A Prayer for my Daughter

Essay Questions

1. *How does Yeats use the Atlantic storm as both a literal setting and a sustained metaphor throughout A Prayer for my Daughter? Explore the ways in which the storm's symbolic function — representing historical upheaval, ideological violence, and the precariousness of the modern world — shapes the poem's central anxieties about his daughter's future. (AQA AO1/AO2; IB guiding concept: Time, Space & Place)*

1. *To what extent does Yeats present beauty as a threat rather than a gift in A Prayer for my Daughter? In your response, consider how he draws on mythological figures to construct his argument, and analyse how his ambivalence toward beauty reflects broader tensions between the aesthetic and the political in the poem. (AQA AO1/AO2; AP Lit Q1 poetry analysis)*

1. How does Yeats's use of natural symbolism — particularly the linnet, the laurel tree, and the Horn of Plenty — establish his vision of an ideal life for his daughter? Evaluate how effectively these symbols work together to articulate a coherent set of values and consider the extent to which those values reflect Yeats's personal anxieties as much as genuine paternal hope. (AQA AO1/AO2; IB guiding concept: Identity)

1. *"A Prayer for my Daughter is less a prayer for a child and more a meditation on Yeats's own fears and disappointments." To what extent do you agree with this view? In your answer, consider the biographical shadow of Maud Gonne, the concept of "radical innocence," and the shifting tone between tenderness and bitterness across the poem. (AQA AO1/AO3; AP Lit Q1 poetry analysis)*

1. *How does Yeats construct an argument against ideology and in favour of ceremony in A Prayer for my Daughter? Analyse the ways in which symbols such as the bellows and Thoor Ballylee, alongside the poem's shifting tone, position tradition and inner peace as superior to political conviction. (AQA AO1/AO2; IB guiding concept: Culture, Identity & Community)*

1. *Compare the ways in which parental love and protectiveness are expressed in A Prayer for my Daughter and one other poem you have studied. Consider how each poet uses form, tone, and imagery to negotiate the tension between the desire to shelter a child and the recognition of the world's danger. (AQA AO1/AO2/AO3 comparative; IB guiding concept: Intertextuality)*

1. *To what extent does the historical and political context of post-1916 Ireland deepen a reader's understanding of A Prayer for my Daughter? Examine how Yeats's anxieties about revolutionary violence, the War of Independence, and the figure of Maud Gonne are encoded in the poem's imagery and argument, and consider whether the poem can be read as politically charged despite its domestic surface. (AQA AO1/AO3; AP Lit Q1 poetry analysis; IB guiding concept: Time, Space & Place)*