Power Of Romanticism In Sailing To Byzantium By W. B. Yeats

While both Keats and Longfellow often reflect on their own unfulfilled dreams and impending deaths, the poems however contrast on their own dispositions towards death and the future. Here, Keats expresses a fear of not having enough time to accomplish all that he believes he is capable of doing, but as he recognizes the enormity of the world and his own limitations of life, he realizes that his own mortal goals are meaningless in the long run of things. On the other hand, Longfellow speaks of a regret towards his inaction for allowing time to slip away from him in his past and is at a crossroads for the ominous future that looms ahead of him. Through the use of light and dark imagery, and personification, Keats and Longfellow similarly yet also differently, reflect on their own ideas for death and the futures that lay ahead of them.

    In the first two lines of the poem, Yeats writes "Now as at all times I can see in the mind’s eye, / In their stiff,

William Butler Yeats is one of the most esteemed poets in 20th century literature and is well known for his Irish poetry. While Yeats was born in Ireland, he spent most of his adolescent years in London with his family. It wasn’t until he was a teenager that he later moved back to Ireland. He attended the Metropolitan School of Art in Dublin and joined the Theosophical Society soon after moving back. He was surrounded by Irish influences most of his life, but it was his commitment to those influences and his heritage that truly affected his poetry. William Butler Yeats’s poetry exemplifies how an author’s Irish identity can help create and influence his work.

This leads on to the theme of “The Second Coming” —change brings upon uncertainties. Yeats wrote the poem after World War I when Europe was mourning a catastrophic loss of life and. This can be exhibited in lines 3 and 4 of the poem which states, “Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold, mere anarchy is loosed up

William Butler Yeats' poem "The Wild Swans at Coole" tells of a man who, in the autumn, would visit this pool of water that was a resting place for a flock of swans. He visits them one autumn but does not return for 19 years, "The nineteenth autumn has come upon me since I first made my count." Yeats uses simple diction so he does not distract from the empasis on the swans themselves. Words like; "Clamorous" (line 12) and

In the first stanza Yeats expresses his conflicting loathing and admiration for modernity through the juxtaposition of “vivid faces” and “grey houses”. This represents the possibilities that modernity can bring; the revitalising of the community or the destruction of tradition and age old energy already lost by the modifications in the city. The repetition of the phrase “A terrible beauty is born” in the first and fourth stanzas articulate this inner turmoil revolving around modernity. This oxymoronic declaration is emphasised throughout the text by Yeats’ confusion towards the rebellion and its necessity. The fourth stanza embodies this conflict, removing the previously represented idea that life in pre-rebellion Ireland was a “casual comedy”, alluding to an Elizabethan play where the characters were content. By asking the rhetoric questions “was it needless death” and “O when may [British rule] suffice?” Yeats parallels the unresolved contradiction of “terrible beauty”. However, this sensitive treatment of conflict allows the retainment of ambiguity and can be related to any change within life, hence allowing audiences to superimpose their own beliefs and ideas into the poem. Yeats continues to explore his aversion towards modernism in The Second Coming with the appointment of a new “gyre” standing as the symbol for a new age. The fear of

Through the use of vigorous, ritualistic imagery and war-like diction, Yeats accentuates the inauspicious course of events the world has faced. Yeats, in the first stanza, uses violent and warlike imagery and diction to illustrates that the world is on the threshold of an apocalyptic revelation. Yeats describes that the world is going to “fall apart,” and that “mere anarchy is [loosened] upon the world,” and ‘everywhere...innocence is drowned.” The use of violent diction in the first stanza contributes to the concept that world is going to end, and that humanity cannot recover from the destruction the world has caused, but Yeats uses ritualistic imagery to describe “a rough beast” with “a shape [of a] lion body and head of a man” to show that this “New Age” will bring some hope. William Yeats uses this violent and ritualistic imagery and diction to illustrate that in order to bring a new era, the old epoch must die violently, which is his concept of “the second coming.” Yeats believes that a violent revolution will bring hope to a new era. Similarly, how the Russian Revolution was destructive and brought an end to an era and started a new age which bought Russia to new heights, Yeats believes that a violent end of the world can bring the new world to new

