Question

In what way does William Butler Yeats’s poem “From the ‘Antigone’” parallel Sophocles’s Antigone?

a. The speaker in the poem, as well as the chorus in the play, lament noble Antigone’s terrible fate.
b. Like the play, the poem has Ismene trying to dissuade Antigone from defying Creon.
c. The poem and play both describe the moment when Haemon and Eurydice commit suicide after Antigone’s death.
d. The end of the poem shows Creon reduced to a lonely, decrepit man, as does the play.

Answer 1

I believe the correct answer is A) the speaker in the poem, as well as the chorus in the play, lament noble Antigone's terrible fate. 

Answer 2

William Butler Yeats’s poem “From the ‘Antigone’” parallels Sophocles’s Antigone because (a.) the speaker in the poem, as well as the chorus in the play, laments noble Antigone’s terrible fate.

In Sophocles's Antigone, Antigone commits suicide after Creon condemns her to death for burying Polynices and not obeying the king's orders. Therefore, it is her loyalty towards her brother what leads her to that terrible fate. After she dies, the chorus laments her fate and the curse on Oedipus's family. Moreover, in Yeats's poem "From the 'Antigone'", the speaker also laments Antigone's death, especially when he says "And yet I weep -- Oedipus' child Descends into the loveless dust".