A Teacher with Learners

 

Critically highlight the theme of school children.

The poem entitled ‘Among School Children’ has been composed by Irish poet William Butler Yeats. Yeats is one of the foremost 20^th century literary figures, who helped to found the Abbey Theatre. He is not only a poet but also a politician and an intellectual. He served two terms as senator of Irish Free State. The background of serving as a senator has a profound significance since he composed this poem after he visited a convent school (a school run by nuns) in Waterford, Ireland in 1926.  As soon as the poet comes face to face with the school children, he dreams of his beloved Maud Gonne whom he simply compares with Leda. Looking at the school children, he vividly remembers his past with Maud. Some possible themes of this poem are discussed below.

Innocence versus experience

The poet paid a visit to a convent school in 1926 as a senator when he was sixty. Looking at the innocent girls in the school, the poet brings back his life time experience. He can see his beloved in the young girls’ faces. The innocent school children receive a guest as a public figure while the poet’s mind is playing with his childhood memories. He, as an experienced old man, brings back his innocent childhood observing the innocent faces in the formal setting. He is obsessed with passing and loss, and came to know how a person deals with the passage of time.

Youth versus age

The poet compares his youth, particularly childhood with his present state, i.e. old age. When he was a child he was with Maud Gonne. In the faces of the school children he can see the face of Maud Gonne when she was their age and imagines that she is physically less attractive in her present state. Human’s physical feature changes along with the passage of time but his/her desire and passion remain almost the same. In other words, his passion to be with Maud Gonne is still unchanged. Yeats talks about the nature of change that goes in everyone’s life. He gives example of three Greek philosophers who were famous for having unique ideas. Despite their profound ideas and theories, they all are subject to aging. Plato who believed that the world around us or where we are, is the copy of ideal world/real world. Aristotle, who believed in investigation and dissected nature, was tutor to king Philip of Macedonia, Alexander the Great and Pythagoras was supposed to be an incarnation of the god Apollo and believed that the universe subject to mathematical laws, based on musical harmony. Even these thinkers became old with the passage of time. In this way, youth gives birth to the old age. He seems to be admitting this common nature of change.

Unity of body and soul

The poet, as a senator visits the convent school. His body is, there, obviously present as a public figure but his soul, at the meantime, wanders with his beloved, Maud Gonne. His physical presence in the school and his mind or soul turning back to his childhood with his beloved made him compose the difficult poem, “Among School Children”. Unification of soul and body, in harmony, creates a perfect human. The union depends on the way we perceive. It is not necessary to be together as we are cut into two. Here, Yeats himself is body and Maud is the soul. The blend of two either in happiness or in sorrow and hardship works together throughout his life.  

 

Man and woman are originally one.

Man and woman are so intricately interwoven that one without another is incomplete. They are complementary to each other. Spiritual blend of two forms a perfect whole. The relation between man and woman is like that of the yolk and white that go together to form an egg. Yeats created almost all his poems including the inspiration and influence of his beloved Maud Gonne. As we know that ‘behind the success of every man there is direct or indirect hand/influence of a woman. Though Maud Gonne didn’t live with him physically she remained in his literary and philosophical life forever. His works involves regret, criticism and appreciation of his beloved. In this way, one of the major themes of this poem is that man and woman are like the two sides of the same coin.

Passion for becoming a child

Observing the young girls in the convent school, the poet turns back to his childhood when he was with his beloved Maud and concludes that childhood is the best part his life. His wish to be a child, is common to all the old ones, specially those who are above 60. It is true in the sense that childhood is free from social and marital restrictions and limitations. Considering the life of Yeats, childhood was pleasant since he had an opportunity to share days with Maud. For him childhood is not an innocent past time.