What is this?
The Genius annotation is the work of the Genius Editorial project. Our editors and contributors collaborate to create the most interesting and informative explanation of any line of text. It’s also a work in progress, so leave a suggestion if this or any annotation is missing something.
To learn more about participating in the Genius Editorial project, check out the contributor guidelines.
Yeats asks rhetorically how “the scholars” could have become so removed in their own lives from the example of their favorite Latin poet Catallus, whose poetry was known for being erotic and at times obscene. See this example from Carmina XVI:
If they are delicate and sexy,
And can incite an itch,
And I don’t mean in boys, but in those hairy old men
Who can’t get their flaccid dicks up.
In this phrase, Fitzgerald ironically juxtaposes natural and industrial language and imagery–“farm,” “wheat,” and “grow,” “gardens” with “ashes”–to emphasize the way in which “progress” has laid waste to the land.
