Atonement and 'in Memory of W. B Yeats'
‘In Memory of C. Tallis and R. Turner’
In this essay I will discuss the effects of W. H. Auden’s poem ‘In Memory of W. B. Yeats’ upon the tone, and the foreshadowing of plot line of Ian McEwan’s novel Atonement. The poem and the novel are both elegiac- it is the contribution of the poem to Atonement at the crucial point before the deaths of the characters Robbie and Cecilia that begins to set the tone of elegy within the novel. This acknowledgement of death and mourning brings a sense of impending doom; the love expressed from Cecilia to Robbie by the inclusion of lines from ‘In Memory of W. B. Yeats’ is matched by the element of tragic loss it also insinuates. The poem, set at a time of great impending disaster within Europe (Norton) brings this sense of inescapable tragedy to the novel.
If the poem in whole is taken as an addition to the novel, its themes of elegy, mourning and loss mirror successfully the crucial themes of Atonement. Atonement in itself an elaborate elegy, and in introducing this poem prior to the novel’s conclusion, the poem foreshadows the ending of the book. Briony, as the narrator and perpetrator suffers the loss of Robbie and Cecilia intensely, in agonizing clarity through her guilt. The entire novel is spent in concealed mourning, and the purpose of the novel is to celebrate and lessen the loss of the lovers. The lines ‘The words of a dead man / Are modified in the guts of the living’ from ‘In Memory of W. B. Yeats’ refer to the transferable nature of literature, and its constant re-interpretation as it is received by a new audience. This again mirrors the nature of Atonement; Robbie and Cecilia will live forever in Briony’s literature, as W. B. Yeats will live forever in his poetry (Norton).
The tone of the novel at the section of inclusion of the poem is already glum – Robbie is at war, and injured. The first quote from the poem in the novel is ‘In the nightmare of the dark / All the dogs of Europe bark,’ (page 203), introduced at
In this essay I will discuss the effects of W. H. Auden’s poem ‘In Memory of W. B. Yeats’ upon the tone, and the foreshadowing of plot line of Ian McEwan’s novel Atonement. The poem and the novel are both elegiac- it is the contribution of the poem to Atonement at the crucial point before the deaths of the characters Robbie and Cecilia that begins to set the tone of elegy within the novel. This acknowledgement of death and mourning brings a sense of impending doom; the love expressed from Cecilia to Robbie by the inclusion of lines from ‘In Memory of W. B. Yeats’ is matched by the element of tragic loss it also insinuates. The poem, set at a time of great impending disaster within Europe (Norton) brings this sense of inescapable tragedy to the novel.
If the poem in whole is taken as an addition to the novel, its themes of elegy, mourning and loss mirror successfully the crucial themes of Atonement. Atonement in itself an elaborate elegy, and in introducing this poem prior to the novel’s conclusion, the poem foreshadows the ending of the book. Briony, as the narrator and perpetrator suffers the loss of Robbie and Cecilia intensely, in agonizing clarity through her guilt. The entire novel is spent in concealed mourning, and the purpose of the novel is to celebrate and lessen the loss of the lovers. The lines ‘The words of a dead man / Are modified in the guts of the living’ from ‘In Memory of W. B. Yeats’ refer to the transferable nature of literature, and its constant re-interpretation as it is received by a new audience. This again mirrors the nature of Atonement; Robbie and Cecilia will live forever in Briony’s literature, as W. B. Yeats will live forever in his poetry (Norton).
The tone of the novel at the section of inclusion of the poem is already glum – Robbie is at war, and injured. The first quote from the poem in the novel is ‘In the nightmare of the dark / All the dogs of Europe bark,’ (page 203), introduced at