Research Paper on:
'Michael Robartes and the Dancer' by Irish Poet William Butler Yeats

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
"greatness as a poet lies in his ability to communicate the power and significance of his symbols, by the way he expresses ad organizes them, even to  readers who nothing of his system" (Abrams, et al 1562). Yeats poem "Michael Robartes and the Dancer" illustrates this point, which lent its name to the entire volume of poetry  in which it first appeared in 1921. Of this volume, Stephens writes that in Michael Robartes, Yeats merged politics and literature, and this is also evident in Michael Robartes and  the Dancer, the poem (35). An examination of Michael Robartes and the Dancer shows that the poem expresses Yeats attitude toward women, female education and the relationship between  the sexes. In this poem, Robartes admonishes a beautiful dancer who wishes to go to college that this is not only a waste of time, but also an actual abomination  to her sex. This attitude points to the fact that while Yeats is considered to be a twentieth century poet, he was born and grew to manhood in the nineteenth  century. Therefore, it really isnt surprising that some of his attitudes, particularly his attitudes toward women, are distinctly nineteenth century and rather Victorian. This is a light, rather witty  poem despite the metaphysical airs assumed by Michael Robartes. In this poem, Yeats expresses the concept that can be concisely summarized as "beautiful women should be seen and  not heard," for theirs is the wisdom of the body. In true Victorian fashion, Yeats regards women as having a subordinate intellectual role, while simultaneously elevating them above men in  other terms. The poem opens with Michael Robartes commenting on an "altar-piece," in which a knight battles a metaphorical dragon. Robartes speculates that if his lover would merely look