An Irish Airman Foresees His Death by W.B.

Yeats is a deep poem with many

potential meanings. The poem is comprised of four ABAB rhyming quatrains which

give it a crisp and balanced appearance. Balance and organization resonate

throughout the poem in various ways and the combined effect of this convergence

of themes in style and content adds to the character of both the deep and

superficial interpretations of the poem. After reading the poem one has the feeling

that they are looking at a reflection in a pool of water; while the image on the

surface is clear and tells its own story, behind it and deeper lies an entirely new

image more dimensioned than the first.

An Irish Airman Foresees His Death is written as a reflective narrative from

the perspective of an Irish pilot in World War I. The poem begins as the speaker

describes himself. He begins by saying that he knows he will die in battle. He

follows this by establishing he has no “side” in the war he is fighting. Instead of

explaining this, he goes on to describe the men from his home county, Kiltartan

Cross. Next, he explains that he is not fighting for the typical reasons but rather, he

says finally, out of boredom and a lack of feelings of self-worth.

In step with this boredom, the poem is rather devoid of action and plot.

While this may seem out of place, as it takes place during a time of war, this

blandness serves the poem well because it is a reflection of the bland existence that

the airman has lead prior to enlisting. The fact that the speaker expresses himself

with such little emotion is remarkable because the poem begins with the speaker

condemning himself to death post haste. While most people would be a little

perturbed by the prospect of dying, the speaker is at ease, expressing neither regret

nor sadness nor even any excitement.

 Who exactly this calm, strangely apathetic yet resolute man is, is debated.

Many people believe he is Major Robert Gregory, a friend of Yeats and the son of his

patron, Lady Augusta Gregory. If this poem is included, Yeats wrote 4 poems in total

about Major Gregory. However, as the Major is not named in the poem, I do not

believe he is the speaker in An Irish Airman Foresees His Death. That said, the

poem does offer some background about the speaker. We know he is a man from

Kiltartan Cross who identifies with the poor. About Kiltartan’s poor he says, “No

likely end could bring them loss, Or leave them happier than before.” The men of

Kiltartan Cross have no stake in the war. From this we can determine that the

speaker is not fighting for his countymen. Nor, he says, is he influenced by law,

duty, politicians or patriotic crowds. Instead, he says he weighed the value of his

life and was dissatisfied, calling it a “waste of breath;” upon weighing the future, if

he stays on the same path, he determines it to also be a waste. Thus, his

motivation for fighting is a “lonely impulse of delight.” While this impulse may be

brought on by many things, they all fly under the same banner –the desire to do

something different. The airman makes clear that he is fighting only for himself; he

casts out the notion of being ‘duty bound’ and in the poem he says, “Those that I

fight I do not hate, Those that I guard I do not love.” There are a few different

interpretations of these lines. The first is that the airman simply has no allegiance

to his comrades and is flying only to quench his “impulse of delight.” In this way,

the airman may be seeking the thrill of flight and combat to offset his previously

bland life. An additional explanation is, at the time of the WWI, it was considered

‘well rounded’ to have military service on a man’s resume. The Irishman may be

seeking to earn that credit for himself. To explain the lines which describe his life as

wasted, it is possible that he is so taken with the idea of being a well-rounded

gentleman that he considers the years in which he was not the epitome of a

gentleman to be a waste. I think this interpretation is unlikely, however, given his

self-identification with the hard-working poor. Another interpretation is from the

historical perspective. As we know the pilot is Irish, at the time of World War I it is

likely that, like most Irishmen, he was resentful of Ireland being mistreated by the

English. Throughout history England and Ireland have not been on particularly

friendly terms. The Irish and the English were allied in WWI and this would explain

the pilot not loving the people he guarded. Because of their hatred of the English,

the Irish were quick to side with anyone opposed to England. As the saying goes,

‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend.’ This potential dislike of his allies might

explain why the airman doesn’t hate the Germans.

I think the difficulties of identifying the airman and of identifying with the

airman are intentional. I think the ultimate understanding of who the pilot is is that

he could be anyone. Yeats intentionally gives him a shallow history and an empty

future. These blank spaces are left to be filled by the audience to allow each person

to give the pilot his individuality. The airman could be a 23 year old from Kiltartan

Cross who was orphaned as a child, owing nothing to any society and deciding to

give his life meaning by directly and drastically affecting the lives of others. Any of

a number of other caricatures of the airman is equally likely but Yeats’ brilliance is

that his airman is at once generic and lacking character and yet has the

differentiation of being in the airborne military. I think this specialization is key

because it is a literal representation of a bland, generic character reaching for

something higher. The airman had a “lonely impulse of delight” and chose to ‘do

something different.’ The infantry and tanks that trickle across the ground in their

defined paths with defined objectives represent the previous experience of the
airman, tethered to the ground, existing without personal inclination or drive. Now,

as an airman, he is free. There are no roads of other men for him to follow in the

sky. He controls where he goes, and whom or what he pursues. However, there is a

deeper connection to the airman’s motivations here than immediately meets the

eye.

