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Difficulty: HardAllusion and Intertextuality

Read the poem "No Second Troy" (1910) by William Butler Yeats:

Why should I blame her that she filled my days
With misery, or that she would of late
Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways,
Or hurled the little streets upon the great,
Had they but courage equal to desire?
What could have made her peaceful with a mind
That nobleness made simple as a fire,
With beauty like a tightened bow, a kind
That is not natural in an age like this,
Being high and solitary and most stern?
Why, what could she have done, being what she is?
Was there another Troy for her to burn?

In the context of the poem as a whole, the allusion in the final line ("Was there another Troy for her to burn?") primarily serves to do which of the following?

  1. Frame the woman's destructive capacity as a mythic inevitability, suggesting that her grand nature cannot be accommodated by the modern eraAnswer
  2. B
    Condemn the woman as a malicious figure who deliberately seeks the physical ruin of her society out of personal spite
  3. C
    Identify the classical source of the allusion to define the poem's structural division between historical fact and mythological fiction
  4. D
    Express the poet's own personal frustration with the specific political failures of the Irish nationalist leadership during his lifetime
  5. E
    Summarize the events of the Trojan War to provide a cautionary tale about how pride leads to the downfall of empires

Answer

The allusion in the final line serves to frame the woman's destructive capacity as a mythic inevitability, suggesting that her grand nature cannot be accommodated by the modern era.
The correct answer is the option that identifies the allusion's purpose as framing the woman's destructive capacity as a mythic inevitability. By comparing her to Helen of Troy and asking if there was another Troy for her to burn, the speaker suggests that her disruptive nature is a natural, heroic attribute that simply has no appropriate or constructive outlet in the modern world.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Analyze the speaker's attitude and rhetorical questions throughout the poem.
The speaker repeatedly asks questions that absolve the woman of blame ('Why should I blame her...?', 'Why, what could she have done...?'), establishing that her actions are a product of her inherent character rather than malicious intent.
Understanding the speaker's tone and perspective is necessary to interpret the function of the final allusion in context.
2
Examine the description of the woman's nature and beauty.
She is described as having a mind of 'nobleness,' beauty 'like a tightened bow,' and a nature 'not natural in an age like this' that is 'high and solitary.'
This establishes her as an anachronistic, heroic figure whose stature belongs to an epic past rather than the mundane present.
3
Connect the final line's allusion to Troy to the preceding characterization.
The question 'Was there another Troy for her to burn?' compares her to Helen of Troy, suggesting that a figure of her epic scale naturally causes devastation, but because there is no grand 'Troy' in the modern world, her energy is misdirected into smaller, domestic conflicts.
This shows how the allusion functions intertextually to elevate her character and explain her disruptive actions as an inevitable tragedy of scale.

Key Concept

Analyzing how an allusion functions within a poem's thematic structure to shape tone and characterization rather than simply identifying its source.
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Topics

Allusion and Intertextuality

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