The Hero, the Girl, and the Fool by W.B. Yeats

Name: The Hero, the Girl, and the Fool
Author: W.B. Yeats

The Girl distrusts the beauty reflected in the glass, feeling that it is unlike her true self. Praise of that image seems either directed at another woman or intended as mockery, and she fears that any love won by deception must be maintained through cruelty. She warns the Hero to leave if he has loved only the image rather than the woman. The Hero admits that he has likewise resented his own strength because she has loved it. The Girl answers that if he is only strength as she is only beauty, she would rather enter a convent, where a nun receives men’s reverence without requiring cruelty. The Hero observes that reverence is given to holiness rather than to the nun herself. The Girl rejects the consolation that only God loves people for themselves: she desires a man’s love. By the roadside, the Fool imagines a time when the cycle from cradle to grave and grave to cradle has ended, and the thoughts he has wound upon a spool have become loose thread. When he is only a transparent, wind-like shade, he believes he may find a faithful love.

By W.B. Yeats · First published 1922 · Genre: Dramatic Poetry, Lyric Poetry, Love Poetry · 322 words

First lines

The Girl

I rage at my own image in the glass, / That's so unlike myself that when you praise it / It is as though you praised another, or even / Mocked me with praise of my mere opposite; / And when I wake towards morn I dread myself / For the heart cries that what deception wins / Cruelty must keep; therefore be warned and go / If you have seen that image and not the woman.

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The Hero, the Girl, and the Fool is listed on Textopian as a poem by W.B. Yeats, dated 1922 CE.

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Work type: Poem
Author: W.B. Yeats
Date: 1922 CE
Language: English
Genres: Dramatic Poetry, Lyric Poetry, Love Poetry, Philosophical Poetry, Symbolist Poetry
Length: 322 words
Structure: 1 section, 13 paragraphs
Reading fit: Fairly Easy (7th Grade)

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Work identity for The Hero, the Girl, and the Fool by W.B. Yeats
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Genres

Dramatic Poetry — The work is structured as a brief staged exchange among named speakers—the Girl, the Hero, and the Fool—with conflict and characterization expressed through dialogue.
Lyric Poetry — Its compressed, musical language concentrates on intense inward feeling, especially anxiety about beauty, strength, love, and mortality.
Love Poetry — The central dialogue examines the desire to be loved for one's true self rather than for outward beauty, strength, holiness, or illusion.
Philosophical Poetry — The poem reflects on identity, deception, cruelty, religious devotion, selfhood, death, and the possibility of faithful love beyond worldly life.