Yeats’s ‘Adam’s Curse’: The Dignity of Work

Yeats’s ‘Adam’s Curse’: The Dignity of Work
In W.B. Yeats's poem "Adam's Curse," God consigns Adam to a life of work in which he must till and cultivate the land in order to bring forth his food. "Gathering the Harvest," 1909, by Francis Davis Millet. Public Domain
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For the whole of human history, man has simultaneously shirked from work, sought respite from it, delighted in it, and found it to be a necessity. Even while seeking to avoid it, he also wouldn’t perfectly enjoy a permanent escape from it, for we yearn to achieve something worthwhile and to see that what we have done is good.

William Butler Yeats published his poem “Adam’s Curse” in 1903, and from the title, it’s immediately apparent that two things are foremost in his thoughts in the poem: work and mortality.

Marlena Figge
Marlena Figge
Author
Marlena Figge received her M.A. in Italian Literature from Middlebury College in 2021 and graduated from the University of Dallas in 2020 with a B.A. in Italian and English. She currently has a teaching fellowship and teaches English at a high school in Italy.
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