The speaker is an airman, not a pilot. If the man were simply seeking

freedom he could have obtained his pilot’s license and taken up flying as a hobby.

Instead, he joined the military. There is a serious incongruence of words and actions

present here. To explain this, I believe he chose the military because, though he

may not love the English or hate the Germans, he seeks competitive thrill and is

pursuing his end recklessly in the subconscious hope that his life may be ended. As

a pilot in combat his skill is matched against that of the enemy fighters and he

determines his own success. In the sky he becomes aware of his own fragile

mortality and this high-stakes competition is enough to make the airman feel truly

alive, a feeling that has never before penetrated the airman’s listless and apathetic

permafrost. It is accepted fact that people with low self-esteem or suicidal thoughts

tend to be less careful than more stable people in situations that could kill them. I

believe the airman, who views his entire life as a waste of breath, is subconsciously

hoping to die and put an end to his aimless wandering. This all-or-nothing existence

contrasts strongly with, and therefore balances, his previous all-for-nothing

experience.

The poem’s intended audience is no clearer than the identity of the speaker.

The poem appears to be a window into the airman’s life, told through self-reflection.

The airman describes himself, his heritage, his motivations or lack thereof, and

explains why he decided to become a pilot in the military. From this we can draw
that he is speaking to someone who does not know him very well. I believe the

poem is simply the airman reflecting on his life and he is speaking to anyone who

will listen. The poem would not seem out of place if it were found on a desk in the

airman’s room in his barracks while he was fighting in the sky, as if he left it there

knowing it would be found and read at his funeral.

The airman opens by saying. “I know that I shall meet my fate, Somewhere

among the clouds above.” While “clouds above” could be completely unrelated to

where he is locally as he speaks, I think that this reflection takes place relatively

close to the airplane he will be flying. He may be standing on the runway or writing

the poem at his desk but I can imagine him looking skyward as he speaks/pens the

words “clouds above.”

More clear than the airman’s physical location is his place in time. The

reader gets the impression that the airman will soon be on his way to meeting his

fate in the clouds. The poem is a review of his life; the airman is reviewing his life

now because he does not expect to have time to review it later and he doesn’t

expect there to be much else to review. The poem is very short, only 16 lines, and

it culminates in only about 3 lines with solid relevance to the present. I think this

abrupt end is representative of the anticipated short end to the airman’s life.

While the form mirrors the airman’s life, it also serves to emulate the

overarching theme of balance. The poem is written in iambic tetrameter. This

means there are four iambs, or pairings, in each line. Balance is represented in

these four iambs because the number four, and the number two, as represented by

pairing, are even, or balanced. There are four stanzas of four lines each; there are

eight syllables in each line except for line 8, which is the turn. Eight is another

balanced number. In all but the last stanza thoughts are conveyed in sets of two
lines. Two lines, each with eight syllables – a perfect balance. In keeping with

balance, line 3 emphasizes hate while its partner, line 4, emphasizes love.

Similarly, line 7 emphasizes loss while line 8 emphasizes gain. The entire final

stanza focuses on the subject of balance; in line 13 it opens with, “I balanced all.”

The next two lines in the stanza follow the earlier pattern, juxtaposing the “years to

come” of line 14 with the “years behind” of line 15. The final line, line 16, balances

the subject of balance with line 13 with an additional balancing of life and death,

saying, “In balance with this life, this death.” These pairs of lines interplaying for

greater effect are the epitome of using form to emphasize content. Furthering the

theme of balance, the actual story of the poem is about the pilot weighing his life to

see what it is worth to him. Upon determining that his life is worthless he decides

to join the military in “impulse of delight” to give it personal value. This rash action

is counterbalancing the worthless life the airman previously lead.

The exceptional form of the poem only begins with it imitating the theme of

balance. Rhetorically, thoughts are placed for very specific reasons in the poem

and this placement helps elaborate on the simple dictation of the thought. The

airman begins by talking about death. Death being a stark finality, its emphasis in

the first line sets the tone for the rest of the poem. Death makes its presence

known and, though it is not a feared thing, it is ever-present in the poem, as

conveyed by its return in the last line. The first twelve lines alternate the subject of

the thoughts they convey. The beginning thought is about the speaker, the second

is about the people he guards. The third thought, like the first, is about the speaker,

as it names his county of origin. The fourth thought focuses on the actual Kiltartan

people and their feelings about the war. In thought number five the speaker talks

about the normal reasons for fighting which do not motivate him. The sixth is
particularly well crafted, “A lonely impulse of delight Drove to this tumult in the

clouds.” Though the speaker discusses his true and only reason for fighting, he does

not mention himself. This shifts the focus again away from the speaker and

empowers the final stanza because the last four lines shift back to the speaker in

addition to directly introducing balance.

Equally important as the placement of thoughts is the selection of words. In

particular in line 11 Yeats describes the impulse that drives the airman as “lonely.”

This tells the reader that the airman is not often driven by impulses, delightful or

otherwise. In the next line the airman calls the intense aerial combat a “tumult.”

This is an interesting word choice because, though the airman is driven to fight, he

is almost condescending of or disinterested in the fighting in the sky above. This

word choice helps show the audience how internally focused the airman is.

