Under Ben Bulben

"Under Ben Bulben" is a poem written by Irish poet W. B. Yeats.

Under Ben Bulben
by W. B. Yeats
Written1938
First published inLast Poems and Two Plays
LanguageEnglish
Subject(s)Elegy
PublisherCuala Press
Publication date1939
Media typeHardback
Lines94
Read online"Under Ben Bulben" at Wikisource

Composition

It is believed to be one of the last poems he wrote, being drafted when he was 73, in August 1938 when his health was already poor (he died in January 1939).[1]

References

Ben Bulben is a large flat-topped rock formation in County Sligo, Ireland.[2] It is famous in Irish legend, appearing in The Pursuit of Diarmuid and Gráinne,[3] and was the site of a military confrontation during the Irish Civil War.[4]

The phrase "Mareotic Lake" is used by the author of De Vita Contemplativa when writing about the Therapeutae.[5]

Yeats's gravestone

The last three lines of the poem were composed with the intention that they should be used as the epitaph on his gravestone in Drumcliffe churchyard. His wish was fulfilled.[6]

Readings

The poem, read by actor Richard Harris, opens and closes an album of Yeats's poems set to music, entitled Now And In A Time To Be.[7]

The title of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Larry McMurtry's first novel, Horseman, Pass By, is derived from the last three lines of this poem. The same is true about the French writer Michel Déon's book Horseman, Pass By![8]

References
  1. Stallworthy, Jon; Yeats, W. B. (1966). "W. B. Yeats's 'Under Ben Bulben". The Review of English Studies. Oxford University Press. 17 (65): 30–53. doi:10.1093/res/XVII.65.30. JSTOR 513471.
  2. Aalen, F. H. A.; Whelan, Kevin; Stout, Matthew (1997). Atlas of the Irish Rural Landscape. University of Toronto Press. p. 17. ISBN 9780802042941.
  3. Conner, L.I. (1998). A Yeats Dictionary: Persons and Places in the Poetry of William Butler Yeats. Irish studies. Syracuse University Press. p. 14. ISBN 978-0-8156-2770-8.
  4. Michael Moran (11 July 2012). "Refurbished Noble Six plot set to be blessed". The Sligo Champion. Retrieved 19 July 2019.
  5. Now this class of persons may be met with in many places, for it was fitting that both Greece and the country of the barbarians should partake of whatever is perfectly good; and there is the greatest number of such men in Egypt, in every one of the districts, or nomes, as they are called, and especially around Alexandria; and from all quarters those who are the best of these therapeutae proceed on their pilgrimage to some most suitable place as if it were their country, which is beyond the Maereotic lake.
    — De Vita Contemplativa . http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/philo-ascetics.html On Ascetics] (another name for the De Vita Contemplativa), Section III.
  6. Allen, James Lovic (1981). "'Imitate Him If You Dare': Relationships between the Epitaphs of Swift and Yeats". An Irish Quarterly Review. 70 (278/279): 177–186. JSTOR 30090353.
  7. Jasper Rees (3 February 1997). "Sing whatever is well made". The Independent. London.
  8. Savin, Tristan (2005-07-01). "Michel Déon, esthète naturaliste". L'Express (in French). Retrieved 2015-04-15.
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