The Lake Isle of Innisfree

The Lake Isle of Innisfree: at a glance

The Lake Isle of Innisfree: context

Historical context

'The Lake Isle of Innisfree' was written by William Butler Yeats in 1888 as a Celtic Revival poem. Yeats grew up in County Sligo, Ireland, and spent much of his adult life involved in the politics and nationalism movements in Ireland. While this poem is about the inner peace that comes from being connected to nature, it is written about a real place located in County Sligo: The Lake Isle of Innisfree in Lake Lough Gill.

Fig. 1 - The Isle of Innisfree is a real island in Ireland.

Throughout his life, Yeats was interested in the spiritual and unknown depths of the human experience. His poetry interrogates the realities of the human subconscious, and "The Lake Isle of Innisfree" is no different.

As an Irish Nationalist, Yeats participated in a movement known as the Celtic Revival, which was a movement aimed at creating a clear and strong Irish culture through art, politics, and tradition. At the time "The Lake Isle of Innisfree" was written, Yeats was a 23-year-old exploring the implications of Irish Nationalism as Great Britain was pushing for English culture to be spread in Ireland.

Yeats was living in London and was reminded of his hometown when looking at a painting in a window in the middle of the city. Yeats wrote 'The Lake Isle of Innisfree' as a means of reminding the Irish people of their love for their homeland and spiritual connection to the location. The poem was already incredibly popular before Yeats' death in 1939 and remains one of the most popular Irish poems today.

Literary context

William Butler Yeats was incredibly influential in pushing English-language poetry into 20th century modernist poetry. He's known for his use of symbolism, and 'The Lake Isle of Innisfree' is a great example of the ways in which Yeats questions the self and creates deeper meaning using a symbol (in this case, the lake isle). 'The Lake Isle of Innisfree' concentrates on the concept of inner freedom or inner peace without ever using the words 'inner freedom.' It is the aural implications in the word that lend the ear to the understanding of the meaning "inner freedom." This was a conscious decision on Yeats' part, as he could have used any other lake isle in County Sligo.

The rhyme scheme of the poem lends itself to a magical and musical quality, using soft vowels and consonants to describe the desire of the speaker to have a quiet life on an isolated island. These soft sounds and implications behind the word "innisfree" exemplify William Butler Yeats' skill at wordsmithing, and bring out the spiritual nature of the poem, as rhyme has traditionally been used in music and spiritual chants or incantations for centuries.

The Lake Isle of Innisfree: analysis

Poem Text

The Lake Isle of Innisfree: Summary

'The Lake Isle of Innisfree' is a poem that literally concentrates on the desire of the speaker to go to the uninhabited and isolated island of Innisfree to build a "small cabin," farm, and bee keep. The speaker desires the peace of the natural space and mentions various natural sounds, including bees, crickets, linnets, and water lapping against the shore.

Fig. 2 - The speaker wants to lead a simple life of beekeeping in Innisfree.

The poem concentrates on the slow consistency of this imagined cabin in Innisfree, describing the various stages of light at midnight, noon, and evening.

The final stanza of the poem emphasizes again that, while the speaker is seeking the peace that comes with this Irish lake isle, the speaker is not actually present at Innisfree. The speaker states again, "I will arise and go now," which is the second time this refrain is used in the poem.

The repetition of this line emphasizes the speaker's absence and distance from the isle. We are not to believe the speaker actually rises from their physical location to go to Innisfree; rather, this is a spiritual journey inward. "I will arise and go now," The speaker says, though they do not actually go anywhere. This journey inward to the Isle of inner freedom allows Yeats to encourage his readers to hold Ireland in their inner sanctuary.

The speaker then goes on to juxtapose the "pavements grey" of city life with the lapping of lake water, stating that they can hear the lake itself in "the deep heart's core." This juxtaposition emphasizes, again, the physical distance from the Isle, though the love for it lives on in the speaker's heart. This final line is symbolic of the longing for Irish homeland and culture that William Butler Yeats attempted to convey with this poem.

