Use of Symbols in Yeats's Work, A Vision Essay

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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.

“Young Goodman Brown,” written by Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1835, is a short story about a man named young Goodman Brown who leaves his wife, Faith, to go on an errand into the woods with the devil. Faith begs Goodman Brown to not leave her alone, but he chooses to go anyways. This short story shows many signs of symbolism, such as the forest, the devil, the staff, the pink ribbons, Faith, sin, and guilt. These symbols help in understanding the story of young Goodman Brown and his unconscious struggle with his religion. The trip not only takes Brown onto a journey of sadness, but also into the deepest parts of his soul. Goodman Brown wishes to enter the dark forest of sin, to satisfy his

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 F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby he uses a lot of symbolism in his writing. Fitzgerald uses many symbols/ colors to represent different things and also sometimes uses things that will foreshadow later in the novel. In The Great Gatsby a man named Jay Gatsby leaves the love of his life behind to go to war for five years hoping to find her again when he returns. Daisy, his love; could not wait that long not knowing when he would actually be coming home so she waited no longer and did her own thing only to be marry Tom Buchanan. Upon Gatsby’s return he comes back to find her and can’t only to find out that she is now married and on her honeymoon leaving him heartbroken. He knows his neighbor Nick is Daisy’s

The Great Gatsby is one of the most read pieces of literature throughout the current modern Western world. High school kids all across the globe must learn and read it as part of their curriculum. One of the aspects that makes this novel so notable is that Fitzgerald, at no point in the story, needs to convey to his audience the theme of his novel directly. The main points of his novel are brought out by the powerful symbols he infuses in the book. Not only does he use them to convey his theme, but also ties them in to the rest of the story. Every aspect of this book is affected by the presence of one of his symbols. Through the use of the green light, the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg, and the Valley of the Ashes as symbols,

The Great Gatsby is filled with symbols and symbolism, which try to convey Fitzgerald's ideas to the reader. The symbols are uniquely involved in the plot of the story, which makes their implications more real. There are three major symbols that serve very important significance in the symbolism of the novel. They are "the valley of the ashes," the reality that represents the corruption in the world, the green light of Daisy's lap that Gatsby sees across the bay and lastly, the symbolism of the East Egg and West Egg or more important the east and the west of the country.

The book that i am reading is The Great Gatsby by F . Scott Fitzgerald. In The Great Gatsby , F. Scott Fitzgerald he shows different symbols in the book the symbols that he show is the library where nobody read the books because they aren’t real and another symbol the use in “The Great Gatsby “ is the Valley of Ashes which the book describe as a `dark gray place and many more but the symbol that i want to use is the green light which is mention more than once in the book When I was first introduced to the green light(in chapter 1) one of the main character Jay Gatsby was standing on his lawn and another main character name Nick Carraway noticed him standing there and thought he was daydreaming on just staring at the stars. After it was

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

Visual techniques are used by E.E Cummings to create meaning in his poetry. His new poetry is pieced together like a puzzle you can’t

     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.

The tool of Yeats' prophecy, crystallized in the "widening gyre" traced by the falcon, is a concept Yeats detailed

“The relationship between the energies of the inquiring mind that an intelligent reader brings to the poem and the poem’s refusal to yield a single comprehensive interpretation enacts vividly the everlasting intercourse between the human mind, with its instinct to organise and harmonise, and the baffling powers of the universe about it.”

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.