innisfree

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1890

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Background

Literary Context: The Celtic and Irish Literary Revival

As a writer, Yeats is part of the Celtic Revival movement that occurred in the late 19th century. Designed to acknowledge and incorporate Celtic mythology, history, and iconography into literature, arts, and crafts, the Celtic Revival was important in Wales, Scotland, and England. However, it is particularly associated with the Irish Literary Revival. As writers of poetry and drama, Yeats, Lady Gregory, J. M. Synge, Sean O’Casey, Edward Martyn, and Lord Dunsany all participated in work that assessed the past, current, and future state of Ireland. Yeats wrote many popular poems about Irish history and Celtic folklore. In his book of essays, The Celtic Twilight (1893), Yeats argued that the death of Charles Stewart Parnell in 1891 created a gap in the focus on Irish nationalism which must be closed by accomplishments in the arts. To support other Irish writers in this endeavor, Yeats helped to establish the Irish Literary Society in London in 1892, the National Literary Society in Dublin in 1892, and the Irish National Theatre (with Lady Gregory and Robert Martyn) in 1899, which later transformed into the National Theatre Society at the Abbey Theatre in 1904. “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” uses several references to Ireland and Irish lore.

Literary Context: The Influence of Thoreau’s Walden

During a 1932 reading of “The Lake Isle of Innisfree,” Yeats noted that when he was younger, he read essays by American transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau “and wanted to live in a hut on an island in Lough Gill called Innisfree” (“W.B. Yeats Reads The Lake Isle of Innisfree.” Openhorizons.org). He then recounts how when he was living in London at 23, he heard running water in an advertisement’s fountain on a city street, which made him recall the island. Perhaps, just as importantly, the incident reminded him of when the works of Thoreau were most important to him. In an essay written in 1914, Reveries over Childhood and Youth, Yeats noted: “My father had read to me some passage out of Walden, and I planned to live some day in a cottage on a little island called Innisfree […] I was twenty-two or three before I gave up the dream” (Yeats, William Butler. Autobiographies: The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats, Volume III. United States, Scribner, 2010). Walden, or Life in the Woods (1854) was the most famous of Thoreau’s works, an autobiographical account of his isolated two-year stay at Walden Pond near Concord, Massachusetts. He conducted this experiment to see if he could escape over-civilization by simple living and self-sufficiency. Thoreau stayed in a hut of his own making, surviving on his own crops. Chapter 7 in Walden is titled “The Bean-Field” and describes Thoreau’s planting and harvesting of bean rows, with metaphoric comparisons to Roman and Greek myth and legend. Many scholars think that Yeats’s notations of the “small cabin” (Line 2) and “nine bean-rows” (Line 3) signify direction allusions to Thoreau, showing Yeats’s admiration of his seeming resolve and simplicity. Yeats substituted Celtic references for the Greco-Roman ones.