1. Adam’s Curse
By: Sophie Shugarts, Kimberly Cabamalan, Chris Yoo, Brooklyn Lee, Joshua Stavehaug, and Gemma Morris

2. Dominant Effect
Yeats uses nature imagery and juxtaposition to create a frustrated, somber tone, illuminating parallels and differences between manual and intellectual labor.
Chris

3. Background and Context
Wealthy sponsor paid for the renovation of Dublin’s Abbey Theatre, where Yeats’s play On Baile’s Strand was performed
First in a collection of plays featuring the heroic ancient Irish warrior Cuchulain
Irish national identity
Style of poetry shifted to conversational rhythms and simpler diction
Greater appeal to a wider audience for a national identity
In the Seven Woods (1903), The Green Helmet and Other Poems (1910), and Responsibilities (1914)
Autobiography by Maud Gonne, A Servant of a Queen
Overarching theme of this poem: art and beauty are not appreciated
“I saw Willie Yeats looking critically at me and he told Kathleen he liked her dress. It was on that occasion Kathleen remarked that it was hard work being beautiful which Willie turned into his poem Adam's Curse” (Jeffares, 78)
Kimberly

4. Rhyme Scheme Heroic Couplet
“(in verse) a pair of rhyming iambic pentameters, much used by Chaucer and the poets of the 17th and 18th centuries such as Alexander Pope.”
Significance of this choice
Due to the rhyme scheme, the heroic couplet grabs the listener’s attention and draws importance to specific lines, similar to how Yeats draws attention to how art is not appreciated
Iambic Pentameter-Use of traditional poetic meter for theme
As the poem progresses the AABB rhyme scheme deteriorates-slant rhyme
Demonstrates the shift from a structured Romantic rhyme scheme to the more unstructured Modernism
Romanticism ---> Modernism ---> More intellectual time
Sophie

5. Allusion: Adam and Eve
Title: Adam’s Curse= an allusion to Adam and Eve after they ate the apple
Adam=cursed to hard work and manual labor
Eve=cursed to labor of birth
Theme: the appreciation of art, and true beauty and art are only a result of hard work
Hard work=intellectual labor
Sophie

6. Juxtaposition
Lines 5-7 “Yet if it does not seem a moment’s thought,/ Our stitching and unstitching has been naught”
Theme: art should be appreciated
stitching/ unstitching= the futility/difficulty of poetry and art because people do not appreciate it
Futile and hopeless tone
Gemma

7. Juxtaposition Continued
Lines “And scrub a kitchen pavement, or break stones/ Like an old pauper, in all kinds of weather;/ For to articulate sweet sounds together/Is to work harder than all these, and yet/Be thought an idler by the noisy set/Of bankers, schoolmasters, and clergymen”
Theme: art should be appreciated
Juxtaposing images of manual and intellectual labor to draw parallels and differences between the two, arguing that intellectual labor is “harder than all these”
The pivot word “yet” aids in this juxtaposition
Inclusion of manual labor differs from the dominant nature imagery of previous poems, showing the shift to appeal to a wider audience

8. Imagery
Lines “We saw the last embers of daylight die,/ And in the trembling blue-green of the sky/ A moon, worn as if it had been a shell/ Washed by time’s waters as they rose and fell/ About the stars and broke in days and years”
Theme of change
Juxtaposition of light and day: contrast of old and new motif of rebirth
Sunset imagery highlights the need for advancement
Metaphor of sea: theme of change and motif of time
Choice of diction: “die,” “had been,” “fell,” “broke” creates a broken and dejected tone
Duality in “shell”: symbol of birth and life but also protection/a cage
Chris

9. Imagery Continued
Lines “That you were beautiful, and that I strove/To love you in the old high way of love;/That it had all seemed happy, and yet we’d grown/As weary-hearted as that hollow moon.”
Use of past tense creates a sense of finality
Passive voice creates a nostalgic and disappointed tone (“it had seemed,” “we had grown”)
Imagery of the “hollow moon” and diction of “it had all seemed happy”
Empty and dejected tone
Heartbreaking mood
Emphasizes the lack of appreciation the speaker felt
Kimberly

10. Repetition Labor repeated on lines 21, 23
“Yet” repeated on lines 5, 11, 28 & 38
“I” repeated in lines 3, 4, 22, 35 & 36
The speaker is the poet discussing poetry and art
“We” repeated in lines 1, 29, 30, & 38
The “we” is very important, as it could refer to both the poet, his poetry, the beautiful woman or the unnamed friend, or all of them
“You” repeated in lines 2, 3, 7, 35, 36 & 37
The “you” in the poem refers to the unnamed friend the speaker discusses at the start, not the beautiful woman discussed elsewhere, but rather the Irish national identity
Josh

11. Discussion Questions Why does Yeats use quotations and dialogue?
Where do we see major shifts in the poem? What is the effect?
What (other) literary conventions does Yeats use to develop this poem’s overall tone and themes?
Brooklyn

12. Exit Slip
Pick either a motif or a repeated word (one that we mentioned or otherwise) and track it throughout the poem.
In your journal, briefly explain its significance in terms of the overall message and the themes discussed.
State one reason Yeats alludes to Adam and Eve.
Brooklyn