Welcome to the study of "An Irish Airman Foresees His Death" (1918).

Learning Objectives

In this Getting Started module you should do the following:

Study and read aloud many times this poem, "An Irish Airman Foresees his Death" (1918) by W.B. Yeats. It's a grand poem to read aloud. The rhythm is exciting. It pushes the poem to its daring and awful climax.
While you read and study it, put yourself into the mind of the Irish Airman. Is Yeats fair to him, the man who is going to die? In fact, he had already died which is why and how Yeats wrote the poem. He would not have written the poem for an Irish Airman who did not have that fate.
If you think Yeats is unfair to Major Robert Gregory, who died in the Royal Flying Corps fighting for the British in WW1, think about this: he was the son of Lady Augusta Gregory whom we can rightly say was the closest friend Yeats had throughout his life. He would not mock or trifle with the memory of her son.
Is the poem more about Yeats than it is about Major Gregory? If your answer is yes, then why?
Is the poem about life, or is the poem about death? Which one is given more emphasis or weight, and why?
Choose two lines in the poem and explain why you believe that those two lines are the best lines in the poem.
Is the poem a "war poem"? Why?
Kiltartan is a town in County Galway, in the rugged, very beautiful, western part of Ireland. Yeats had an ancient, Norman Castle there which he salvaged a bit and lived it. He called it his tower. I visited it in 1990. Lucky me!
You must READ the poem aloud many times to get the feeling of the poem AS a poem.
But there is also the poem as a song. So I offer you Shane MacGowan's musical version of the poem below. I rather enjoy it. I hope that you will too.

Later I will offer you my musical version of a poem by Yeats.

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