Tag Archives: William Butler Yeats

To Enjoy Reading Is To Enjoy Instruction

By Robin Bates | Published: February 18, 2016

David Foster Wallace, like Plato, Horace, and Sidney before him, wrestles with the dichotomy between reading for enjoyment and reading for instruction. But what if this is a false dichotomy.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged | Comments closed

Trump as Yeats’s Rough Beast

By Robin Bates | Published: December 20, 2015

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar accuses Donald Trump of being the actual terrorist and compares him to Yeats’s “rough beast” in “The Second Coming.”

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged , , , , , , , | Comments closed

Two Exam Poems To Lift Your Spirits

By Robin Bates | Published: December 10, 2015

For students encounter end-of-semester pressure, here are two comic poems about exams. Laughter is an important resource for you at the moment.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged , , , | Comments closed

Bloodless Criticism Undermines Lit

By Robin Bates | Published: June 17, 2015

Literature can function as an evasion as well as a guide. But only if we talk about it in evasive ways.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged , , , , , , | Comments closed

Yeats & Ireland’s World of Faery

By Robin Bates | Published: March 17, 2015

Yeats’ “Stolen Child” longs for the lost world of faery but also finds something precious in the here and now world of Ireland.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged , , | Comments closed

“Leda and the Swan”–Warning Necessary?

By Robin Bates | Published: November 10, 2014

Yeats’ “Leda and the Swan” contains a disturbing description of a rape. Should teachers issue warnings before teaching it?

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged , , , , | Comments closed

I Am of Ireland

By Robin Bates | Published: March 17, 2014

Yeats captures the enduring myth that is Ireland in two poems.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged , , | Comments closed

Disaster Ahead, No More Fantasizing

By Robin Bates | Published: October 16, 2013

Can the Tea Party move beyond fantasies and deal with the world as it really is? Shakespeare and Yeats weigh in.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged , , , , , , , | Comments closed

Uncontrollable Mystery on the Bestial Floor

By Robin Bates | Published: January 6, 2013

A Yeats poem about the Magi helps us transition out of Christmas and back into our work lives.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged , , , | Comments closed