In Memory of W.B. Yeats Symbolism, Imagery & Wordplay

Moving and flowing and churning things up, water is the quintessential symbolic image for motion and change. That's a good thing, folks. Change can be difficult, but it's natural, just like water....

If water's all about motion, then people are all about anti-motion. In this poem, at least, people are stiff and lonely and locked in their own worlds and delusions. Even Yeats is no exception to t...

Death. Destruction. Doom. What else would you expect from an elegy? After all, the very fact that it's an elegy means somebody has died. But that's not the only dark and nasty thing lurking around...