Yeats begins by using a symbolic image of a fisherman, and writes the poem for his own personal ideal audience. He opens the poem using a first person narrative, mixed with a simple monosyllabic dialogue “Although I can see him still”, in order to emphasise the simplistic nature of the fisherman, and Yeats adds to this effect by using a very regular rhyming pattern (ABAB), and enjambment of the line in order to add a harmony and fluidity to the poem.
As you carry on Yeats describes a lot of rural and naturalistic imagery “the freckled man”…grey Connemara clothes” emphasising the typical old simple, and hard working Irish man, and this could in fact be compared to the ‘Irish Airman’. Because both poems are connected to a specific place in Ireland, in ‘The Fisherman’, it is Connemara, when in the ‘Irish Airman’ it is “Kiltarton Cross”, also in ‘The Fisherman’, notice how the man seems to form as part of the landscape “grey place on a hill in grey”, which shows how, not only is he wearing Connemara clothes, a local material, but seems to merge with the natural environment.
Yeats also uses a variety of different syntax’s, in order to present the Irish people, and to present their different attitudes. From the simple syntax of the fisherman, “cast his flies “reflecting the quite, simple aspects of Ireland to where people live off the land, to which in Yeats’ eyes is the perfect audience for him to write to. However the complex syntax “craven man” which is used, reflects the confusion almost, on how Yeats is travelling from his ideal reality, then arriving upon the actual reality, to which he detests.
From lines eight to twenty-five, it shows