In Memory of Eva Gore-Booth and Con Markievicz

In Memory of Eva Gore-booth and Con Markiewicz

·         Elongated Petrarchan sonnet

·         Nationalism/Irish concerns

o   The older is condemned to death – Con Markiewicz is condemned as a deputy leader in the easter rising. Sentence reduced to imprisonment as she’s a woman

o   Conspiring among the ignorant – Con became an MP, surprisingly critical. The ignorant being the MPs of Sinn Fein?

o   I know not what the younger dreams – some vague Utopia – dismissive. A free Ireland/ self-government is an impossible ideal?

o   Withered old and skeleton-gaunt, / An image of such politics – the romantic notion of a free Ireland is withered? Or the nationalist effort/politics are?

o   All the folly of a fight / With a common wrong or right – the nationalist struggle? Factional fighting within the republican groups in the early 1920s – common cause

o   Strike a match… bid me strike a match and blow – references to destruction in Ireland.  The conflagration in the final lines in some way refers to the arson attacks on great ancestral homes such as that of ‘Lissadell’ and what they represented.  Encourages violent reprisal? Achieve something in Ireland instead of fruitless attempts, inspire him to continue his effort?

o   Gazebo – metaphor for Ireland in contrast to the ‘Great’ house that is Britain. Makes it seem weak and inferior and its attachment to Britain is tenuous. Also means to make a fool of oneself in colloquial hiberno-English. Yeats criticises the nationalist cause?

o…