In Memory of Eva Gore-Booth and Con Markiewicz

“In Memory of Eva Gore-Booth and Con Markiewicz” was written in 1927, following the death of Eva Gore-Booth and while Constance Markiewicz was also in declining health (she died in 1927). The poem mourns two sisters from the Anglo-Irish aristocracy who abandoned their privileged lives for political activism. Yeats remembers them as beautiful young women at their family estate, Lissadell in County Sligo, and grieves for what politics has done to them.

For exams, this poem is valuable for discussing Yeats’s views on beauty, time, politics, and the tension between the ideal and the real. It connects powerfully to his broader themes of loss, ageing, and the destructive effects of political engagement.

Context

Eva Gore-Booth was a poet and social activist who campaigned for women’s suffrage and workers’ rights in Manchester. Constance Markiewicz (nee Gore-Booth) became one of the leaders of the Easter Rising, was sentenced to death (later commuted), and became the first woman elected to the British Parliament. Both sisters were born into the Anglo-Irish gentry at Lissadell House in Sligo. Yeats knew them in their youth and was struck by their beauty and vitality. He sees their political careers as a kind of destruction of that beauty, though his view is complicated and not entirely fair to two women who achieved extraordinary things.

Line-by-Line Analysis

Opening Lines

Analysis: The poem begins with a vivid memory of the two sisters at Lissadell, “in silk kimonos,” one “a gazelle.” The setting is elegant and peaceful: the “light of evening” and the “great windows” suggest warmth, beauty, and privilege. Yeats is creating an idealised image of aristocratic grace that the rest of the poem will set against the harsh reality of their political lives.

• Quote: “The light of evening, Lissadell, / Great windows open to the south” – Explanation: Lissadell represents a golden age of beauty and privilege. The open windows suggest openness and freedom. This image becomes more poignant as the poem shows what followed.
• Quote: “Two girls in silk kimonos, both / Beautiful, one a gazelle” – Explanation: The girls are presented as works of art. The gazelle comparison suggests grace, delicacy, and natural beauty. Yeats idealises them deliberately to heighten the contrast with their later lives.

Middle Section

Analysis: The poem moves forward in time. The sisters have aged, their beauty faded. Politics has “withered” them. Eva’s campaigns and Con’s revolutionary violence have consumed their youth and grace. Yeats sees this as a tragedy. The world they were born into, the world of Lissadell, has been destroyed, and the world they helped create has not replaced its beauty. The speaker’s tone is elegiac, mourning not just the sisters but a whole way of life.

• Quote: “The older is condemned to death, / Pardoned, drags out lonely years / Conspiring among the ignorant” – Explanation: This refers to Con Markiewicz. “Drags out” and “lonely” suggest a diminished life. “The ignorant” is harsh: Yeats implies her political allies were not her intellectual equals. This is arguably unfair, but it reveals Yeats’s aristocratic bias.

Closing Lines

Analysis: The poem ends with a powerful, almost violent image. The speaker urges that the “great gazebo” be set on fire, bidding the sisters “arise and bid me strike a match / And strike another till time catch.” The gazebo may represent the old Anglo-Irish world of privilege, or the illusory structures of both aristocratic and political life. The desire to burn it all suggests Yeats wants to strip away everything false and return to some essential truth. The poem closes with longing and frustration.

• Quote: “Arise and bid me strike a match / And strike another till time catch” – Explanation: The idea of setting fire to time itself is extraordinary. Yeats wants to burn away the years that destroyed the sisters’ beauty and the world they inhabited. It is an impossible, passionate wish.

Literary Devices

• Contrast: The beautiful young women at Lissadell vs the aged, politically worn women they became. Aristocratic grace vs political struggle.
• Imagery: The “silk kimonos,” “gazelle,” “great windows,” and “light of evening” create an idealised, painterly opening that intensifies the loss.
• Symbolism: Lissadell represents the Anglo-Irish aristocratic world. The gazebo represents illusory or temporary structures. Fire represents purification and the desire to undo time.
• Elegy: The poem follows the elegiac tradition of mourning the dead while reflecting on larger themes of beauty, time, and loss.

Mood

The mood is elegiac, nostalgic, and finally frustrated. Yeats begins in warm, golden memory, moves through grief and anger at what politics has done, and ends with a passionate, futile wish to undo time itself. There is tenderness alongside harshness, admiration alongside condescension.

Themes

• Beauty and Its Destruction: Politics has consumed the sisters’ beauty and vitality. Yeats mourns this as a kind of crime against nature.
• Time and Loss: The passage of time has destroyed everything the speaker valued: beauty, youth, a way of life.
• Politics and Its Cost: Political engagement is presented as withering and diminishing. This is a controversial view, especially given the sisters’ genuine achievements.
• The Anglo-Irish World: Lissadell represents a vanishing Protestant aristocratic culture that Yeats valued and mourned.

Pitfalls

• Do not accept Yeats’s view uncritically. Both sisters achieved remarkable things. Yeats’s grief is real, but his tendency to value beauty over political action reveals his own biases.
• Do not ignore the class dimension. Yeats mourns an aristocratic world, and his attitude to the sisters’ activism reflects his complicated relationship with democracy and popular politics.
• Do not treat the poem as purely negative. There is genuine love and admiration for the sisters alongside the grief.

Rapid Revision Drills

• How does Yeats use contrast between past and present to create emotion in this poem?
• What does the image of Lissadell represent, and why is it important?
• Is Yeats fair to the Gore-Booth sisters? Discuss with reference to the poem.

Conclusion

“In Memory of Eva Gore-Booth and Con Markiewicz” is a complex elegy that mourns not just two women but an entire way of life. Yeats’s vision is partial and sometimes unfair, but the poem’s emotional power is undeniable. The tension between admiration and regret, between beauty and politics, makes it one of his most thought-provoking poems. For exams, it connects to “Easter 1916” (another poem about the cost of political engagement) and “The Wild Swans at Coole” (another poem about the passage of time and loss of beauty).

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