I was looking for this quotation by WB Yeats. It's from The Second Coming, which is one of the best poems ever written IMHO:
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction; while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
and then I found this poem as well, which I had forgotten about. Which I love.
No Second Troy
WHY should I blame her that she filled my days
With misery, or that she would of late
Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways,
Or hurled the little streets upon the great,
Had they but courage equal to desire?
What could have made her peaceful with a mind
That nobleness made simple as a fire,
With beauty like a tightened bow, a kind
That is not natural in an age like this,
Being high and solitary and most stern?
Why, what could she have done being what she is?
Was there another Troy for her to burn?
I love the way it gives the power back to Helen and everything she stands for.
3 comments:
What does Helen stand for?
Helen of Troy. Yeats is suggesting that Helen actually got off on the mayhem she caused, and wasn't just a cipher for the war, as she is depicted usually. He often compared Maud Gonne to Helen of Troy in his poetry.
Oh and, to answer your question, Helen stands for beauty and intellect.
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