Symbol Analysis
Imagine if a fish we were cooking suddenly turned into a beautiful, glimmering girl. We'd be pretty stunned, right? Well this is exactly what happens in Yeats' "The Song of Wandering Aengus." The poem doesn't explain to us, in a clear way, what the "glimmering girl" represents. But we can read her as a symbol for many things: as an object of love, an ideal, an emblem of the supernatural. Part of the power of the poem comes from the fact that we can read all sorts of things into this "glimmering girl."
- Lines 13-14: The fish turns into a glimmering girl. How do we read this transformation? Well, the girl is obviously very beautiful, and Aengus, the speaker of the poem, immediately becomes obsessed with her. So, on this level, the glimmering girl is an object of love. After all, when we're in love with someone, they do seem to "glimmer," don't they? On another level, the fact that we have a magical transformation depicted here suggests that the girl could also be a symbol of the supernatural. She represents the existence of the magical, or supernatural, in everyday life.
- Lines 15-16: The glimmering girl calls Aengus by his name and then runs away, fading through the air. The girl's disappearance here could be indicative of a number of things. On one level, we can read her disappearance as a representation of unrequited love. As soon as Aengus sets his eyes on her and falls in love with her, she disappears. In this sense, she represents the impossibility of his ever being able to fulfill his love for her. On another level, we can also read the girl as a symbol for an impossible ideal—something we might get near, but never attain. Her disappearance can be read as indicating the impossibility of attaining our highest goals, be they artistic or otherwise.
- Lines 19-20: The speaker tells us that he will "find out" where the glimmering girl has gone. But he's spent his life looking for her and he hasn't found her yet. Again, we can read Aengus' fruitless quest for the girl on a couple of different levels. First, it can be seen as a depiction of the disappointment of unrequited love (since Aengus hasn't been able to fulfill his love for the girl). Secondly, it can also be a depiction of the futility of attaining our ideals. Either way, we're off to bummerville.