The Tree it Literary Works: Annotated Bibliography

I am exploring the embodiment of the chestnut tree by Yeats in “Among School Children.” Yeats becomes gloomy and nostalgic when he is among the children due to his realization that he is significantly aged, and in this poem, he looks to a chestnut tree for wisdom, for an answer. I think that the tree signifies strength, beauty, and resilience. I would like to show how the symbolism of trees is significant and perhaps show that the tree is intimately important to Yeats by showing that the tree signifies unrequited love.
I would like to focus on Yeats’s positive employment of the chestnut tree because according to my sources, trees are timeless icons. I am also intrigued that the poet poses a question to the tree. “O chestnut tree, great-rooted blossomer/Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole?” (61-62). Reading the poem many times helps me realize that Yeats actually asks a second question. “O body swayed to music, O brightening glance/How can we know the dancer from the dance?” (63-64). Can it be possible that these inquiries are actually posed to one person that is symbolized by the tree? I think that the “chestnut tree” is revered and admired by the poet. I get a mental picture of a substantial, secure, rooted tree with bounteous foliage and lovely blooms. I appreciate that Yeats engages the tree directly, and his direct questioning gives the tree personification. Yeats honors the tree by asking for input so that he can better understand the tree (or perhaps his life).
Although it can be argued that the chestnut tree is literal reference, I think that Yeats is referring to Maude Gonne. Gonne had reddish, fiery hair, which is referred to in modern times as “ginger,” but the time that Yeats penned this poem, perhaps...

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...eories of Charles Darwin and gives a long quote that is significant to my proposal. I will include it here because it is so well put by Darwin that rewording it would be ridiculous. In Origin, he says “As buds give rise by growth to fresh buds, and these, if vigorous, branch out and overtop on all sides many a feebler branch, so by generation I believe it has been with the great Tree of Life, which fills with its dead and broken branches the crust of the earth, and covers the surface with its ever-branching and beautiful ramifications.” The paper goes on to assert many ideas including mentioning an “apostolic tree” which is intriguing to me, and mentions a connection between people being a sort of “tree-like plant, mixed up with a supernatural being.” I think these are incredible thoughts and will refer back to them even after I have completed this assignment.