Storybook: Yeats Topic Research

Ireland on Pixabay

Yeats on Wikimedia

The Storybook project that I would like to do is on W. B. Yeats’ In the Seven Woods, which are poems and a play on Irish mythological themes. Here, I have read some of the poems and have chosen three that I could potentially make complete Storybooks out of.

Baile and Aillinn is a lengthy poem of several stanzas. It is about two lovers who have been tricked by the Master of Love, Aengus. He wants them to be lovers forever in his own world, the land of death. He tricks Baile and Aillinn separately, telling each that the other has died, whereupon they individually die of heartbreak. It would be interesting to do a Storybook on these lovers, including their relationship, Aengus’ tricks on each, and their deaths. I could even change the plot to where the lovers outsmart Aengus and do not each die of heartbreak.

Adam’s Curse is about the narrator and a young woman whom he loves. They sit and talk about poetry. This shorter poem intrigued me more than I thought it would just by the title. I love how the characters talk to each other. Even though the poem is not lengthy, it is clear that the two care for the other and respect their thoughts. If I do a Storybook about them, I would need to focus a lot on appropriate dialogue to get the feeling of their relationship down (although I could never hope to do it so tidily as Yeats!).

The Old Men Admiring Themselves in the Water is a poem of only nine lines, but one of the truest poems one could read. It is about growing old and things never staying the way they are. It reminded me of The Outsider’s famous quote “nothing gold stays”. If I were to do a Storybook on this short poem, I would have a lot of liberty and would need to essentially create my own story. I would probably start with a younger man and lead him into gradually understanding the truth that everything is only temporary.

I also think that it might be a good idea to tie some of these stories together. For instance, if I used one of the stories of the lovers, I would be able to incorporate the story of the old man somewhere as a “story inside a story”.

Yeats on Wikimedia

In the Seven Woods: Link