What does this refrain mean? How can beauty be terrible? How does the “birth” of this beauty mark a profound change? Why are these words repeated at the end of three of the poem’s four stanzas?
Easter 1916
“Write a [2 ½ page] response paper considering the significance of the famous refrain ‘a terrible beauty is born.’ What does this refrain mean? How can beauty be terrible? How does the “birth” of this beauty mark a profound change? Why are these words repeated at the end of three of the poem’s four stanzas? How might the paradox within this image reflect a broader wrestling with paradox in the poem?”