In What Sense is The Lake Isle of Innisfree a Poem about Escapism?

Sense is The Lake Isle of Innisfree a Poem about Escapism

W.B. Yeats was in London when he wrote The Lake Isle of Innisfree, a famous lyric in 1890. The poem was prompted by a feeling of homesickness. Innisfree is an island in a lake near Sligo, where, as a young man, Yeats had dreamed of a simple life close to Nature. He was standing on an actual London pavement when a jet of water in a chemist’s shop set him dreaming of this island in a fit of homesickness. 

 

On this island of Innisfree the poet had spent his holidays with his grandparents in his early life. So standing on an actual London pavement, the mature Yeats dreams of this island in a fit of nostalgia. Being weary of city life, the poet yearns to go to the lonely isle of Innisfree, build a small cottage of clay and wattles and live there in natural and peaceful surrounding. So The Lake isle of Innisfree gives the expression to a feeling of weariness and longing for an ideally simple but beautiful place. It is a symbol of a peaceful place where the poet’s soul may find rest and tranquility. Thus the poem records the poet’s mood of escapism in the romantic tradition. Like Keats he expresses a desire for escaping from the din and bustle of London life to the beautiful and quiet island of Innisfree. 

 

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