In Memory of W.B. Yeats Admiration Quotes

Yeats had one heck of an interesting life. Auden doesn't want us to forget that amidst all the brilliance was a great deal of human screwing up too.  How often do you hear great men described as "silly"?  It's just not a word that tends to make it into the history books. But Auden wants to validate Yeats as the man that he was, not some larger-than-life hero.

There's a mix of emotions in these lines. It's pretty customary to speak of poets gaining "immortality" through their poetry. But Auden wants us to think more deeply about what this afterlife entails. It's almost like Yeats's ashes are being thrown out to an anonymous crowd. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Perhaps it's a little of both. 

As we've mentioned before, section III takes on the form of a traditional elegy. Reverting to tradition allows Auden to place Yeats within the great elegiac tradition while still claiming a unique viewpoint on his life and legacy.

If Auden admires Yeats for anything, it's his tenacity. Yeats was dogged in pursuing his own visions, no matter how obscure they might have seemed to other people. In these lines, Auden seems to suggest that perhaps it wasn't Yeats's language that was obscure; maybe it was the darkness of time in which he was living.

The last lines of this poem are a whole bundle of contradictions.  Man is both imprisoned and free. He's limited by his "days" (everyone dies sometime), but he's able to learn and grow and, well, praise.  If anything, these lines demonstrate just how difficult the task Yeats undertook actually was.  "Praise" sure isn't the first thing that would be on our minds. And, as far as this poem is concerned, it's that struggle against the impossible that best characterizes Yeats's work.