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Vanya

Dr. Karen Gabriel

British Literature: The Early 20th Century

7 November 2021

Symbolism in Yeats with Reference to Any Two of His Poems

Sailing to Byzantium

Byzantium

Byzantium was an ancient Greek city that was renamed Constantinople, the capital of the

Roman Empire, and later Istanbul. Byzantium is usually related with ancient religion, for

instance being seen as an important seat of early Christianity, while also being famous for its

beautiful icons and mosaic art. In the poem, the fact that the city is long-lost, yet its exquisite art

survives to this day, make it a powerful symbol for spiritual immortality after death. While the

civilizations that first built it are long gone, their art remains, and it still retains the ability to

connect with the poet as an image of that which survives the ravages of time. Byzantium, for

Yeats, was symbolic of a world of artistic energy and timelessness; it was a place of highly

developed intellectual and artistic cultures. Hence, for him, it represents a perfect union of

aesthetic and spiritual energies. The poet aims to symbolically leave, or sail, from the world of

limitations and into a world of permanence and artistic eternity.

Gold
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Since the ancient times, gold has been a symbol of purity and status as well as spiritual

treasure. Due to its brilliance and the fact that it does not tarnish, it is often used to symbolise

things of deep worth—especially the riches of the soul. Yeats, in the poem, associates it with

transcendent, eternal art. "God's holy fire", for instance, is likened to gold mosaic. In the final

stanza, the poet imagines the form his soul will take after it has escaped the confines of his body

will be altogether golden—that is, immortal, beautiful, and perfected. Gold does not represent

just raw wealth but an immortal beauty that has been painstakingly shaped.

Birds

Birds, too, appear at two points in the poem: in the world of the young and in the

transcendent world of Byzantium. Thus, they play a complicated role, serving at once as symbols

of both mortality and immortality. In the first stanza, the birds are referred to as "those dying

generations." These birds sing beautifully, yet they remain unaware of their own mortality. Their

song, hence, symbolises fleeting, ephemeral beauty. At the same time, the poet, by the end,

imagines taking on the form of a golden bird after death so that he will be able to communicate,

or “sing”, the wisdom of eternity to the living, that is, the "lords and ladies of Byzantium" who

pass him by. Therefore, birdsong transforms from something fleeting to something everlasting.

The golden bird, as an undying work of art, will bear witness to history, and remind those who

look upon it of the past, perhaps being successful in making them reflect on all that it has

figuratively seen through the years.

Art
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Two types of artistry play powerful symbolic roles in the poem: music-making and visual

art. These distinct forms of art appear to have a complicated relationship to each other. The poet

uses song and music as a metaphor for what the soul must do to attain immortality, for instance,

when the poet asks the sages to be "the singing-masters of my soul". In a certain sense, music is

both ephemeral and eternal; songs can be passed down yet they also vanish as soon as they're

sung. In contrast, visual art-making seems to survive the ravages of time. Through the symbol of

the gold mosaic, the poet seems to remark that art doesn't just outlive humans, but somehow

resembles eternity itself. This is "the artifice of eternity": art represents the immortal through the

representation of the mortal, and in doing so helps mortals to spread their imagination beyond

their mortality.

Sages

Lastly, the allusion to the sages may refer to classical writers and poets who are enshrined

in “God’s holy fire”. The fire itself is a symbol of light and seems to represent the old intellectual

values of ancient poets and writers stand that act as a light or guide. The image of “perne in a

gyre” then represents the circle of literary tradition from Homer to the poet’s own contemporary

times. Gyre may also symbolise the swirling, turning, cyclical landscape of life/time itself; it is

symbolic of a transformative spiritual movement towards immortality.

The Second Coming

Sphinx
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The sphinx is used by the poet to offer his prediction of humanity’s (and the world’s)

future; it symbolizes both destruction and rebirth. It is an allusion to the pagan world that

predated the Christian era. This is typified by the ancient Egyptians who were the builders of the

first sphinx. In the poem, the sphinx rises up to slouch toward Bethlehem where, it may be

presumed, it will destroy the birthplace of Christianity, thereby leading to the end of the

Christian epoch, and the values that defined that epoch—such as hope and innocence.

Alternatively, this end can also be seen as the beginning of an epoch defined by the Sphinx

instead of Christ; it can be said to mean the destruction of everything modern humanity believes

in and values, yet it is also possible that it’ll bring about a complete purge of humanity's

corruption. Additionally, the sphinx can be interpreted as a representation of the First World War,

which the poet believed destroyed the old order of the world.

-Gyre

The poem opens with an image of a falcon escaping its falconer, swinging outward in a

"widening gyre”—a term coined by him to describe a circular path or pattern. Like the falcon

flying in great arcs away from the falconer, the world, too, spins out of control. The poem frames

a two thousand year historical progression—the birth of Christ marks the beginning while the

war marks the end; the gyre, itself, symbolizes a human epoch of two thousand years. It can also

be understood literally, as a vortex of air powerful enough to consume whatever is lost inside it,

and figuratively, as a representation of the poet's conceptualization of time. According to him,

time was cyclical, and broken up into epochs. One epoch was followed by a new epoch, and over

time the epochs repeated themselves. The remainder of the first stanza deals with symbols of

death and destruction. The poet uses "blood-dimmed tide" as a symbol of overwhelming violence
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and uncontrollable chaos that has been loosed upon the world, drowning innocence and

destroying hope, and from which humanity needs salvation.

Falcon

The falcon has been placed front and center by the poet in the opening lines to represent

humanity's control over the world. Therefore, the falcon being unable to hear its master

represents a loss of that control. It can also symbolize humanity trying to exert a type of

intelligent control over the natural world. Its inability to hear the falconer's call, then, means that

the relationship between them has dissolved. This results in chaos and confusion, and especially

points towards a communication breakdown between the two. This becomes important when

considered in the context of the First World War. Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s assassination,

which triggered the global conflict, is thought to have been partly due to his driver taking a

wrong turn as a result of incorrect instructions. The falcon can also be described as a symbol of

contemporary humanity which seems to have become disconnected from its roots. Thus, the

falcon not being able to hear the falconer could mean that humanity has lost touch with its

original values; here, the falconer may be said to represent God, or higher standards of ethics and

morality. This corruption, in turn, has resulted in terrible hardships like World War I.

Additionally; it could symbolize what the poet perceived as a collective loss of religious faith

across the world. Hence, humans (the falcon) have become disconnected from their spirituality

(the falconer). The falcon may also be a symbol of logic, and thus the communication breakdown

could possibly suggest humanity abandoning logic.

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Works Cited

Aarons, Andrew. “Symbolism in the Poem ‘The Second Coming.’” Pen and the Pad, 19 July

2017, https://penandthepad.com/symbolism-poem-the-second-coming-2108.html.

Mukherjee, Monami. “Sailing to Byzantium: 6 Prominent Symbols.” NibblePop, NibblePop, 3

Feb. 2021, https://nibblepop.com/sailing-to-byzantium-6-symbols/.

“Sailing to Byzantium Poem Summary and Analysis.” LitCharts, 2021,

www.litcharts.com/poetry/william-butler-yeats/sailing-to-byzantium.

“The Second Coming Poem Summary and Analysis.” LitCharts, 2021,

www.litcharts.com/poetry/william-butler-yeats/the-second-coming.
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