Adam’s Curse

 By Yeats early on in his life, published in 1903

 Recounts conversation between Maud Gonne, her sister Kathleen, and Yeats
o Setting: Kathleen’s London home
o Maud Gonne had just married Major John MacBride
 Structure: heroic couplets, in iambic pentameter
o Builds towards a powerful climax
 Mood: peaceful, yet it ends in a gloomy note
 Style: Adam’s Curse is a turning point:
o There is still hints of lyricism but his style becomes more dramatic, probably
stimulated by Yeats’ continued immersion into the theatre
 Title: Yeats uses the title Adam’s Curse because his poem’s main point is that because
God placed his curse upon Adam, any achievement of Man requires hard work.
o Yeats gives 3 examples: a poet writing a beautiful poem, a woman seeking
beauty, and a lover seeking their love
 Literal Meaning:
o A woman, her lover, and the woman’s close friend talk about poetry on a summer
evening
o The poet says that it is very hard to write a poem that is perfect AND also
seemingly spontaneous
o The woman’s close friend says that it is very difficult for a woman to be beautiful
o Lastly, the poet agrees and says that it is difficult for a lover to find love
Structure
 Poem’s Emphasis: A poet must write his poems so that it seems effortless when one reads
it, yet hours of work is needed for a single line
o Can be seen in the natural unsophisticated feel of the poem
 Conversational style – more accessible to the general public
 Uses words like “Replied,” “said,” …etc.
 Narrative style: setting and characters are established within the first three
lines
o However, if one takes a longer look, one can see that there is a lot of thought put
into this poem
 Iambic pentameter and heroic couplets
o The structure of the entire poem provides a backbone to the statement “A line will
take us hours maybe; yet if it does not seem a moment’s thought, our stitching and
unstitching has been naught.”
o Even this statement alone provides a natural, unsophisticated feel through the use
of domestic, everyday chores such as stitching.
  Yeats uses this method to connect with the common citizen. Other
examples include “scrubbing a kitchen pavement” or “breaking stones like
an old pauper.”
 The Climax
o The entire poem, through a series of changing moods, builds towards a powerful
climax
o This climax is made powerful through the use of metaphors
o On line 30, Yeats describes the scenery as “dying last embers of daylight”
 Metaphor – Yeats’ hope of marrying Maud Gonne died
 Daylight = impression that past = hopeful, but now Maud Gonne is
married = end of bright period
 Embers = former desire for Maud Gonne was fiery, but it has now cooled,
probably indicated the depression that he feels at this point in life
o “trembling blue-green” – contrasting with previous line
 Embers = red = passion
 Blue-green = opposing = lack of passion
 Referring to Yeats’ loss of Maud Gonne
 Blue-green = mysterious – future holds mysterious events in the aftermath
of this passion
 Trembling = personification = impression of uncertainty and tentativeness
o “moon, worn as if it had been a shell, washed by time’s waters as they rose and
fell”
 Moon = metaphor for shell
 Time = the tide
 Moon associated with love b/c Aphrodite = goddess of love
 Moon worn = Maud Gonne used her outer appearance of love to make
Yeats help her with her goal, the liberation of Ireland
 Yeats realizes that Maud Gonne does not love him
o Hollow moon
 Uses moon as symbol of love again
 Love = hallow
 Hallow object = empty
 His love for Maud Gonne is empty, has no real meaning