No Second Troy Rhetorical Analysis

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William Butler Yeats love poem “No Second Troy” epitomizes Yeats conflicting emotions in pursuing a relationship with Maud Gonne. The reader is aware that the speaker, who can be identified as Yeats, is troubled by Gonnes’s revolutionary activities (Greenblatt 2474). Through several rhetorical questions, the speaker expresses his resentment towards Gonne while comparing her to Helen of Troy. Through these comparisons the reader gets a sense the destruction as well as the heartbreak that Gonne caused for Yeats. Yeats begins with a question stating, “Why should I blame her that she filled my days/ with misery” (1-2). This line evokes the pain Yeats felt as he expresses bitter emotions caused by Gonne while he blames her for his own misery. Considering

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