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45 Cards in this Set
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(3) Symbolism The most prevalent symbol throughout the poem is that of birds (primarily the golden bird in the last stanza). There are also other symbols of nature, art, time, regeneration and decay. The bird, being the most significant symbol, is initially introduced as part of the natural world, especially within the natural setting of the first stanza. As the poem transitions, however, the bird as an art form represents the irony in how a thing in nature (subsequently prone to aging and death) can be immortalized (when transformed into an art piece that is simply the representation of a bird, while really consisting of immortal materials). The other symbols of nature (seen in reference to youth, sex, and reproduction) stand in contrast to the symbols of age (the old man) and decay. But again, these conflicting themes are offset by the continuation of symbolic cycles, the continuation of time, and regeneration in the preservation of life. Because cycles of time, seasons, life and death are all seen as part of nature, the symbols help further explore whether mortality should be strived for, or if it is better to accept the fate nature has given us (Ensminger). There is also strong symbolism revolving around the ideas of accomplishment during the human life, most of which it attributed to the intellectual, spiritual, and artistic accomplishments of the ancient citizens of Byzantium. Because of all that it holds, the city of Byzantium itself becomes a symbol of immortality. The idea of mortality is also held in the symbols of art, especially through the color gold and the famous mosaics of Byzantium. |
(Literary Analysis Section) - Summary |
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(3) Symbolism - Birds “Yeats uses the image of a bird ... to refer to the timelessness and spirit he craves. The bird that is set in gold is there forever… [shows how the] poet longs to be able to sing similarly through his poetry and therefore achieve immortality.” (Ensminger) |
(Literary Analysis Section) - Quote |
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(8) Symbolism - Birds - "The young/In one another's arms, birds in the trees" (Yeats 1-2) - "Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long" (Yeats 5) - "But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make/Of hammered gold and gold enameling/...Or set upon a golden bough to sing" (Yeats 27-30) |
(Literary Analysis Section) - Quoted Evidence |
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(8) Symbolism - Nature and reproduction - "The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas" (Yeats 4) - "Caught in that sensual music all neglect" (Yeats 7) |
(Literary Analysis Section) - Quoted Evidence |
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(6) Symbolism - Nature and reproduction The "salmon-falls" are representative of reproduction because salmon have to jump waterfalls to get to the pool and lakes where they reproduce during the mating season. The "mackerel-crowded seas" allude to the overpopulation of the mackerel fish due to its abundance and reproduction.
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(Literary Analysis Section) - Paraphrase |
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(8) Symbolism - Old Man (death and decay) - "That is no country for old men" (Yeats 1) - "An aged man is but a paltry thing,/A tattered coat upon a stick..." (Yeats 9 - 10)
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(Literary Analysis Section) - Quoted Evidence |
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(8) Symbolism - Time and Cycles - "Those dying generations - at their song" (Yeats 3) - "It knows not what it is; and gather me/Into the artifice of eternity." (Yeats 23 - 24) - "Of what is past, or passing, or to come." (Yeats 32) - "Whatever is begotten, born, and dies." (Yeats 6) |
(Literary Analysis Section) - Quoted Evidence |
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(8) Symbolism - City of Byzantium "'Byzantium’, as mentioned before, is a sort of ideal land, comparable to the scriptural heaven. This is obviously one of the most predominant symbols in the poem” (Ensminger). |
(Literary Analysis Section) - Quote |
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(8) Symbolism - City of Byzantium - "Nor is there singing school but studying/Monuments of its own magnificence;/And therefore I have sailed the seas and come/To the holy city of Byzantium" (Yeats 13-16) - "To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;" (Yeats) |
(Literary Analysis Section) - Quoted Evidence |
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(8) Symbolism - Art and the Color Gold - " 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," (Yeats) - "Once out of nature I shall never take/My bodily form from any natural thing,/But such a form as/Grecian goldsmiths make/Of hammered gold and gold enamelling" (Yeats) |
