Yeats In A Modern Classroom
I typically do not post on social media. I have been on Reddit for quite a while now, and in this particular sub I have helped out quite a few people, I like to think. Being the kind of shy or socially awkward person that I am, I try to stay away from voicing myself too much for fear of ridicule. But today, I became so furious with something that's been going on, that I figured that I must vent this otherwise I would burst. And I am really a person with Himalayan patience.
I have been going to college for a month now, which is enough time for the breeding of resentment in my soul as to how they teach. One of my professors is teaching us John Keats, one of the most passionate souls in literature with such an infectious drowsiness that the class remains quiet all the time. Because they're all asleep.
Another one of my teachers reduces Dr. Samuel Johnson to "Uncle Know-it-All" Without even going into the fact that despite his poverty which prevented him to complete his course, he managed to become one of the world's foremost literary critics of all time. This same professor implied that Shakespeare was detached from his times and a terrible sonneter.
But coming to what happened today.
One of our professors- a well spoken, relatively young and approachable madam- is teaching us Yeats. Initially I was engaged in the class and the slides she was showing (I'm sorry, I know it's wrong that I don't take notes enough) and discussing about his life.
All of a sudden she comes to the poem A Prayer For My Daughter.
Now, one needs must understand that these were very turbulent times in Irish History and in Yeats' life personally. He was watching Ireland, and the whole world in a sense, collapse in front of his eyes. The old orders and institutions were gone and people were adrift, unsure about tomorrow, let alone the distant future. The world was devolving into industrialised slaughter. Human values seemed dead. And at such a time Yeats writes this poem, penning down his hopes and prayers for his daughter to have a good life.
This, our teacher told us, is "a misogynistic poem, unfortunately"
Why? Because the poem features an instance where Yeats wishes that his daughter grow up to be a beautiful woman. This is somewhere in the 1910's (I think) mind you.
And in that poem, Yeats specifically writes-
"Yet not such beauty as may make / Game of a small eye... And lose hearts all together"
He is praying that his daughter not grow up to be a shallow person who is only externally pretty and nothing else. He is praying for the beauty within her soul to bloom- a beauty which can survive the terrible beauty being born outside his door. To call that paternal hope 'misogynistic' is a highlight of illiteracy.
At that moment I felt like saying-"And John Quincy Adams is a misogynist because in his poem he wishes that he have a feminine wife and virtuous daughters. I wonder why that is. It certainly could not possibly be because of the fact that a human being is a product of his time, that his wants and wishes will be shaped accordingly and that judging them by modern standards or expecting modern day behaviours or ideas from them is to demand an anachronism and that is stupidity"
But the fun (or frustration, for me) doesn't stop there!
She then came up to Maud Gonne. Now Yeats had a very troubled relationship with her. Maud Gonne was a fiercely independent woman who thought of marriage as a 'dull affair', despite having a husband and a child. She kept on rejecting Yeats' affections cruelly time and again, seemingly enjoying herself as she shattered him bit by bit. While at the same time using Yeats to climb the social ladder and inscribe her memory in Irish history. She literally went off and married a masculine, military man while stringing Yeats along, dangling his affections in front of him.
And Yeats, being a deeply empathetic and emotionally sensitive and awfully lonely individual, gave her his heart and soul. She used him for her goals, (in Cathleen ni Houlihan, she was supposed to be the lead) and this is something which wrecked Yeats later in life when the possibility came up-
"Did that play of mine send out / Certain men the English shot?"
Whenever her own, personal life fell apart- including her secret, scandalous affair with a French journalist- she would run back to Yeats for emotional support.
And when Yeats confronted her, just wanting for some closure, Gonne made an extremely insensitive, downright cruel remark- a highlight of emotional abuse. She justified her actions and said-
"Poets should never marry. You should be thanking me that I keep on hurting you because you end up writing such pretty poems for me"
This, our teacher calls, "a remarkable statement", with wonder.
Out of that affair, she bore a child out of wedlock- Iseult.
