Discuss Yeats’ presentation of his disappointment in Ireland in ‘The Fisherman’

Yeats reaches a point of resignation in the second stanza by confirming his envisioned fisherman to be “A man who does not exist, / A man who is but a dream”. The anaphora and the indication of the fisherman as a “dream” highlight Yeats’ yearning and wistfulness for this man but at the same time a disappointment that a vision is necessary in order to compensate for the undignified and uncultured Ireland that so starkly contrasts to the humility of the fisherman. Yeats’ admiration of the fisherman is conveyed by his close affinity to nature. His “sun-freckled face” and “grey Connemara cloth” indicate him as humble and a native component of the Irish countryside, whereas the “audience” that Yeats is in “scorn” of seems contrived and is stationary and complacent rather unlike the fisherman who is “climbing up”. The present participle “climbing” shows a distinct divergence between the ascension of the fisherman in Yeats’ perception whilst the “craven man”, who has come to typify Ireland, is sedentary “in his seat”. However, Yeats’ final meditation in ‘The Fisherman’ finds disappointment in his own impotence to change Ireland’s condition. In Yeats’ later poem, ‘Easter 1916’, it is suggested that the Irish population are “enchanted to a stone” and thus ignorant to the changing, evolving world around them. This ignorance is certainly echoed in ‘The Fisherman’. The humble and honourable fisherman is “but a dream” in a society where the norm seems to be the antithesis of these values. The concept of a “dream” resonates with Yeats’ “vague memories” in ‘Broken Dreams’, the poem regarding his disappointment in his relationship with Maud Gonne. The vision of the fisherman does seem somewhat “vague” in the ending moments of the poem. It certainly does seem true that Yeats’ conjuring of this gallant figure is weathered and diminished by the immutable “stone” of the Irish population. Yeats appears to assume some guilt for the disintegration of this quietly heroic figure in his final assertion “ Before I am old / I shall have written him one / Poem maybe as cold / And passionate as the dawn.” The enjambement that bridges the adjectives “cold” and “passionate” serves to afford greater clarity and conviction to this resolution and furthers the necessity for such a poem to be composed. Yeats here suggests that Ireland’s failure is not only its current circumstance but also its lack of reverence for the Irish heritage to which the fisherman belongs.