Douglas Archibald,from "Politics and Public Life: 1913 – 1939," in Yeats (Syracuse University Press, 1989).

Though deeply ambivalent about the events of 1916, Yeats's poem is, in Douglas Archibald's view, a serious and forthright statement about current politics. He goes on to argue that it is not typical of Yeats's writings over the next few years, however, and in his essay, Archibald places the poem in the context of other writings in which Yeats largely turned away from Ireland and the troubles, to continue his explorations of the occult and to reflect on personal issues.

"Easter, 1916" is, however, an exception. In the years following the Uprising, Yeats most often seems uncertain or indifferent or wishful about issues of national identity and possibility. He wrote the poem immediately, but withheld it from publication until 1920. He does not make a consistent or coherent political commitment until 1922 when he returns to Dublin, buys a Georgian house, and becomes a Senator of the newly created Free State. Meanwhile, while Europe and Ireland are falling apart, Yeats is consolidating his past, temporarily pulling away from the nation and its tumult, and moving on to new explorations and achievements. The Uprising did change his life, but not at first in political ways. The execution of Major MacBride left Maud Gonne free to remarry; Yeats proposed and was rejected; he then proposed to Iseult Gonne, who declined. Then, on October 20, 1917, he married Georgie Hyde-Lees, a friend of Ezra Pound and Olivia Shakespear whom he had known since 1911. She shared his interest in the occult and in 1914 had been encouraged to join the Golden Dawn by Yeats, who acted as her Hierens or sponsor. Shortly after their marriage, in an attempt to distract him from thoughts about Iseult, Mrs. Yeats tried automatic writing with the now-famous results. Within a month Yeats had transformed her fragmentary notations into the first outline of A Vision, giving focus and definition to years of occult study, and establishing the preoccupations that were to be the center of his life for the next six years.