The Circus Animals' Desertion
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‘The Circus Animals’ Desertion’ is a reflective late poem by W. B. Yeats in which the poet considers the sources of his earlier imaginative energy and the decline of artistic invention with age.
Yeats uses the image of discarded circus animals to meditate on how poetic subjects emerge from ordinary or discarded materials, culminating in the famous image of the 'foul rag-and-bone shop of the heart.
' The poem mixes elegiac tones with ironical self-awareness as the poet confronts the limitations and origins of his work.
It is celebrated for its striking metaphors and its meta-poetic commentary on creativity and memory.
The poem has become a notable part of Yeats’s late oeuvre and is frequently anthologised and discussed in studies of modern poetry.
Yeats uses the image of discarded circus animals to meditate on how poetic subjects emerge from ordinary or discarded materials, culminating in the famous image of the 'foul rag-and-bone shop of the heart.
' The poem mixes elegiac tones with ironical self-awareness as the poet confronts the limitations and origins of his work.
It is celebrated for its striking metaphors and its meta-poetic commentary on creativity and memory.
The poem has become a notable part of Yeats’s late oeuvre and is frequently anthologised and discussed in studies of modern poetry.
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Kate Legge
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