Imagery and metaphors

Imagery

When analysing the poem “Easter 1916” by William Butler Yeats, we recommend you focus on imagery, as it helps the readers better visualise some of the characters and the setting. Imagery is here just understood as descriptive language that creates images in the reader's mind. An example of visual imagery can be noticed in the following fragment when the speaker depicts the way in which nature maintains its course after the death of the revolutionaries:

The horse that comes from the road,
The rider, the birds that range
From cloud to tumbling cloud,
Minute by minute they change;
A shadow of cloud on the stream
Changes minute by minute;
A horse-hoof slides on the brim,
And a horse plashes within it; (ll. 61-68)

Metaphors

Probably the most important metaphor in the poem is that of the “terrible beauty” (l. 16). The word “terrible” suggests the pain brought by the death of the revolutionaries, while the word “beauty” hints at the way in which the deaths of these people inspired others to keep on fighting for the Irish cause. This is also an oxymoron.  

A very important metaphor in the poem is that of the “meaningless words” (l. 6). This hints a...