(Literary Analysis Section) - Quoted Evidence |
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(6) Poetic Structure The poetic structure of "Sailing to Byzantium" is actually called Ottava Rima, consisting of four eight-lined stanzas and an "ababacc" rhyme scheme (specifically with end rhyme). Ottava Rima was traditionally an Italian style first used by Giovanni Boccaccio. Initially, it was used for epic, heroic poems of considerable length. Later, it became popular for mock-heroic works. Ottava Rima is also known for being written in iambic pentameter, which is both used and deviated from by Yeats in "Sailing to Byzantium". ("Sailing" 209) |
(Literary Analysis Section) - Paraphrase |
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(6) Theme - Time The theme of time passing and subsequent age help define the changes between youth and old age. Youth is defined with more frivolity and purpose, while age is described as the accumulation and preservation of ancient knowledge. It leaves the narrator in a situation where he is yearning for his younger days, but also appreciative of what he has learned (along with the knowledge that older civilizations like Byzantium have knowledge that is worth preserving for all time). It is also attempted to show time as a repetitive (circular) thing, with a face of both the past, present, and future. Yeats also manages to break the ties between time and aging with his quest for immortality against the passage of time. |
(Literary Analysis Section) - Summary |
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(6) * Theme - Time "The point is to establish that the benefits of being young are for the young, and the aged have to establish other values for themselves." ("Sailing 208) |
(Literary Analysis Section) - Quote |
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(6) * Theme - Time "One of the central ideas in this work is how time affects all living things, making them slow down and lose their natural stamina and enthusiasm; the poem also notes how humans gain mental powers as physical ability slips away." ("Sailing" 208) |
(Literary Analysis Section) - Quote |
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(6) Theme - The wisdom of age and immortality This is another theme that spawns from the comparison of the old and the new. While the youth imagery of the poem allows for ideas of abundance, ability and love, the aging imagery sends the message that the old have something only attainable by the passage of time. The old gain experience, knowledge, craft, and the ability to defy nature in the ways of artistic preservation (a.k.a. the mosaics). The same goes for the ideas of older and newer civilizations and cultures. Byzantium becomes the older, wiser culture compared to the modern phase in which the poem was written. But because Yeats chooses to become part of the older, immortalized civilization of Byzantium, he establishes the theme the the older ways should be held on to despite the changes in culture due to modern times. ("Sailing" 208) |
(Literary Analysis Section) - Summary |
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(8) Theme - The wisdom of age and immortality - "Caught in that sensual music all neglect/Monuments of unageing intellect." (Yeats 7-8) - "It knows not what it is; and gather me/Into the artifice of eternity." (Yeats 23-24) - "Nor is there singing school but studying/Monuments of its own magnificence;" (Yeats 13-14) |
(Literary Analysis Section) - Quoted Evidence |
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(6) Theme - Natural v.s. Man-made Mostly conveyed through the dichotomy between natural and artistic imagery, this theme explores whether nature or the achievements of humanity have more to offer a seeker of immortality. Nature is shown as abundant, but passing. The mosaics and other creations of the empirical city of Byzantium, however, is shown as already achieved the ultimate flaunt to nature: the evasion of death. The mosaics and golden creations of Byzantium not only withstood the fall of the Roman Empire, but remain immortal even today. ("Sailing" 208) |
(Literally Analysis Section) - Paraphrase |
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(6) Theme - The "Supernatural" "To date, the only known alternative to aging is death. This poem’s speaker does not accept that, though, preferring to skip death and take the intellect that he has accumulated during his lifetime straight into eternity. In order to do this, he has imagined a place that one can sail to where death is not a factor, where one can keep living, growing further and further from nature. By giving this idealized place the name of an actual place, “the holy city of Byzantium,” the poem suggests that the natural law that drives us all to death can be broken." ("Sailing" 209) |
(Literally Analysis Section) - Quote |
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(8) Theme - Natural v.s. Man-made "Once out of nature I shall never take My bodily form from any natural thing, |
