William Butler Yeats' Sailing to Byzantium - Book Report/Review Example

 William Butler Yeats: ‘Sailing to Byzantium’ The spirit of modernism seems to be embodied in William Butler Yeats’ poem “Sailing to Byzantium.” The concept of allowing a piece of literature to stand on its own merits as a work of art, rather than forcing it to serve the mundane, stands at the heart of this poem. Throughout, the poet presents an image that is at once very simple, its images being stripped of all form and function, and at the same time very complex, in that it leaves no form or function for the human mind to grab hold of. As he writes about the inhabitants of Byzantium, he makes it clear that though he is using the name of a very human, and very cultured, city, this is no material city he is discussing. For Yeats, Byzantium represented the highest ideals in art, spirituality and knowledge, a kind of heavenly realm in which nothing ever changes but remains perfectly representative of the inner essence of art, beauty and spirituality. This is a city that cannot be conceived of by the average mortal and can indeed only be partially grasped in partial form by a living poet in the throes of vision. However, it is a land for human spirits, a place where they can throw off the “tattered coats” of life in favor of the eternal purity that is housed here. Reading through the poem, it is possible to grasp Yeats’ concept of an eternal and unnaturally unchanging perfection of being that so transcends form and rises above function that it remains beyond the living human’s ability to understand or fully appreciate. Through his language, imagery and perspective, Yeats manages to present this poem as an allegory of the modernist sensibility, removing such issues as politics, history and social responsibility from the poem, speaking primarily of the issue of aesthetics while still avoiding any specific definition of aesthetic principles. In this poem, Yeats uses language to establish the proper mood, allowing the art to take precedence through the structure of the words he’s strung together. Yeats maintains a specific rhythm and rhyme scheme for most, but not all, of the stanzas. The rhyme scheme follows the pattern ABABABCC with a near rhyme on the third set and an iambic pentameter rhythm. This establishes a sing-song pattern that immediately lulls the reader into an easy acceptance and flow, communicating the idea of art rather than purpose. At the same time, the near rhyme throws this easy rhythm off somewhat, interrupting the flow and forcing the intellect to take part in the process. This use of language to establish an idea goes further than this subtle technique might suggest. For example, Yeats presents the material, sensual world in the first stanza through a rhythm broken by its associations: “The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas / Fish, flesh or fowl, commend all summer long / Whatever is begotten, born and dies” (4-6). The reader must make frequent pauses as each concept must be considered separately, interrupted by competing consonants or emphasized by alliteration. In contrast, Yeats allows a more flowing style to imbue lines discussing aesthetic ideals, such as “Caught in that sensual music all neglect / Monuments of unageing intellect” (7-8). By allowing the music to flow again, Yeats is able to emphasize the importance of aesthetics to his poem while de-emphasizing the material world even without specifically pointing these relationships out. Another way in which Yeats subtly influences the opinion of the reader is in his decision to use primarily single syllable words to describe the material world while he uses polysyllabic words for the world of the intellect. For example, “An aged man is but a paltry thing, / A tattered coat upon a stick” (9-10), uses the single syllable words ‘aged’, ‘man’, ‘thing’, ‘coat’ and ‘stick’ to describe the mundane while “But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make / Of hammered gold and gold enamelling” (27-28) uses the polysyllabics ‘Grecian’, ‘goldsmiths’, ‘hammered’ and ‘enammelling’ to paint a portrait of the artistic world of the intellect. However, Yeats relies on more than just verbal sound-play to illustrate his meaning within this poem. A great deal of imagery is utilized to paint a mental picture of the types of worlds Yeats envisions. He describes a place “that is no country for old men” (1) because it is a place where the young can be found “in one another’s arms” (2). By introducing this scene, Yeats indicates a world in which the young can play in sensual delight and the old do not belong. The entire first stanza focuses on the material presence of living things as well as the inevitable aging and death of all these things. Throughout the poem, Yeats continues to contrast images of the material world in terms of decay and death, “A tattered coat upon a stick” (10), with images of the world of Byzantium, his ideal of intellect and art, “such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make / Of hammered gold and gold enamelling (27-28). His continued use of gold to illustrate the ideals of Byzantium imbues art and intellect with everlasting qualities as gold does not tarnish. In addition, it does not decay like the mortal body and becomes a fitting form for the eternal intellect, which becomes the focus of the poem itself. In addition to the symbols of gold as eternal and Byzantium as a city of light and higher existence, Yeats implies the symbol of the sailboat, or a crossing over from one realm to another, in the title of the poem as well as in line 15, “I have sailed the seas and come / To the holy city of Byzantium” (15-16). The point of view in this poem also provides important information to the reader regarding the way in which they should view the poem. He indicates the story is being told from the perspective of the old man, as he watches those younger than himself enjoying the material pleasures to be had in life, but neglect those pursuits which are timeless such as developing the intellect or artistic pursuits. Comparing his physical existence to that of a scarecrow, the narrator then indicates that the only way in which he might find salvation is through song and dance, again illustrating the importance of art over the material. Through this singing, the narrator is able to turn his attention to “Monuments of its own magnificence” (14) and catch the boat to Byzantium, representing a transcendence from one aspect of being to another, higher state. That this is a higher state is indicated in the narrator’s plea at the beginning of the third stanza: “O sages standing in God’s holy fire / As in the gold mosaic of a wall, / Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre, / And be the singing-masters of my soul” (17-20). The image of the teachers as a mosaic on a wall further highlights the concept that art is eternal while living flesh is merely temporary. However, it is only with the help of these wise teachers who transcend time that the narrator will be able to burn away his sensual heart, too full of material concerns, and leave the “dying animal” (22) behind. It isn’t until the fourth stanza that the narrator begins to describe what he envisions as the ideal world of the aesthetic. Once the material world is left behind, the narrator wants to take on a form that will not limit him like his human form has limited him. Instead of anything biological, the narrator chooses to be made in the fantastical form of a golden bird that will be able to “set upon a golden bough to sing / To lords and ladies of Byzantium / Of what is past, or passing, or to come” (30-32). Although the idea of time passing remains at issue even in these last lines, the focus remains on the eternal nature of the perfect golden bird sitting on the bough. Throughout every aspect of the poem, the theme remains one of the material world as temporary and the higher, better world of Byzantium as an aesthetic eternal vision. However, the rejection of the mundane isn’t as complete as one might assume from this analysis. The interruptions in meter and rhyme present the reader with inconsistencies intended to stimulate intellectual thought, but also serve to break the natural flow of the artistic brilliance involved in the construction of the poem, introducing the mundane to the sublime. The symbolism by necessity must take on material forms, forcing Yeats to compare the idea of the aesthetic to mundane objects. Although he attempts to subvert this by focusing on the act of singing, itself an intangible entity, it becomes necessary for him to relate the meaning of the song to the object doing the singing, again necessarily bringing up the idea that the material and the intellect cannot be so easily separated. Even in his ideal form, that of the golden bird, the narrator finds it impossible to separate the material from the aesthetic completely, finding it necessary to house himself within a metallic body, but a body nevertheless. Throughout the poem, even as Yeats illustrates the celebration of the aesthetic, he is never able to completely abandon the world of the material. Having giving it a fantastic attempt, Yeats concedes this point in the final lines, allowing the bird to sing “Of what is past, or passing, or to come” (32), allowing time to enter even the perfect and timeless world of Byzantium. Read More