What does "kettle at the heel" mean in this Yeats poem, "The Tower"?

Question

> What shall I do with this absurdity — O heart, O troubled heart — this caricature, Decrepit age that has been tied to me As to a dog's tail? > Never had I more Excited, passionate, fantastical Imagination, nor an ear and eye That more expected the impossible — No, not in boyhood when with rod and fly, Or the humbler worm, I climbed Ben Bulben's back And had the livelong summer day to spend. It seems that I must bid the Muse go pack, Choose Plato and Plotinus for a friend Until imagination, ear and eye, Can be content with argument and deal In abstract things; or be derided by A sort of battered kettle at the heel. _{(https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/57587/the-tower-56d23b4072cea)} I'm only interested in the first stanza for now. I have mixed feelings about the first stanza. I like the image of decrepit age being something tied to a dog's tail. It really serves to show how foreign age is to the poet's soul; it is simply not a part of him, but something he tows along. I like the idea that age excites his imagination more, but when its song is dormant he must content himself with an old friend — Plato or Plotinus, interesting reading choices. He seems to be saying that Plato and Plotinus come in handy until the imagination is ready to soar. But then, when the poet is ready to sing, when the imagination is ready to soar, there is no song, no beauty. Only this alternate possibility that things will go wrong, and the poet will be derided by a "battered kettle at the heel". What does this phrase even mean? I can only think of a tea kettle. Why would it be battered? What image is he trying to show? What point is he trying to make?

Answer 1

I think Yeats is saying that the "kettle at the heel"regarding age and getting o!der is something he cannot get rid of. But that the conflict comes in when he thinks of his youth which is something he should be pulling toward but instead he is more in tune with

Plato. So Yeats probably thinks this is silly or absurd because he cannot identify with being youthful and playing with his dog. Or having a youthful mentality. So he says he chooses Plato until things change for him and until then this will be a conflict. The kettle at the

heel also reminds me of something that keeps a person indecisive or in limbo.

I hope this helps.

Answer 2

I think the image of the kettle noisily deriding the artist as it's dragged clanging down the road behind him is a representation of his still youthful imagination clinging to his heel like the tail on the dog. It actually made me think first of cans tied to the rear bumper of the newlyweds' car at a wedding, but in this case an old, dented kettle.

He's wondering if maturity requires him to cleave to Platonic rationality at the expense of his "excited, passionate, fantastical / Imagination." The noise of the kettle keeps nagging him so he can't forget his past idealism or maybe the romantic style of his earlier work. The collection of poems in "The Tower" comes from the transitional period when Yeats moved into a modernist style, so he's evaluating his previous artistic focus through the lens of advancing age.