(Literally Analysis Section) - Quoted Evidence |
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(6) Maud Gonne and Young Love Yeats met the actress Maud Gonne on January 30, 1889. Her stunning beauty and refusal to marry him left her the subject of his various love poems and became for him, the epitome of youthful and unobtainable love. (Poetry 206) |
(Biography section) - Paraphrase |
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(6) Maud Gonne and Young Love "To Yeats Gonne represented an ideal, and throughout his life he found the tension between them, as well as their friendship, a source of poetic inspiration." (Poetry 206)
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(Biography section) - Quote |
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(6) Mysticism Inspired by his mother's fascination with the historic folklore of Ireland, Yeats delved into the mysticism movement in his younger years. Yeats, in partnership with George Russell founded the Dublin Hermetic Society, made specifically for the execution of magical experiments and the promotion of mystical beliefs. Yeats went on to join the the Rosicrucians, the Theosophical Society, and MacGregor Mathers’s Order of the Golden Dawn. On his honeymoon with his wife, it was also discovered that she was a medium" ("Sailing" 206). |
(Bibliography section) - Summary |
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(2) Interest in Greek and Roman Culture "...Yeats clearly did some work and learnt some Greek and Latin. A report for the Lent term of 1877 shows that he came sixth out of a class of thirty one in Classics ... in a report for the summer term of 1878 his form master says that he seemed to like Latin." (Arkins 2)
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(Bibliography Section) - Quote |
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(3) Interest in Greek and Roman Culture “Twenty years prior to writing "Sailing to Byzantium," he was first exposed to Byzantine art. He saw mosaics that are regarded as the basis for most of the imagery in stanza 3. Also, when Yeats was nearly sixty years old, he suffered high blood pressure and had difficulty breathing. His wife took him on a Mediterranean tour to help him relax, and on that tour he saw mosaics that contrasted art with nature” (Ensminger). |
(Biography Section) - Quote |
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(5) The Golden Bird Metaphor T. Sturge Moore wrote Yeats on April 16th, 1930, objecting to the mixed message of the metaphor in the last lines of "Sailing to Byzantium". Yeats responded on October 4th, 1930, saying that Moore has misunderstood the poem and that he had written "Byzantium" ( a poem to following the original) to clear things up). (Powell 104)
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(The T. Sturge Moore Debacle) - Summary |
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(1) The Golden Bird Metaphor "Sailing to Byzantium” (1927) begins with a leisurely, somewhat loose stanza about Ireland’s salmon falls and mackerel-crowded sees, but ends with a stanza in which the poet imagines himself transfigured after death into a golden bird–written in tick-tock iambs, this stanza gives the feel of a key winding the mechanical bird’s mainspring. It is a powerful conclusion, this twitter of hammered gold and gold enameling; and yet it verges on a whole world of Modernist toys, as in Stravinsky’s Hans Christian Andersen fable The Nightingale (1914)–the artificial nightingale is Stravinsky’s true heroine, not the real one– George Antheil’s Golden Bird (1921), and Paul Klee’s Twittering Machine (1921)” (Albright). |
(The T. Sturge Moore Debacle) - Quote |
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(6) The Golden Bird Metaphor "In the last stanza, Yeats gives a similar example, but of a tree, he uses a bird made of gold, which will never slow down, never become weak, and never die. Critics have mentioned that this might be a poor example for Yeats to use because, even though it is created by man, the gold bird is still modeled after a thing of nature, contradicting the line “I shall never take / My bodily form from any natural thing.'" ("Sailing" 209) |
(The T. Sturge Moore Debacle)- Quote |
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(5) The Golden Bird Metaphor - Moore's letter "Your 'Sailing to Byzantium', magnificent as the first three stanzas are, lets me down in the fourth, as such a goldsmith's bird is as much nature as a man's body, especially if it only sings like Homer or Shakespeare of what is past or passing or to come to Lords and Ladies." (qdt. in Powell 104) |
(The T. Sturge Moore Debacle) - Quote |
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(5) The Creation of "Byzantium" - Yeats' Response "The poem ['Byzantium'] originates from a criticism of yours. You objected to the last stanza of "Sailing to Byzantium" because the bird made by a goldsmith was just as natural as anything else. That showed me that the idea needed exposition." (qtd. Powell 104) |
