On the Artistic Expressions of When You Are Old by W.B. Yeats

摘要

The thesis can be divided into three parts. Part one is an introduction about Yeats and the poem When You Are Old. The career of Yeats and the background and literary review of the poem are given in this part. In the second part, the brief introduction of artistic expression is given. The third part focuses on the artistic expressions on words' usage and shows their beauty in the poem, such as euphemism, antithesis, emphasis, symbolism. The forth part focuses on the artistic expressions on the structure of the poem, such as imagination, undercurrent and fuzzy reference pro-form. The last part is a conclusion of the whole paper. A summary is given for emphasize the important role of these artistic expressions for expressing emotions.