In-depth analysis of the poem The lake Isle of Innisfree. This document consists of 4 resources compiled into one. All the important notes are labeled to make the summary as short as possible for easy learning.
Title: The Lake isle of Innisfree
Summary: The speaker longs to escape the busy/noisy city to go find peace on the island of Innisfree. There he will
live simply amongst nature. At the end of the poem he wakes up from his dream and finds himself on the tar roads.
His longing to escape continues.
Analysis:
Stanza 1:
The speaker will get up and go to the island of Innisfree. Once he is there, he will build himself a cabin from natural
materials - clay and wattle branches. He will plant beans to eat and will keep a bee hive for honey.
Line 1 Line 2-4
Mood Impatience Slow and dreamlike
Tone Determined Gentle and lyrical
d
1 I will arise and go now, and go to Arise - get up
Innisfree, Will: Firm intention
- Not just getting up, but rising from a spiritual sleep
Repetition of “go”:
- Emphasizes urgency to leave but his inability to do so
- He feels that he has lost his 'core' and in order to find himself
again, he must return to nature.
I – Reinforces the idea of being alone
2 And a small cabin build there, of clay and Cabin – small wooden house | Clay – thick mud | Wattle – tree
wattles made: branches woven together to make to make a fence or wall
Meaning:
- Describes how he will build a little cabin made from earthly
things
Cabin/clay/wattles:
- Disconnected from outside world, but very connected to the
natural world of the island
- He makes space around himself – the outside world is across
water on a different shore
Colon: Indicates the description of how he will sustain himself.
3 Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive Nine:
for the honey-bee, - Indicates completeness / finality – the speaker will be
complete if he can escape into nature
- Symbolism: patience and harmony
Bean:
- Simple, staple food
Symbolism: growth / life / resurrection (spiritually grows
upwards)
H-alliteration: Emphasizes that he will live amongst been and
use their honey.
4 And live alone in the bee-loud glade. Glade – open space in a forest
Bees:
- The glade is filled with loud, buzzing bees.
- The sound replaces the noise of the city and delights the
speaker
- Symbolism: sweetness, abundance, and blessing.
Alone - Solitude:
- Once the work is done – he has a vision of himself living
alone (not lonely) among nature.
Irony:
- It is ironic that the speaker prefers the noise of bees which
survive in a large family group- colony while the speaker
desires to live alone.
Contrast:
- The peace and quiet of nature in contrast to the noise of the
city, which he longs to escape from
Hyphen: Creates an adjective
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