Throughout "Easter, 1916," Yeats has a way of talking about the dead Irish fighters as though they'll be able to live forever because of their sacrifice. But on the other hand, he also recognizes that they're dead and gone, possibly for no good reason. The question of immortality is one of the main places in this poem where you really see Yeats struggling to make sense of what has happened in the Easter Uprising. On the one hand, it showed the heroism of the people who fought and died. On the other hand, it was a strategic nightmare that didn't accomplish anything in the long run.
Questions About Immortality
- Do you think Yeats envies the fighters who have died in the Easter Uprising because they'll be immortalized in Irish history? Why or why not?
- According to Yeats, why is it our job to keep the memory of the dead alive by mourning them? On the other hand, what is it not our job to do?
- How exactly are things "changed utterly" according to Yeats? How is this comment connected to the immortality of the people who've died in the Easter Uprising?
Chew on This
Yeats doesn't actually believe that the fighters have been immortalized by their bravery. In fact, he clearly says that all we really know for sure is that these people were once alive and now they're dead.
Yeats doesn't believe in immortality at all—not even for his own poetry. In the end, he thinks we'll all be forgotten some day and it'll be as if we never existed.