“I lie awake night after nightAnd never get the answers right”

Discuss Yeats presentation of knowledge in Man and the Echo (30)

In your answer explore the effects of language imagery and verse form and consider how this poem relates to other poems by Yeats that you have studied.

Yeats’ haunting contemplation of death and reflection of his life in “Man and the

Echo” is successfully used as a platform to spite the concept of knowledge, which

he had previously treasured. As the man argues with the echo (an extention of

himself) Yeats portrays his mind as an accumulation of internal conflicts,

repenting for the controvertial actions he commited earlier in his life. Although

written within a short period of time of each other, the poem ‘Among School

Children’ expresses the poet’s feeling of fullfillment with respect to his

achievements in life; a contradiction to the notion of ‘The Man and the Echo’.

Yeats denotes the purpose of each stanza thematically; initally he describes the

damage knowledge can bring, which precedes the exploration of its necessity

upon realisation of approaching death, and finally its vulnerability to distraction.

Knowledge is regarded as a treacherous gift by Yeats in this poem, and is

understood to have posed as a significant threat in his past. Yeats uses pathetic

fallocy to open his poem, bringing the reader to the dark and gloomy “pit that

broad noon never lit”. A semantic field of inharmony is felt by the use of

ominous imagery, such as that of a “broken stone” and the “bottom of a pit”. This

itself indicates the negative perspective Yeats has from the start of this poem.

This rather dismal description of the County Sligo (‘Alt’), which is part of his

native Ireland, indicates to the reader that Yeats feels that his misuse of

knowledge has tainted his outlook on even the purest and picturesque of places –

rural Ireland. Mimicing the fabled Grecian journey to the Oracle, Yeats faces a

perilous voyage to discover what had been his purpose, or his faults, in life. The

oxymoron of “shout(ing) a secret” – whereby something that should be kept

quiet is cried out with conviction – indicates that this poem is a declaration of the

negativity and true emotions he felt in regard to his past actions, which he does

not hesitate to release, now that he is “old and ill”. Yeats proceeds to explain his

fears that his play, “Cathleen ni Houlihan” (based on the rebellion and ultimate

death of a personified Ireland) may have ironically sparked the rebellion and

ultimate deaths of the iconic Irish leaders of the Easter Rising. This sense of

remorse for the romantic heroes conjoins with the sense of respect Yeats

demonstrated towards the same party in his poem September 1913. In this

instance, Yeats describes how knowledge can directly influence violence, death

and destruction. The poet worries that his words caused negative action, such as

inspiring men to commense conflict, and failed to cause positive action, such as

stopping a house from being "wrecked." Yeats’ continued use of rhetorical

questions based around the rule of three emphasises the profoundness of the

link between knowledge and turmoil, “shot?... brain?... wrecked?” His

unanswered questions, however, reflect the impossibility of knowing the actual

effect of his words. While his work certainly could have motivated certain men

rise against the "English ", Yeats has no way of knowing that it actually did. This

in turn provokes the reader to question the justification of Yeats’ involvement in

the Irish revolutions – he ultimately does not have control over how readers

interpret his words. He thereafter implies his fear that his words "put too great

strain" on people's minds, who subsequently fail to understand his intentions

altogether. One such example in this poem was “that woman” by the name of

Margaret Ruddock, who went mentally ill during her stint as Yeats’ lover.

Regardless of how carefully he expresses himself, a reader's interpretation of

these words can alter their intended meaning as easily as the Echo alters his

spoken voice. The use of the particularly emotive word “evil” in the penultimate

line of the first stanza compliments the idea of a “sleepless” ghost, who foregoes

his sins by leaving life behind. The morose tone suggests that knowledge is a

bringer of sorrow, thus reinforcing the popular idea that ‘ignorance is bliss’.

Once establishing the dangers of “spiritual intellect”, Yeats is critical of it in terms

of its necessity with regards to leaving life in a fulfilling manner. He explains that

if a man “were to shirk” an acknowledgement of his “spiritual intellect’s great

work”, he would not be able to “ lay down and die” without cleaning his “dirty

slate”, or otherwise, recognizing and repenting for the sins he commited through

his knowledge. Knowledge, however, is viewed as a tool as opposed to an

attribute, contrary to the “wise and simple” fisherman who was described in

Yeat’s depiction of an ideal Irishman. The second half of this stanza illustrates

that one would retain their body if they turn to “wine or love” to experience

temporary sleep, therefore implying that true rest and evasion from life is not

possible without the intervention of knowledge without which there would not

be “one clear view” on his fate. It, on the other hand, highlights Yeats’ avoidance

of the task at hand; he can't stress enough the importance of reflection and

introspection before death, but just “stand(ing) in judgement” is wholly

dissimilar to actually going through the said process. The implication of the

poet’s failure to act upon what he advocates as so important is that he truly

wishes to avoid acknowledgement of his actions and would rather, as his own

voice tells him in the form of an echo "lie down and die." This therefore suggests