As years pass further away from childish thoughts, adults are allowed to reflect on their youth, while the youth dutifully study the already matured. This is exemplified in the writings of E. B. White and W. B. Yeats, and the insight gained upon reading them. In Yeats’s essay, “Reveries over Childhood and Youth”, he recounts of how his grandfather was a feared man deserving of admiration. “Once More to the Lake” is a recollection of White’s experience and emotions pertaining to his childhood summers spent at the lake. In both these essays, Yeats and White show that with age comes wisdom and respect, but it does not inherently entail contentment or satisfaction.

Yeats was a confessional poet - that is to say, that he wrote his poetry directly from his own experiences. He was an idealist, with a purpose. This was to create Art for his own people - the Irish. But in so doing, he experienced considerable frustration and disillusionment. The tension between this ideal, and the reality is the basis of much of his writing. One central theme of his earlier poetry is the contrast

Mr. Yeats relates his vision, either real or imagined, concerning prophesies of the days of the Second coming. The writer uses the Holy Bible scripture text for his guide for because no one could explain this period of time without referring to the Holy Bible. He has chosen to present it in the form of a poem, somewhat like the quatrains of Nostradamus. The poem does not cover all the details of this event, but does give the beginning of the powerful messages, and a dark look at those ominous days surrounding the Second Coming of The Lord Jesus Christ. Perhaps he is trying in his own words to warn everyone about the end time days.

The twenty-four old romantic poet John Keats, “Ode on a Grecian Urn” written in the spring of 1819 was one of his last of six odes. That he ever wrote for he died of tuberculosis a year later. Although, his time as a poet was short he was an essential part of The Romantic period (1789-1832). His groundbreaking poetry created a paradigm shift in the way poetry was composed and comprehended. Indeed, the Romantic period provided a shift from reason to belief in the senses and intuition. “Keats’s poem is able to address some of the most common assumptions and valorizations in the study of Romantic poetry, such as the opposition between “organic culture” and the alienation of modernity”. (O’Rourke, 53) The irony of Keats’s Urn is he likens

The contemporary Roman Catholic middle classes had defeated the cause for which Yeats fought for at that time; hence Yeats felt oppressed by his own people. (Abram 2303)

In “To Autumn”, the season autumn is depicted as death, or as the Grim Reaper. Autumn is, however, an unusual reaper figure, in that they are not merciless, but patient and calm. Interestingly enough, the point of view Keats offers about death, is non-violent, not corporeal, and only implicit in the poem, through metaphors. Almost all human components are removed from the poem, and death is symbolized by nature only. It is put into a context where it occurs in the course of nature, and pictured as a consequence of riches, abundance, and fulfilment.

In the context of John Keats’ “Ode to a Nightingale,” “The Wild Swans at Coole” by William Butler Yeats raises compelling dialogue with Keats’ piece, which suggests that Yeats, to some degree, draws inspiration from John Keats, in that his pose concerning the nightingale becomes a basis and “touchstone” for “The Wild Swans at Coole.” Aside from commonalities concerning avians, both poems share elements of Romanticism, melancholy, feelings of weariness, and other key ideas, images, and plots as “Ode to a Nightingale” and thus, “The Wild Swans at Coole” strengthens Keats’ initial ideas in a harmonic and resonant fashion using its own unique methods. As a response to Keatsian Romanticism, Yeats revises the ideas surrounding transcendence of

The fifth stanza describes the quality that Yeats came to see as at the very heart of civilized life: courtesy. By courtesy he understands a means of being in the world that would protect the best of human dignity, art and emotion. And in his prayer for his daughter he wishes that she will learn to survive with grace and dignity in a world turned horrific. He explains that many men have hopelessly loved beautiful women, and they thought that the women loved them as well but they did not.