Three Messages From 'Sailing To Byzantium'

Today we live in troubling times with political turmoil and war. Many people are unsure what the future main hold in store. However, the interesting thing about the present and future is that we can look at history to see what the future may hold. There are some similarities between the society that we live in today and the Byzantium Era. The conflict of the Christian and the Muslims of the Byzantium is very similar to the conflict that we see in the Middle East today. The similarities of America rise to power are similar to Byzantium rise. Finally the advancements in science that help lay the foundation of modern science that we have today. These are a few of the similarities between the society of today and the Byzantium society.

follow. That was the first goal of icons. The second goal was to form an

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.

The Byzantine Empire and Western Europe originally were part of the Roman Empire, but by the middle Ages(medieval times), they were very different, even though they did share some common traits, but by the 300's, the Byzantine Empire had far surpassed Western Europe in trade and economics and political unity, while both empires were having arguments over religion.

After the 4th century when Constantinople emerged as a great capital and church center, tensions sometimes arose between its leaders and the bishop of Rome. After the fall of Rome to Germanic invaders in 476, the Roman pope was the only guardian of Christian universalism in the West. He began more explicitly to attribute his dominance to Rome's being the burial place of Saint Peter, whom Jesus had called the "rock" on which the church was to be built. The Eastern Christians respected that tradition and recognized the Roman patriarch to a measure of honorable authority. But they never believed that this authority allowed the papacy to overrule another church or that it made the pope into a universally reliable figure within the larger

“When You Are Old” is about the love of a man for a woman whom he had on a pedestal. He felt this woman was loved by many with a true and deep love and loved by others with a false love. He felt this woman was loved much like people today love celebrities. Yeats wrote about this woman as though he knew her intimately. He asks her to “slowly read, and dream of the soft look, Your eyes had once and of their shadows deep” (Yeats). He wants her to remember how things were in her youth. He wants her to remember her dreams and think of how things were and how they may have been. Yeats is asking her to take her time and day dream about her glory days.

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.

The theme of Dylan Thomas and W.B Yeats poems are about death. In Do Not Go “Gentle Into The Good Night” the author is telling his father not to die and to stay strong. He does this by repeating ”Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” In ” When You Are Old “The narrator said” And pace upon the mountain overhead And his face amid a crowd of stars.” The narrator is looking down on her from when he passed away.

The fall of Constantinople in 1453 was one of the most influential events in history and marked the end of the Byzantine Empire. The main effect of the fall of Constantinople in 1453 was the downfall of the Byzantine Empire and the rise of the Ottoman Empire. The city was mainly populated by Christians and now has become an Islamic city. The capture of Constantinople stated the end of the Roman Empire, which lasted for about one thousand five hundred years. The invasion of the city of Constantinople and the end of the Byzantine Empire marked the end of the Middle Ages.

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

In the poem “When I Have Fears That I May Cease to be,” John Keats reveals his overbearing fear of dying young. What if he never gets to feel the passions of true love? What if he never gets to write the mountains of books that he wishes to write? What if he never gets to experience the fame that he so desires? Fear of not being able to complete our goals before we die is a fear that lurks in the dark crevices of all of our minds. We must all find a way to fight this fear. Most people do it by blocking it out completely, but not Keats. Keats confronts his fear full force by announcing it to the public. Through the use of figurative language, such as repetition, imagery and personification, Keats leads us through a daunting journey of his greatest

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

     When You are Old, by William Butler Yeats, represents and elderly woman reminiscing of her younger days. A past lover whispers to her as she looks through a photo album. Basically, Yeats is showing that as the woman gets older, she is alone, but she does not have to be lonely. She will always have her memories for companionship.

William Butler Yeats was an Irish poet, a dramatist, and a prose writer - one of the greatest English-language poets of the twentieth century. (Yeats 1) His early poetry and drama acquired ideas from Irish fable and arcane study. (Eiermann 1) Yeats used the themes of nationalism, freedom from oppression, social division, and unity when writing about his country. Yeats, an Irish nationalist, used the three poems, “To Ireland in the Coming Times,” “September 1913” and “Easter 1916” which revealed an expression of his feelings about the War of Irish Independence through theme, mood and figurative language.

Keats was very aware of his own mortality and his poetry reflected the intensity and the passion of a man who didn't have very long to live. His poetry remains some of the densest prose ever penned because, like his brief existence, he had to condense so much life into so little space. The thought of impending death would be enough to make anyone fall into hopeless despair but Keats's incredible talents and commitment to live in the moment perhaps allowed him to three lifetimes.