Now, here's the thing. This is 1917. Iseult was 22 years old, and an independent, highly 'educated' intellectual with her own poetry and all. Yeats was more than 20 years older than her. Back then, this age gap was considered normal between two individuals. And so, he proposed to her.
Interestingly, it wasn't Yeats who had the idea at first- it was Gonne who suggested it and approved it. Yeats and Iseult were close intellectual companions with the former acting as a mentor to her. She was the one who, in her teenage years, proposed to him and he gently turned her down. In 1917 when he proposed to her, she flirted with the idea and wavered for weeks, thinking of keeping him around as a mentor and then turning him down eventually. Like mother, like daughter.
And after she rejected him, Yeats had had enough and completely withdrew himself from the Gonnes.
This, as our teacher said, is a sign of Yeats being 'creepy' and that he was a 'crackhead'.
Yeats, at that point in time, was going through immense existential dread, and mid life crisis. He had a very terrifying desire, and Oh Gods, I don't know how to put it in words, it's so terrifying... It's such a human desire that it sacres me to utter it, but I will do so anyways...
He wanted to have a family and settle down in peace.
The audacity! How could an emotionally sensitive, distressed, heart broken poet dare ask for that?!
This heathen then married Georgie Hyde-Lees, who was twenty five years old (truly an act of inhumanity... What do you mean this is towards the beginning of the roaring twenties and was largely the social norm and completely acceptable, especially between two highly educated, respectful individuals who were equals?)
His marriage with her was an absolute triumph- she loved him, he loved her, and they had beautiful children being born out of this love. Moreover, she supported him fiercely, and defended his legacy fiercely after his death and until her own death.
As a student of literature who is deeply, and passionately in love with the subject, I expected my teachers to give the complete, full pictures of every artist we have in our syllabus, to treat their lives with deep empathy and to breed interest among the others and make them care for the subject and the artists alongside their works- not assign cheap modern day slangs to their names to make them 'relatable' to modern sensibilities and reduce their infinite, human capacities to lazy labels. I don't know how this even begins to encourage students to read or to appreciate the subject or even garner their interest. Perhaps she views this mocking statement from the back of the class as a success of her efforts-
"Was Georgie Hyde-Lees his daughter?"
Besides the overall conceited smirks and arrogant laughter echoing.
I was so furious that I had to clench my jaws stiff to not yell out this-
"And Albert Einstein is a weirdo for marrying his cousin Elsa, therefore, let us reject all his theories, throw his Nobel Prize into the ocean and throw these water balloons of our insults at his face. Or better yet, cancel him!"
Like, this sort of thing, not only kills gravity, respect towards the author and the subject and healthy discourse, but also fosters ignorance and a false sense of superiority just because the society we live in is vastly different from their own. It is this same mentality which fueled centuries of mass genocide, plundering and all the rest of it; the chimera we now know as colonialism.
It is also an insult to my intellect and that of every other teenager in the class- because she assumes that I am incapable of empathy and understanding and must be spoon fed slangs and labels to make the writer seem 'relatable', because otherwise I will not study or, not understand a word of theirs, until and unless the study becomes as mindless and sloppy as a TikTok post.
To me, this is also a personal insult, as my family is not very wealthy. My father has to pay an arm and a leg every year as fees to this college. When that was what they were demanding, I had hoped that I would be able to use valuable resources, learn new things every day in class and get to engage with like minded people and have debates with them and showcase my own works.
But anyways my fury has subsided, and I would love to know your thoughts. Am I demanding too much? Am I completely wrong? Have you experienced the same yourself? What do you do if that is the case? Do let me know!
TLDR: I don't like TLDR's. Read with patience. That's the least you can do out of respect for any author,a fellow human being- they are not jesters to entertain anyone.
EDIT: I am very glad that I got to have such lovely conversations with everyone here! It has definitely given me a feast for my thoughts. I shall definitely ruminate on everybody's points, but I would like to thank each and every one of you for your time and replies. Therefore, "I shall arise and go now..."