No Second Troy
No Second Troy - context Summary
Inspired by Maud Gonne
Written during Yeats's long fixation on Maud Gonne and published in 1910, the poem confronts the poet's contradictory feelings about a woman who inspires both admiration and social upheaval. Yeats refuses simple blame, asking whether her passionate, solitary, noble temperament could have been anything but disruptive in her time. The closing rhetorical question compares her to a destructive, fated force — a Troy for her to burn — suggesting inevitability rather than culpability.
Read Complete AnalysesWhy should I blame her that she filled my days With misery, or that she would of late Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways, Or hurled the little streets upon the great. Had they but courage equal to desire? What could have made her peaceful with a mind That nobleness made simple as a fire, With beauty like a tightened bow, a kind That is not natural in an age like this, Being high and solitary and most stern? Why, what could she have done, being what she is? Was there another Troy for her to burn?
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