ENGLISH LITERATURE (CBSE/UGC NET)

Detailed explanation-1: -’Lapis lazuli’, written on 25th July 1936 by W. B. Yeats was published in his “Last Poems”. The poem is dedicated to Harry Clifton, who presented him with such a precious stone on his 70th birthday. Intrigued Yeats uses the marvelous carving to meditate on the role of art in the face of the tragic world.

Detailed explanation-2: -William Butler Yeats is widely considered to be one of the greatest poets of the 20th century.

Detailed explanation-3: -’Lapis Lazuli’ (the poem’s title comes from the precious blue stone) begins as a response to ‘hysterical women’ who say they are sick of art that is ‘gay’ or upbeat, especially since the shadow of an impending war hangs over everything in the 1930s.

Detailed explanation-4: -’A Prayer For My Daughter’ is considered as one of his most popular Modernist poetry works. Yeats married Georgie Hyde-Lees in 1917; as the title suggests, he wrote this poem for his daughter Anne who was born in 1919 at the time of the Irish War of Independence.