The stylistic analysis of “No Second Troy” by William Butler Yeats

The stylistic analysis of “No Second Troy” by William Butler Yeats

Why should I blame her that she filled my days

With misery, or that she would of late

Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways,

Or hurled the little streets upon the great.

Had they but courage equal to desire?

What could have made her peaceful with a mind

That nobleness made simple as a fire,

With beauty like a tightened bow, a kind

That is not natural in an age like this,

Being high and solitary and most stern?

Why, what could she have done, being what she is?

Was there another Troy for her to burn?

William Butler Yeats's relationship with the beautiful and defiant Irish woman Maud Gonne is one of the great literary love stories of the 20th century. He was a buttoned-up poet with conservative tendencies; she was a free-spirited actress who wanted nothing less than revolution for her country.

Yeats published "No Second Troy" in 1916 in the collection “Responsibilities and Other Poems”, after he had already proposed to Gonne – and been rejected – on numerous occasions. Having pursued her for over a decade and dedicated many of his poems to her, Yeats was obsessed with her.

In this poem, however, Yeats's attitude is somewhat harsh, as he compares Gonne with the infamously beautiful – and notoriously mischievous – Helen of Troy. Helen is a legendary character from Homer's “Iliad”. Like Maud Gonne, Helen was considered one of the most beautiful women of her age. She was also partly responsible for starting the Trojan War, which eventually led to the burning of the great city of Troy. Many legends paint her as a romantic who left her husband Menelaus for the beautiful but cowardly Trojan Prince Paris.

With the comparison to Helen, Yeats is accusing Maud Gonne of being partially responsible for the violence in revolutionary Ireland, just like Helen was partially responsible for the Trojan War. According to "No Second Troy," she "taught to ignorant men most violent ways."

Gonne had always been more of a firebrand than Yeats, and she endorsed the more radical and violent revolutionary efforts to secure Ireland's independence from Britain in the first decades of the 20th century. In 1916, her husband, John MacBride, took part in the violent Easter Rising against the British. In the wake of the uprising, MacBride and many others were executed. Yeats did not believe in violent rebellion, and afterward he wrote one of his most famous and painful poems, "Easter 1916," in which he declared, "A terrible beauty is born."

The poem is organised into four rhetorical questions. It is used here by Yeats as a means of coming to terms with the reality of his relationship with Maud Gonne. The opening statement of the poem "Why should I blame her that she filled my days with misery" can interpreted as a disclaimer or as absolution for Maud Gonne. Yeats recognises that Maud Gonne's character made her act the manner in which she did, though this resulted in misery for him, there was little blame that he could attach to her.

The second statement "or that she would of late have taught to ignorant men most violent ways" contains both praise and criticism of Maud Gonne. The men who supported her are described by Yeats as ignorant by comparison with her intelligence, but Yeats does not support the use of violence, he fears that she will be responsible for a revolution, which would pitch Ireland against the might of the British Empire: "Or hurled the little streets upon the great". "Little streets" and "great streets" is an example of metonymy. The "little streets" stand for the lower classes, while the "great streets" stand for the wealthy and powerful. The use of the word "hurled" contains another criticism of Irish Nationalists who because of a shortage of weapons, drilled with hurley sticks and Yeats saw Maud Gonne leading those hurley-wielding men into battle with the British Army. The rhetorical question is completed as Yeats asks "had they but courage equal to desire?" suggesting that these "ignorant men", unlike Maud Gonne, lacked the courage to rise up. This is why Yeats was particularly surprised by the 1916 Rising and later in his poem "Easter 1916" paid tribute to the bravery of those men.

The second rhetorical question provides Yeats an explanation of the character of Maud Gonne. She is described in terms of classical beauty, in a series of warlike metaphors and similes. In lines 6 - 10, the poet attempts to understand the mind of Maud Gonne. He describes it as being noble with the simplicity of fire, a simile designed to explain her temperament. This simile compares Maud's beauty to a "tightened bow." A bow is a simple and graceful weapon, but the "tightened" string of the bow contains enormous power and energy. Also, bows and arrows allude to an earlier period in history, probably ancient Greece.

This epic is, in the words of Yeats, "not natural in an age like this" but what is more in keeping with Classical Greece or Rome therefore the implied comparison of Helen of Troy. The stern haughty demeanor of Maud Gonne is, in Yeats' opinion, consistent with her character. In line 11, he asks another question by way of explanation: "Why, what could she have done being what she is?". In this line Yeats has come to terms with Maud Gonne, has convinced himself that the character she possessed could only have resulted in the actions she carried out.

The poem concludes with the final rhetorical question and the warning of an apocalyptic future with an allusion: "Was there another Troy for her to burn," - was Maud Gonne's fiery brand of Nationalism and the attractions she held for men to be responsible for a revolution which would leave the city of Dublin in flames?

The poem takes the form of a sonnet having twelve lines instead of fourteen. The rhyme scheme divides the poem into three quatrains, or groups of four lines (the lack of a final rhyming couplet accounts for those two missing lines). Grammatically, though, the poem is divided into two sets of five lines and a couplet. The rhyme scheme is: ABAB CDCD EFEF. All of the rhymes are regular except for the slant rhyme of "this" and "is" (lines 9, 11). The meter of the poem is an iambic pentameter.

The poem represents a period in Yeats' career when he was finding it difficult to come to terms with his own unrequited love for Maud Gonne. This allows him to be extremely critical of her involvement in Nationalist politics because it distracted her from his attention and because he believed that the men involved with her were unworthy of her. The poem was written in 1912 and the rising which indeed took place in 1916 taught Yeats a salutary lesson.