In Memory of W. B. Yeats

The theme of the role of poetry is first sounded in Section 1, which makes it clear that although Yeats has died, his poetry will certainly survive; people will continue to read it and draw from it whatever interpretation they choose. Everyone will read him differently, and thus his works are being “modified in the guts of the living” (Line 23). Given the fact that poetry endures, what does it actually do, what effect does it have? This question is taken up in Section 2, which bluntly declares that “poetry makes nothing happen” (Line 36). This is a critical comment on Yeats's long-standing commitment to Irish nationalism, notable in such poems as “Easter, 1916,” about the unsuccessful revolt against British rule, “To Ireland in the Coming Times,” “September 1913,” and “Sixteen Dead Men.” According to Auden’s elegy, none of this made any difference. Ireland remains the same. Poetry thus has no direct effect on political or societal issues. In making this comment, Auden may also have had an intuition about his own poetry. “Refugee Blues,” Auden’s poem published in newspapers in 1939, the same year as the elegy, recounts the plight of Jewish refugees forced to flee Nazi Germany.