Yet another tool Yeats utilizes to enhance the efficiency of his poem is

repetition of words. Particularly in lines 3 and 4, repetition is used to convey

parallelism, “Those that I fight I do not hate, Those that I guard I do not love.” The

words and structure remain primarily identical but the places in which they differ

empower their meanings. In this way, the repetition is used to emphasize

difference rather than bring to light similarity. In the next thought pair repetition is

used to unify the two lines of the thought, “My county is Kiltartan Cross, My

countrymen Kiltartan’s poor.” Lines 8 and 9 repeat the word “nor” twice each to

express the things that did not motivate the airman. I think this repetition and

pattern of sound is used to make firm the fact that he was not motivated by these

things. In addition establishing an overtone of finality with fate and death being the

last words of line 1 and 16, respectively, Yeats utilizes the full power of repetition to

convey finality in the final stanza, which is actually a chiasmus. “(13) I balanced all,
brought all to mind, (14) The years to come seemed waste of breath, (15) A waste

of breath the years behind, (16) In balance with this life, this death.” The reason I

have underlined “all,” “life,” and “death” as repetition is because when the airman

brings “all to mind” he is weighing his life and death. The structure of the chiasmus

conveys that intellect and reason were integral in the airman balancing his life. As

is Yeats’ style though, there is yet another, deeper meaning. Because the chiasmus

is such a reflective tool, its symbol is the X. Christian poets sometimes connect this

X with the sign of the cross on which Jesus died. In this way poets can use a

chiasmus to give their poems, or at least parts of them, religious meaning. Not only

is there repetition in the chiasmus but the potential hidden meaning is staggering.

In the chiasmus the airman is weighing his life, judging himself. Whether or not

Yeats intends a religious connection cannot be ascertained for certain but the

possibility cannot be ignored. A reference to judgment day through the chiasmus as

a man who knows he will die weighs life and death. With this closure Yeats firmly

sets himself among the master class in utilizing form to powerfully enhance content

in his poetry.

In continuing to examine word use I reread the poem in search of vague or

ambiguous words which may lend alternate interpretations of certain lines or the

entire poem. The fact that I could find none speaks to Yeats’ ability to craft his

thoughts under tight constraints. This clarity of expression, I think, is reflective of

the airman’s resolve. The airman is determined to make something of himself and I

think in the spirit of that drive Yeats keeps his poem crisp and efficient. As the

airman is explicit about the things that do not motivate him, Yeats is explicit in his

poem; both want to assure that the reader makes to mistake in understanding while

conveying more than is immediately apparent.

 After focusing on wording and word choice I decided to shift my attention to a

new aspect of form – syllabic congruence. All sixteen lines are eight syllables long,

except line 8 which is nine syllables. Line 8 is exactly halfway through the poem, a

pivot in the balance of the line count. Not only is this important in terms of form

mimicking content, line 8 is also a turn in the poem. At exactly halfway through the

poem Yeats breaks form to draw attention to the balancing point of the poem and

upon closer analysis we can see yet another layer of balance. Line 8’s turn marks a

change in general focus. The first eight lines are impersonal in terms of

understanding the pilot relative to the last eight lines. At the balancing point of the

poem Yeats shifts the content of the poem to balance general information with

personal information about the airman. This repetition of shifting to create balance

inherent throughout the poem is an exact complement to the airman shifting his

lifestyle to create balance. Moreover, the break in extending the form also

represents the airman grasping for more meaning from his structured life.

After fully examining An Irish Airman Foresees His Death by William Butler

Yeats, one feels as though they have looked into an incredible pool of water. On the

surface they were greeted by a superficial reflection, the airman, an ultra thin image

teasing them to look deeper into the water. After bending down and fully exploring

its depths, they discovered even deeper pools of water, hidden metaphors, and

churning eddies of meaning behind the pool’s reflective façade. To the casual

reader the pool is a mere glossy puddle, but to the reader who is ready to dive into

the depths of words and explore the currents that give the surface reflection

meaning, An Irish Airman Foresees His Death is a metaphorical cenote1 plunging

1
a deep natural well or sinkhole, esp. in Central America, formed by the collapse of surface
limestone that exposes ground water underneath, and sometimes used by the ancient
Mayans for sacrificial offerings.
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=cenote
into the heart of the burning questions, “What gives life meaning?” and “What is the

value of a meaningless life?” and ultimately, in the spiraling whirlpool of the

chiasmus, “Who determines the meaning and value of life?” Yeats blends form and

content so effectively that it is difficult to determine whether the airman gives the

poem its meaning or if the meaning submerged beneath the airman gives him his

meaning.

My final paragraph began as an attempt at my own chiasmus with the thesis

paragraph but I became carried away with the metaphor and abandoned the

chiasmus. That said, I think I crafted the metaphor well enough to ably stand in the

place of a traditional conclusion paragraph.

Cenotes can be hundreds of feet deep, the deepest of which have never been fully
measured, only to a depth of 600 feet. This is an impressive depth for a well with a multi-
hundred-foot diameter that begins holding water at 300 feet below ground level.