“The Cat and the Moon” - W.B. Yeats (June 13, 1865 - January 28, 1939, Irish)
THE cat went here and there
And the moon spun round like a top,
And the nearest kin of the moon,
The creeping cat, looked up.
Black Minnaloushe stared at the moon,
For, wander and wail as he would,
The pure cold light in the sky
Troubled his animal blood.
Minnaloushe runs in the grass
Lifting his delicate feet.
Do you dance, Minnaloushe, do you dance?
When two close kindred meet.
What better than call a dance?
Maybe the moon may learn,
Tired of that courtly fashion,
A new dance turn.
Minnaloushe creeps through the grass
From moonlit place to place,
The sacred moon overhead
Has taken a new phase.
Does Minnaloushe know that his pupils
Will pass from change to change,
And that from round to crescent,
From crescent to round they range?
Minnaloushe creeps through the grass
Alone, important and wise,
And lifts to the changing moon
His changing eyes.
About the Author:
William Butler Yeats was an Irish poet and one of the foremost figures of 20th century literature. He
received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923. He died in France in 1939.
Pre-Reading:
Pre-teach difficult vocabulary: delicate, kindred, courtly, creeps, sacred, crescent
Reading:
Have the students read through the poem once to themselves. Then read the poem aloud to the class
once, really highlighting the playful and dance-like meter in your recitation. Ask students for initial
thoughts, understandings, interpretations, images, or confusions.
Discussion and Analysis:
The cat in the poem (Minnaloushe) allegedly belonged to Maude Gonne, the object of a lifelong
obsession for Yeats, and is often interpreted to be about Yeats’ relationship with her. How can you
analyze this? Who does Minnaloushe represent? Who does the moon represent? How does the poem
show that the cat and the moon are both very close, but very different at the same time? Have students
find some examples in the poem that illustrate the relationship between the cat and the moon (ex. The
repetition of the theme of kin [“nearest kin,” “close kindred”] shows the closeness between the cat and
the moon, but the specification that the cat is “black,” and knowing that the moon is white, creates a
visual opposition and distance. The narrator also often describes both beings as “changing”- does this
make them more similar or more different?)
How does the structure of the poem parallel the content? The poem is about a dance and therefore the
poem moves very rhythmically and repetitively, making it sound like a song to dance to. The strong,
simple use of rhyme also helps to build the rhythm. Knowing the common interpretation of the poem
described above, what does the playful structure of the poem make you think about Yeats’ feelings
about his relationship?
In German, “minna” means protective, and “loushe” sounds like the word for light (“lux,” “lucis”).
Though Minnaloushe itself is not a word, if we put these pieces together we can assume the name
means “protective light.” How does this understanding of the cat’s name, and knowledge of the cat’s
relationship to the author, affect your understanding of the poem?
At line 9, the narrator changes from past tense to present tense. Why do you think he does this? Who
do you think the intended audience is for this poem?
Activities:
Assonance and alliteration are used to create the soft but swift movements and the lyrical, childish
tones in this poem. Alliteration is the occurrence of the same letter or sound at the beginning of
adjacent or closely connected words. Assonance is the repetition of a pattern of similar sounds within
a sentence, especially vowel sounds (example “troubled” and “blood”, line 8). Have students find and
underline the examples of alliteration and assonance in the poem. What effect does this have on the
reader?
Have students pick a line or section of the poem to illustrate. Write the line on a piece of paper, and
create an artistic representation of that line.