(The T. Sturge Moore Debacle) - Quote |
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(4) Creation of "Byzantium" Three years after the composition of "Sailing to Byzantium", Yeats essentially recreated the piece into "Byzantium". The two poems communicate the same theme, the only difference are in the structural and stylistic elements. The second poem is almost a reassurance that the golden bird metaphor stays relevant for Yeats true intention of preserving himself immortally. |
(The T. Sturge Moore Debacle) - Paraphrase |
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(4) Interpretations of “Byzantium” The modifying purposes of "Byzantium" in regards to its predecessor are open to interpretation. The two most illuminating, yet contrasting, interpretations deal with the ideas of whether or not the realistic city of Byzantium described in the second poem directly shifts the original themes of "Sailing to Byzantium", either by extending or diminishing the narrators grasp of his natural surroundings. One interpretation (the realism approach) argues that the literal surroundings of the city bring the author back from his preconceive ideal of Byzantium as being an escape from the progress of time. This translating brings about the theme that nothing is really as perfect as it is imaged to be and that Byzantium doesn't actually hold the immortalizing powers the narrator had been dreaming of. In the same way this interpretation redefines the first poem as the imagination of an aging man, it also brings back an element of the natural world to the artificially created city of Byzantium. By bringing the city back into reality, the concept of Byzantium as a divine location looses it exceptional qualities of being considered untouchable by the forces of the real world: nature, time, and death (Parker). |
(Differences in "Byzantium") - Paraphrase |
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(4) Interpretations of "Byzantium" - The realism approach “Again, it would seem that Yeats is imagining and representing in the later poem the actual reality of what was merely conjectured or called upon by the old man of 1927. Apparently the "artifice of eternity" is much less human than that which was, then, imagined or desired” (Parker). |
(Differences in "Byzantium") - Quote |
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(4) Interpretations of "Byzantium" The other interpretations is that the city of Byzantium in the second poem is actually the emulation of the old man's wishes from "Sailing to Byzantium". In this light, Byzantium in its descriptions is actually further from reality than ever before and becomes the epitome of fulfilling immortality. This interpretation goes so far as to assume the speaker of the first poem may have already died and finds himself in a sort of eternal afterlife that takes form as Byzantium. |
(Differences in "Byzantium") - Paraphrase |
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(4) Interpretations of "Byzantium" - The ethereal approach "A most central fact appears when, for the first time, the poet actually experiences or is confronted by the eternal city's reality. The old man of "Sailing to Byzantium" imagined the city's power as being able to "gather" him into "the artifice of eternity" … linked like a perfect machine at the center of time. The city, as we shall see, generates -- or actually smelts -- eternal images: lifeless and deathless realities ... " (Parker). |
(Differences in "Byzantium") - Quote |
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(4) Interpretations of "Byzantium" - The ethereal approach "Harold Bloom writes that 'The cities are both of the mind, but they are not quite the same city, the second being at a still further remove from nature than the first'" (qtd. in Parker). |
(Differences in "Byzantium") - Quote |
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(4) Interpretations of "Byzantium" - The ethereal approach "After reading both poems it is possible to conclude that, were the speaker of the first poem to die, both his soul and the raw matter of that poem's entire vision of Byzantium would be consumed within the eternal fires of the second poem, inside the reality of the city. This city is ‘at a further remove from nature’ because it is about as inhuman and unnatural a state as it is possible to conceive of -- as eternity actually would be, even fully so, if we could conceive it fully" (Parker) |
(Differences in "Byzantium") - Quote |
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(7) Romantic Yeats People are still arguing over whether or not Yeats fit into the "Romantic" or "Modernist: characters. The struggle to place the poet, however, may have more to do with the conflict of changing ideas rather than Yeat's inability to choose a side. Born into a time where modernism was still a fleeting idea of what was to come, Yeats was taught to follow the forms of Romanticism, saying later that he was indeed inspired by the work of Percy Bysshe Shelley. Almost all of his older work pertains to the Romantic category. When "Sailing to Byzantium" was written, however, modernism was is full swing (1928) and it is therefore questionable that the poem was fiercely Romantic instead of Modern. |
