Author: Ano Sensei
Format: Video
Structure: Free verse, Lyric
"Mad as the Mist and Snow" by W.B. Yeats. Reading and analysis
I work through the poem stanza by stanza, examining how Yeats creates the contrast between order and chaos, inside and outside, civilization and madness. The analysis reveals how the central image of snow - both ordered in its crystalline structure and chaotic in its overwhelming mass - embodies the poem's deepest question: is our world of learning and wisdom just another form of madness?
What's covered:
Imagery: The house, the storm, the bookshelf, the ordered classics
Narrative voice: Two old friends in conversation
Contrasting elements: Inside/outside, educated/unlettered, order/madness
The shocking final revelation and what it means
Who it's for:
For students studying Yeats, readers interested in close reading techniques, or anyone who wants to understand how poetry creates meaning through structure and imagery.
0:00 Intro
0:10 Ways of looking at poetry
0:54 1st stanza: A reading
1:15 Imagery
1:43 Narrative voice
2:38 Contrasting elements
3:15 2nd stanza: A reading
3:38 Imagery
4:19 Narrative voice
4:56 Contrasting elements
5:19 What makes you sigh and shudder?
5:46 Third stanza: A reading
6:08 Maybe we are all mad!
7:05 The ordered structure of a snowflake
7:32 The chaos of snow
A reading and analysis of a short poem by the Irish poet William Butler Yeats. Subscribe to "Ano sensei!" and never miss another video!
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Bolt and bar the shutter,
For the foul winds blow:
Our minds are at their best this night,
And I seem to know
That everything outside us is
Mad as the mist and snow.
Horace there by Homer stands,
Plato stands below,
And here is Tully's open page.
How many years ago
Were you and I unlettered lads
Mad as the mist and snow?
You ask what makes me sigh, old friend,
What makes me shudder so?
I shudder and I sigh to think
That even Cicero
And many-minded Homer were
Mad as the mist and snow.Show More
9 Comments
0:00 Intro
0:10 Ways of looking at poetry
0:54 1st stanza: A reading
1:15 Imagery
1:43 Narrative voice
2:38 Contrasting elements
3:15 2nd stanza: A reading
3:38 Imagery
4:19 Narrative voice
4:56 Contrasting elements
5:19 What makes you sigh and shudder?
5:46 Third stanza: A reading
6:08 Maybe we are all mad!
7:05 The ordered structure of a snowflake
7:32 The chaos of snow
I had a different interpretation and would love to hear your thoughts.
I like to believe Yeats is talking to himself and to the reader while in despair (and despaired people often talk to themselves). Also, Horace/Homer/Plato is not in alphabetical order IMO, it’s just him comparing geniuses. The other thing is that I don’t think he’s referring to himself as a kid necessarily but just to the time when was starting his intellectual journey and he refers to the same about Cicero and Plato – even them were once starting their journey. He’s probably in despair to be among such great writers of history and although that overwhelms him, he now sees everything with clarity.
Hi, Murilo (is that right?)! You make some great points here. I taught English language and literature for many years, and I always used to tell my students that one of the big differences is that with language we’re talking about what it “means”, whereas with literature it’s all about what it means _to me_. A poem is about the reader’s relationship to it, and there’s no one “right” way of understanding it.
Here are my reactions to your points:
In a sense, any poem is inevitably a dialogue between the poet and the reader, so that must also be true in this case. However, Yeats sets it up as if it were a dialogue between himself and someone in the same room as himself, an “old friend”. We can, of course, build on that and see it as a metaphorical representation of the reader, but it is hard to deny that it is also what it appears to be, an old friend who is in the same room!
It may just be serendipitous that, in an alphabetically-organized bookshelf, Horace and Homer would be together on the same shelf, while Plato would be below; to me, it is just one more detail adding to the sense of established order the poet builds up through his references to the classics.
Literally, “unlettered lads” would mean “boys who have not learned to read or write”, but – as always – there is some latitude for interpretation here. It could perhaps mean that their education was not complete, or even that they had not yet studied literature. Do we see the “lads” as children, or as adolescents, or even as young men? There’s nothing in the text to determine this, so it is up to us, as readers, to see it in the way that makes best sense to us.
I see what you are saying about Cicero and Plato (or, more strictly, “many-minded Homer”); that they too were once unlettered lads and therefore also, at that stage in their lives, “mad as the mist and snow”. I personally do not think that is what Yeats is saying. To me, he is making a more powerful point; that the things we imagine give us a higher order of civilization and culture are, in reality, just as chaotic as the disordered world we try to shut out.
But that is what the poem means _to me_, and that’s what any journey through literature – as through life – is all about. We can’t impose our understanding on others, nor should we try. All we can do is say what it means to us and invite others to think about what it means to them.
Thank you for your comment!
John
Thank you for your reply, it was very enlightening!
@murilogomes4352 You are most welcome!
Thank you so much
You’re very welcome! Let me know if you have any particular requests for poems you’d like me to analyze. I can’t guarantee anything, but I’ll do my best!
I really enjoyed you breaking down that poem!
Thank you! I’m glad you liked it!