The Lake Isle of Innisfree: Rhythm

William Butler Yeats wrote the poem "The Lake Isle of Innisfree" with the intention of it being remembered and renowned throughout Ireland. A few of the traditional methods used to make a poem or lyric memorable is by utilizing meter, rhythm, and rhyme to make the poem stick in a person's head after reading it. "The Lake Isle of Innisfree" is composed of twelve lines, consisting of three quatrains. The poem adheres loosely to an iambic meter and has a rhyme scheme of alternating end rhymes, presenting itself as abab, cdcd, efef. The poem utilizes perfect rhyme, staying away from the slant-rhymes that William Butler Yeats relied on heavily in his later years. So, what does all of that information mean? In the following example, we can see iambic meter in action:

William Butler Yeats is also an avid user of the end-stop. In 'The Lake Isle of Innisfree', every stanza is end-stopped with a period, as well as the second line of every stanza, using the semicolon. End-stopping lines can create a pause at the end of a concept or phrase and can give the readers a moment to absorb the concept.

End-stops can also be used to conclude an idea and provide the author with the space to begin a new idea on the following line. In this instance, end-stops slow the roll of the poem, creating pause and mindfulness midway through each stanza, as well as the end.

The Lake Isle of Innisfree: Themes

Let's look at some of the themes in the poem.

Natural connection

It is clear that 'The Lake Isle of Innisfree' is about the love of the location itself, but what about themes other than Celtic Revival? The speaker in 'The Lake Isle of Innisfree' has an intimate connection to nature. We know this through the fact that they say it explicitly: "I feel it in the deep heart's core" (line 12). But what does this connection to nature give to us when interpreting the poem as a whole?

Through the juxtaposition of the speaker standing on the pavement in contrast to the lake water lapping against the shore in the final stanza of the poem, the desperate longing to be elsewhere (in this case, Ireland) comes through powerfully.

Yeats conveys this juxtaposition throughout the poem. We can clearly see the speaker's colorful language and explicit peace when referring to the Lake Isle of Innisfree, whereas the speaker describes modern society only as a "roadway" or "pavement grey" (line 11). The hard, dull nature of the pavement is in direct contrast with the Isle where, "midnight's all aglimmer and noon a purple glow" (line 7). These differences in description make clear the speaker's feelings regarding the two different locations and create the pull or longing they feel towards the Isle.

Animal ecology

There are also moments where Yeats brings in different animals that are located in Ireland. In this 12-line poem, we see three different animals: the "honey-bee", the cricket, and the linnet. The specific choice of these animals on the part of Yeats allows the speaker to be further situated in the ecology of County Sligo.

Fig. 3 - The linnet is one of the three animals used to situate the speaker in the natural world.

The speaker pointing out the particular sensory memories of these animals in the lake isle is a fairly universal experience. It is likely that all the readers of 'The Lake Isle of Innisfree', in 1890, would be able to recall the sound of crickets or linnet's wings, even if they didn't know what a linnet looked like in particular.

Spiritual introspection

Another common theme in Yeats' poetry is spiritual introspection. Yeats had a fascination with the occult that is present throughout his early poetry career and continued to a lesser extent until his death.

In the final stanza of 'The Lake Isle of Innisfree' the theme of spiritual introspection becomes explicit, though the concept of inner freedom is present in every line, including the title. The final stanza of the poem states:

The line, "I will arise and go now, for always night and day" indicates the cyclical and eternal nature of the spiritual freedom experienced at Innisfree, and goes on to say, "I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore".

We are not to understand that the speaker literally hears water lapping, this is something that the speaker is hearing in their mind's eye as they remember the eternal image of the Lake Isle of Innisfree, tucked away permanently in the core of their being.

Whereas the speaker references the Isle being in his "deep heart's core", we get no such reference to modernity meaning as much, the pavement fading immediately from the speaker's mind. The concept of a "roadway" is a liminal space, those travelling a roadway do not stay there forever, they move on and travel elsewhere. This is not the case with the Lake Isle.

The Lake Isle of Innisfree: Meaning

The meaning of this poem is twofold: to invigorate the Celtic Revival movement and to express the inner freedom found in nature spaces. There are many possible meanings in this poem, but looking at the major themes can provide insight into some of the most common interpretations.

Finding meaning in art and writing means taking into account the historic and literary contexts of the time. We know through Yeats' explanation that this poem was intended to provide a warm, nostalgic feeling for those from Ireland and contribute to the pride of being Irish.

William Butler Yeats, The National Observer 'The Lake Isle of Innisfree', 1890.