1. “Adam’s Curse” By William Butler Yeats
Vin, Caro, Trev, Huss, Mich, Em

2. Reading Time READ THE POEM Literary devices The speaker Big Messages
Types of Imagery
harambe
Michaela

3. Overview Speaker is sitting with two women on a summer night
They are discussing poetry, and the speaker discusses that poetry is difficult, and yet not considered real work nor a profession
He believes that poetry should seem effortless, yet be profound
The woman he speaks to says that women work hard to be beautiful while making it look effortless
The speaker compares this to Adam and Eve, eventually musing about how society believes love is overrated
The speaker compares the moon to the heart, in that it gets weary as time passes.
Hussain

4. Form and Meter
Heroic Couplet:
Rhyming Pairs of verse in Iambic Pentameter Better go down upon your marrow-bones And scrub a kitchen pavement, or break stones (7-8)
Both shows off and discusses the difficult of poetry!
Slant Rhyme:
Not perfect rhyming That you were beautiful, and that I strove To love you in the old high way of love; (36-37)
Purposefully done as it describes how his love for the girl is not completely there
End rhymes give us a sense of perfection and skill, slant rhymes show incompleteness.
Hussain

5. Assonance and AlLITeration
Assonance: Washed by time's waters as they rose and fell (33) (“ah” sound) That you were beautiful, and that I strove (long ‘u’ sound)
Alliteration: We saw the last embers of daylight die, (30)
Why? To add fluidity, and to show off.
Hussain

6. (funny but still true 2 the poem)
The Dominant Effect
In “Adam’s Curse”, Yeats was totes a baller and told the haters that poetry is hard 2 write but legit m8. You gotta work work work work work work work. Rip.
(funny but still true 2 the poem)
Vineet

7. IOC - The Dominant Effect
In “Adam’s Curse”, Yeats uses biblical allusions and astral imagery to describe the difficulty of perfecting art, lamenting how society underappreciates the effort given by men and women to create and maintain beauty.
art= poetic art, physical beauty, and the art of love and romance
In “Adam’s Curse”, Yeats uses biblical allusions and astral imagery to describe underappreciation of the efforts given by men and women who create an sustain beauty, emphasizing the difficulty of labouring over love and poetry.
In “Adam’s Curse”, Yeats uses biblical allusions and astral imagery to portray the difficulty of maintaining beauty and perfection, creating a lamenting tone that society nowadays underappreciates the price

8. Context│Creating the Speaker
Influence of Lady Gregory (1896):
Encouraged Yeats’ nationalism and influence of the younger generation and its emerging Irish authors
Influenced Yeats’ creation of an elderly speaker in “Adam’s Curse”
Trevor

9. Creating the Speaker “We sat grown quiet at the name of love” (28).
“Washed by time’s waters as they rose and fell” (32).
Trevor

10. Context│Implementing Imagination
Co-founded the Irish Literary Theatre (1899):
Theater manifesto: “We hope to find in Ireland an uncorrupted & imaginative audience”
Uses imagination to make the process of creating tedious less tedious
Trevor

11. Implementing Imagination
“And in the trembling blue-green of the sky” (30).
Trevor

12. Biblical Allusion
The title “Adam’s Curse” and the line “Since Adam’s fall” (23) both refer to the story of the Garden of Eden in Genesis, the first book of the Old Testament.
Adam and Eve sinned by eating the Forbidden Fruit, sending them and their ancestors outside the Garden of Eden, where life is a struggle and labor is required. They are no longer taken care of by God, and both face the punishment of self-reliance.
Yeats believes that love, similarly, is a struggle - referencing his difficult relationship with Maude.
Michaela

13. Astral Imagery “We sat grown quiet at the name of love;/
We saw the last embers of daylight die”(28-29).
The dying of the daylight brings out the stars and the moon, which allows Yeats to use astral imagery and create the imaginative mood.
Vineet

