Adam's Curse Analysis

Heroic couplets, most popular in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, are rhyming pairs of verse in iambic pentameter. Say what? Don't worry; we'll break it all down for you Shmoopers, startin...

The speaker is both a lover and poet. Not only that, but he's a big believer in the value of both. Throughout the poem he bemoans the lack of respect many people have for the work that goes into bo...

The poem is set during a clear evening at the end of summer, and our three friends think it is the perfect time to sit outside and discuss poetry and love (who doesn't love to sit under the stars a...

Yeats has plenty of tricks up his sleeve. In some ways, he's a lot like a rapper. Don't believe us? Read on as we break down the sonic devices in "Adam's Curse."Assonance is the repeated use of vow...

At first, the "curse" of Adam prepares us to read a horror poem, or maybe just a poem about magic spells. The title isn't one about that kind of curse, though. Adam, the first man in the Bible, was...

Yeats likes to work behind-the-scenes to make his poetry have a particular sound. His lines are embedded with conscious meter, rhyme, and wordplay, which make for a musical experience. "Adam's Curs...

Though the speaker believes poetry should take a lot of work, he believes that the lines themselves are supposed to look effortless. Apparently Yeats agrees. It's a relatively smooth poem to read,...

Not only did Yeats long desire Maud Gonne, who married someone else in 1903, he even proposed to her daughter. (Yeah—she said no, too.) (Source) Though he was a writer most of his life, Yeats' gr...

While there's discussion of love, not much actual loving goes on here. We're guessing, in a poem that wishes wooing still involved "high courtesy," that even if there was a bit of risqué behavior,...

The title "Adam's Curse"and the line "Since Adam's fall" (23) both refer to the story of Adam in Genesis, the first book of the Old Testament.