that the Echo is indeed not a separate entity from Man at all but rather a

representation of his true, underlying desires. This concept of “judgement” and

consequent reconciliation is contradictory to the idea of imminent destruction

and an apocalypse in the form of a “rough beast” as a result of millenia of sin, as

displayed in his poem ‘The Second Coming’. Yeats’ true message aligns itself at

the point he states that only when “intellect grows sure” of one’s treachory in the

past, can a man arrange the thoughts “in one clear view”, which “pursues the

thoughts that (Yeats) pursue”, whereby the climax is peaceful death. The use of

the phrase “at last” implies the unbearably long wait he endured to experience

peace, which was hampered by his quest to achieve enlightenment. The epetition

of “Into the night” by the man’s echo shows that the poet’s true desire was

always to escape life, along with its burdens, and dissolve into the darkness away

from speculation. The association of the word “sinks” with the notion of deflation

and failure to keep afloat implies the dejected manner in which he forfeits

control over his life and lets nature take its course. Another way Yeats

demonstrates the value of knowledge is through his effective poetic skills used to

convey his thoughts. This poem is similar to many of Yeats’ other works which

are dialectical, with two voices of debate such as ‘Easter 1916′. This ensures that

the reader experiences two viewpoints on an argument, experiencing Yeat’s

nature of duality and internal confliction. In this case, the “Man” and the “Echo”

serve as the aforementioned roles. The language is presented with a slow and

controlled pace made by the meter and emphasised by regular caesurae. This

straightforwardness demonstrates Yeats’ attempt to use knowledge to assess his

past and how he looks forward to death. The lucid AABB rhyme scheme and 8/9

syllable pentameter produces a rhythm which is broken up by the rashness of

the Echo. This emphasises Yeats’ lack of control over his darker impulses, which

speak out in blunt sentences, “Lie down and die… Into the night”. The rambling

poet therefore appears hesitant and uneasy during his analysis of life, whereas

the juxtaposing short phrases said by the Echo draws power to its words. This

represents the imbalance of power within a person, and how knowledge and

reason will always pave way to selfish desires.

The highly evaluative approach Yeats has on his life in the first two stanzas has

no bearing on the distractions he faces in the climax of the poem. Yeats addresses

his echo as a spiritual leader, “O rocky voice” imploring whether he has done

enough to “rejoice” in the afterlife. The ignorance and naivity in the statement,

“What do we know but… one another” indicates that Yeats does not practise

what he preaches; he appears to abandon the concept of knowledge. Almost with

immediate effect, Yeats uses the negative conjunction, “But” as a turning point in

which he starts to lose “the theme”. The successive lines draws Yeats’ attention

to his superficial surroundings, “some hawk or owl… a stricken rabbit” This

dismissal of the majority of the poem as “but a dream” undermines the

conception of knowledge, revealing to the reader the weakness of the mind. This

collaborates with the idea behind ‘Among School Children”, which indicates that

in order for a soul to achieve enlightenment, the body must suffer by ignoring

distractions, thus implying that enlightenment does not solely root from the

application of knowledge, but rather through “labour”. Written at the age of 74,

Yeats is nearing his death and acknowledges that his labour may have disguised

itself in the form of loneliness and guilt. Although the poet finally realizes and

confronts the rift between his body and his voice, his Echo does not reply with a

comforting reassurance of their connection and Man forgets what he has been

talking about when a “stricken rabbit” cries out. The poem ends with the bleak

fate of a vulnerable rabbit, reflecting the inevitable destruction of Yeats’ pathway

to peace, due to his vulnerability to the “hawk” of distraction. This rather

wretched cry is the uninspiring answer to the Man’s queries and could be read as

an omen to a similar cry of hopelessness on Yeats’ behalf. The rapid evaporation

of Yeats’ encounter with his soul mirrors the “image of air” he sees when

fantasizing about his lover in “Broken Dreams”. In both scenarios, a eutopian

situation of reconciliation with one’s soul and a kindred’s soul (respectively) is

downplayed as a figment of Yeats’ imagination, preserving a sombre and

unpromising tone.

Man and the Echo, to conclude, provides the reader with a rather unusual

viewpoint on knowledge. A feature that is commonly coupled with spiritual

enlightnement and fulfillment is regarded as nothing more than a barrier to

fullfillment. Yeats shows regret that he was an ambassador for knowledge as

opposed to labour during his life, and implores the reader to consider how they

use knowledge in their life. The use of the word ‘Man’ causes the poem to be

applicable to anyone, serving as a warning to others not to misuse knowledge to

the extent that Yeats did. He finally uses the poem as a platform to demonstrate

the rekindling between his two personas, discouraging the reader to sever ties

between their thoughts and soul.