(Modernism v.s. Romanticism) - Summary |
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(7) Romantic Yeats “Yeats's early verse drama betrays his enthusiasm for the Romantic poets in its choice of subjects, its themes and its language. The plays from this period all feature exotic settings, magic spells, mesmerizing and often powerful women, lovers thwarted in pursuit of the beloved, and a deliberate linking of love, death and magic” (W.B.). |
(Modernism v.s. Romanticism) - Quote |
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(1) Romantic Yeats “If Yeats became a ghost that haunted Modernism, Modernism was also a ghost that haunted Yeats. Yeats often casts himself as the enemy of Modernism: … Yeats asserts ‘We were the last romantics’; and again and again Yeats flogs the Modernist poets for their sloppiness of construction … and flatness of diction” (Albright). |
(Modernism v.s. Romanticism) - Quote |
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(6) Rise of Modernism The effects of Modernism in the late 1920's touched on many other aspects of life and culture besides poetry. Just in the year 1928, penicillin was developed, the first regularly scheduled television programs were broadcasted, and Bubble gum (a part of youth culture) was invented. The earlier 1920's saw women's right to vote in the United states in 1919 and the actually development of an adolescent culture. This youth culture could be part of the dichotomy Yeats creates in"Sailing to Byzantium" around the aged and the young. In art, modernist movements swept the world and brought about new social and philosophical ways of thinking through the use of unorthodox artistic methods. As always, the spur of modernist art was brought about by the modern culture's need for whatever was newest and more innovative, as well as practical for the growth of civilizations ("Sailing"). |
(Modernism v.s. Romanticism) - Paraphrase |
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(1) Rise of Modernism "Yeats was born in 1865 … we find in the 1860s the birthyears of a number of important Modernists, or precursors to Modernism, such as Claude Debussy, Gustav Klimt, Richard Strauss, Vassily Kandinsky, and Henri Matisse. All of them were profoundly influenced by the aesthetic of Symbolism, the artistic movement that leads most directly into Modernism” (Albright). |
(Modernism v.s. Romanticism) - Quote |
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(1) Rise of Modernism (art) "Of all the radical aspects of Modernism, Surrealism came closest to touching Yeats. By the early 1920s the disintegrating force of Dada had reached such a pitch that it managed to disintegrate itself; and from its sorts and scraps” (Albright). |
(Modernism v.s. Romanticism) - Quote |
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(4) * (The hypocrisy of) The Golden Bird Metaphor “The deadly irony of [the narrator’s] desire is clear … the old man pictures himself as something of a golden robot, a hammered and enamelled bird, quaintly entertaining or pleasantly distracting with its pre-programmed (because eternal and changeless) song. It is difficult to imagine any reader feeling this to be a redemption, or even a freedom. The old man's wish is inhuman; he yearns to be reduced to what is essential in art, and nothing desirable to human life survives in the portrait of what, with such ardent despair, he wants to become” (Parker). |
(The T. Sturge Moore Debacle)- Quote |
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(1) Modern Yeats "Yeats fights Modernism as hard as he could, only to find himself acknowledging that he was Modernist to the marrow of his bones. But this paradox is itself typical, for the Modernist often travels a road as far as it will go, only to wind up in some exactly opposite place” (Albright). |
(Modernism v.s. Romanticism) - Quote |
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(6) How the contrast of Romanticism and Modernism relate thematically Within the original poem itself, traditional Romanticism and the budding movements of Modernism represent the thematic comparison between the young and the old. Yeats personal experience between the two genres shows he can relate to both through his poetry, sometimes arguing against the newer one only to find that he also conforms to it as well. The same might be trying to be communicated through the poem, with the old man initially shunning the newer imagery for that of immortality and ancient tradition. But, as said before, in "Byzantium", the old man may be beholding a return of himself to nature, newer ideas, youth and - to a further extent in Yeat's own life - modernism. |
(Modernism v.s. Romanticism) - Paraphrase |
