Semansky is an instructor of English literature and composition whose essays, poems, and stories regularly appear in journals and magazines. In this essay, Semansky considers the relationship between self-image and daydreaming in Yeats's poem.

Yeats's poem is perhaps most interesting for what it does not say. Although the speaker expresses the desire to arise and "go to Innisfree," he never explicitly states what it is that motivates this desire. This absence asks readers to infer what compels the speaker to be other than where he is. People often daydream when they are dissatisfied with their lives. They fantasize about how circumstances might be different and how new surroundings would make them more content, perhaps even how such a change would make them different persons. They see themselves in daydreams differently than they see themselves in their "waking" life. By examining the speaker's daydream closely, readers can deduce...