Yeats’s Easter, 1916

Upon hearing Phillip Levine’s recitation, the true power of Yeats’s brilliant diction and truly captivating rhyme scheme literally jumped out at me. The way that Levine recites the repetition of words in Easter, 1916, allows one to fully grasp all that Yeats was trying to convey, and enables the listener to truly take in the overall power that these tragic events brought upon the people of Ireland. In each stanza, there are instances of

Levine powerfully and masterfully reciting Yeats’s repetition, which in the end make the poem more direct. For instance, the first instance being on line 6 and line 8, on Levine’s reciting of the phrase “meaningless words.” He recites both times the exact same way, with the exact same intonation, which ultimately links all three lines (the two with the phrase and the one in between) together, to powerfully establish a sense of continuity within the poem as whole, in addition to making the phrase “meaningless words” stand out as a whole. Also, on line 66 and 67, the intonation of Levine’s voice on the word “death” is so commandingly subtle, that it gets under your skin, and allows you to picture this horrible death, and how it affected all those around it.

Peter Davison took a more subtle approach to reading this poem. I found that for the majority of each stanza, he read the lines a little bit more softly, more dispassionate than one would suspect. But as the last four lines of each stanza approached, I was surprised at how powerful his intonation became, which contrasted the previous lines, which further emphasized the last few lines of each stanza (which I view as the most pertinent). The first instance of this contrasting intonation occurring from lines 13-16, where his emphasis on such words as “changed” and “terrible” and the phrase “…where motley is worn” is so powerful, and in depth, that it conveys the necessary sense of gloom to carry across the point of Yeats’s powerful poetry.

In Richard Wilbur’s reading, there was an unq

Some topics in this essay:
Phillip Levine’s, Peter Davison, Richard Wilbur’s, Butler Yeats's, Richard Wilbur, levine’s recitation, lines stanza, reading poem, entire poem, , phrase “meaningless words”, irish history, dramatic pause, peter davison, emphasis yeats’s, phrase “meaningless, “meaningless words”,