The Wanderings of Oisin
Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox book The Wanderings of Oisin (Template:IPAc-en Template:Respell) is an epic poem published by William Butler Yeats in 1889 in the book The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems.Template:Sfn It was his first publication outside magazines, and immediately won him a reputation as a significant poet.Template:Efn This narrative poem takes the form of a dialogue between the aged Irish hero Oisín and St. Patrick, the man traditionally responsible for converting Ireland to Christianity. Most of the poem is spoken by Oisin, relating his 300-year sojourn in the isles of Faerie. The poem was not popular among modernist critics like T. S. Eliot.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> However, Harold Bloom defended this poem in his book-length study of Yeats, and concludes that it deserves reconsideration.<ref>Template:Citation</ref>
Story
The fairy princess Niamh fell in love with Oisin's poetry and begged him to join her in the immortal islands.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> For a hundred years he lived as one of the Sidhe, hunting, dancing, and feasting. At the end of this time he found a spear washed up on the shore and grew sad, remembering his times with the Fianna. Niamh took him away to another island, where the ancient and abandoned castle of the sea-god Manannan stood. Here they found another woman held captive by a demon, whom Oisin battled again and again for a hundred years, until it was finally defeated. They then went to an island where ancient giants who had grown tired of the world long ago were sleeping until its end, and Niamh and Oisin slept and dreamt with them for a hundred years. Oisin then desired to return to Ireland to see his comrades. Niamh lent him her horse warning him that he must not touch the ground, or he would never return. Back in Ireland, Oisin, still a young man, found his warrior companions dead, and the pagan faith of Ireland displaced by Patrick's Christianity. He then saw two men struggling to carry a "sack full of sand";Template:Sfn he bent down to lift it with one hand and hurl it away for them, but his saddle girth broke and he fell to the ground, becoming three hundred years old instantaneously.
Structure
The poem is told in three parts,<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> with the verse becoming more complex with each: the lines run four (iambic tetrameter), five (iambic pentameter), and six (anapaestic hexameter) metrical feet respectively. The three "books" begin thus:
Book I: Template:Poem quote
Book II: Template:Poem quote
Book III: Template:Poem quote
Publication history
The poem was first published in Yeats's 1889 volume The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems. In that book, it is printed first and occupies one third of the printed pages. It was republished in a revised form in his Poems (1899),<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> where it was placed last. Later the poem was printed anew in his Early Poems and Stories (1925). Warwick Gould writes that in this volume, the poem was given "pride of place" in accordance with Yeats's assessment "my subject-matter became Irish" with this poem.<ref name="Gould YA">Template:Cite journal</ref>
See also
Footnotes
References
Notes
Sources
External links
- Template:StandardEbooks
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- The Wanderings of Oisin at CSUN Professor Warren Wedin Fall 2002 Graduate Seminar website (archived 2011)
- The Wanderings of Oisin at Famous Poets and Poems
- The Wanderings of Oisin (LibriVox) at the Internet Archive
- Short presentation (Ireland book excerpt) of The Wanderings of Oisin from the Langenscheidt website (archived 2011)