14. Astral Imagery “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”(31-33).
Yeats compares the moon to a shell that has been washed over by time. The moon represents the speaker’s ability to love, which has been weathered by events in his life. Just as the passage of time negatively affects the moon, it also erodes the speaker’s romantic life. The passage of time wore out his heart like the ocean wore out a seashell.
Vineet

15. Astral Imagery “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 ”(36-38).
The speaker wants to love in the same traditional way. His view of this love is full of optimism until he realizes that his love was in fact just fading away. The moon acts as a metaphor for the speaker’s diminishing capacity to love through the passage of time.
Vineet

16. Three Types of Beauty in the Poem
Poetry Physical Appearance Love

17. Tangible Beauty “For to articulate sweet sounds together….” (10)
Men (the speaker) must work hard at perfecting poetry
“‘That we must labour to be beautiful’” (20)
Women must work hard at being pretty
These ideas from the first half contain beauty that is tangible, which can be more easily controlled (self-tangible).
Carolina
-Avoid mood analysis
-Talk about types of beauty-
Yates presents beauty in three forms: poetry, physical appearance, and love.
As Michaela explained earlier, because of Adam and Eve, people must work hard to maintain these types of beauty and perfection. Yates divides these three forms into tangible and intangible beauty,

18. Intangible Beauty
“…, and I that I strove / To love you in the old high way of love;”
“And yet we’d grown/ As weary-hearted as that hollow moon.”(38)
Men and Women work hard together in order to achieve love
Harder to attain, requires same level of affection between two parties
Carolina

19. 1st and 2nd Stanza: Sharing Opinions Phase
Calm mood.
Lamenting and leashing out frustration, but at the same time the speaker presents an admiring tone toward all the hard work he puts into poetry and all the hard work the lady puts into making herself pretty.
Emily

20. But when they start to discuss love…...
“There have been lovers who thought love should be
So much compounded of high courtesy” (23-24)
“Yet now it seems an idle trade enough” (27)
“We sat grown quiet at the name of love;” (28)
Sense of bittersweetness as the three realize that people used to work hard to woo their lovers, but nowadays, society sees this as idle and meaningless
Despondent and dejected tone that carries until the end.

21. Juxtaposition of Man and Woman (MAN)
“‘It’s certain there is no fine thing/ Since Adam’s fall but needs much laboring’” (22-23).
Since God deemed them unworthy of the luxuries in the Garden of Eden, men must labor to perform everyday tasks. For poets, whose writing is the backbone of their careers, their works are a continuous process make anything they deem worthwhile, such as poetry.
Since men were hailed as breadwinners, the effort that poets put into their works define their purpose in society. This is why writing poetry is such a tedious process. It needs to stand out.
Michaela

22. Juxtaposition of Man and Woman (WOMAN)
“‘To be born woman is to know-/ Although they do not talk of it at school-/ That we must labor to be beautiful’” (18-20).
The woman provides a different perspective than the speaker’s, and this introduces the concept that women labor thanklessly to maintain their own beauty.
Just as the beauty of a man’s poetry gives his work meaning, a woman’s physical beauty gives her worth in the eyes of society.
The main difference between their struggles is that while only men who write poetry are expected to create beauty, all women are expected to be beautiful.
Michaela

23. Discussion Questions
What is the curse in “Adam’s Curse”? How does this curse apply to different part of Yeats's life?
In reference to all of Yeats’ literary pieces, how does his age affect his writing?
The woman in the poem offers a perspective on the work required to maintain physical beauty. Does Yeats accurately represent the opinions of women in his era?

24. Exit Slip
Feedback
In reference to all of Yeats’ literary pieces, how does his age affect his writing?

25. Works Cited
Laird 23 April 2015, Nick. "WB Yeats: How to Read a Poem." BBC. BBC, 23
Apr Web. 07 Nov
Reagan, Stephen. "W.B. Yeats: Irish Nationalism and Post-Colonial Theory."
JSTOR. JSTOR, 12 Aug Web. 7 Nov
Yeats, William Butler. "Adam's Curse by William Butler Yeats | Poetry
Foundation." Poetry Foundation. Poetry Foundation, n.d. Web. 10 Nov