The Lake Isle of Innisfree Analysis

Symbols, Imagery, Wordplay

Form and Meter

Yeats is no stranger to poetic forms. While the subject matter of his poems can get pretty weird, he likes to play up the traditional forms. Call him crazy.This poem isn't as strict as some of his...

Speaker

This city-dweller is longing for a peaceful escape. No, that's not a personal ad. It's just a brief description of our speaker.Though it might be a bad idea to assume the speaker is male just becau...

Setting

Welcome to the Jungle. The concrete jungle, that is. There's no ifs ands or buts about it: this poem takes place on the city streets. Though we spend most of the poem dreaming about the ideal count...

Sound Check

First and foremost, the rhyming is the most obvious sound effect in the poem. Each stanza is carefully knit together with alternating end rhymes (the lines' rhyming last words). A little A action,...

What's Up With the Title?

"The Lake Isle of Innisfree" is the name of a place. It's a pretty straightforward title in a lot of ways—it sets us up to hear about the place and to find out what relationship the speaker might...

Calling Card

While Yeats lived in many different places over the course of his life (and he spent huge chunks of time in London), he always considered Ireland home. He was plenty conflicted about the messy poli...

Tough-o-Meter

There isn't too much going behind the scenes here. Though Yeats is writing in a slightly old-timey style, the picture he paints is pretty clear. You can leave the ice picks and rappelling gear at h...

Trivia

Innisfree ain't the only island in town. Nope, the lake it's in (Lough Gill) actually has about twenty total. So what's so special about this one, Yeats? (Source.)Yeats had quite the fascinating lo...

Steaminess Rating

The babies can read this one. Well, if they could read. There's nothing sexy going on at all.