THE ISLAMIA UNIVERSITY OF

BAHAWALPUR
(RAHIM YAR KHAN)
ASSIGNMENT (01)

Submitted by: MEHWISH REHMATULLAH

Submitted to: Maam Amna Aslam

Class: (Bs English (6th sem).

Roll No: (F22RENLT1M03012).

Subject: (Modern poetry)

Topic: (“Various phases of W.B yeats poetic

career”)
The Evolution of W. B. Yeats Genius
It is possible to see four clearly distinct phases in Yeats poetic career:
(i) His early poetry or poetry of the Celtic Twilight period.
(ii) The transition or the realistic middle phase,
(iii) The later poetry.
(iv) The last phase, usually equated with An Old Man's Frenzy.
Roughly, the

First Phase may be seen as extending from the year 1885 to the year
1902,

Second Phase from 1903 to 1913,

Third Phase from 1914 to the middle of 1928.

Fourth Phase from the middle of 1928 to 1939.

In the Fourth Phase there is a small sub-division — the last four years from 1935
to 1939 are known as the years of the Last Poems.

The First Phase (1885-1902)

The Lake Isle of Innisfree is a lyric which is the most representative of this phase
in Yeats’s poetry. In this lyric the studied simplicity of style and its surface
refinement are remarkable. When You Are Old is another poem of this period
which is of lasting; value. The collection, The Wind Among the Reeds (1889) is
considered to be the collection which brought Yeats very close to the practice of
the French Symbolists.

The Second Phase (1903-13)

      The Second Phase of ten years, from 1903 to 1913 is a kind of transitional
period during which Yeats tried to move towards a more realistic, condensed,
flexible and ‘brutal’ style, characteristic of the modem poetry. Two influences are
to be noted around this period. The first was that of Ezra Pound and the second that
of John Donne. In Donne’s poetry he found a unique example of that ‘Unity of
Being’ which he was struggling to achieve - the blend of sensuality and the
coldness of intellect.

 
Among the better known poems of this period are:

The Folly of Being Comforted,The Happy Townland, No Second Troy and Upon
a House Shaken by the Land Agitation.

The Third Phase (1914-1928)

      The Third Phase starting with the 1914 volume of poems called
Responsibilities gives us some memorable poems; September 1913, To A Shade.
The Wild Swans at Coole, An Irish Airman Foresees His Death, Her Praise, Easter
1916, The Second Coming, A Prayer for My Daughter, Meditations in Time of
Civil War, Sailing to Byzantium, The Tower, Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen,
Leda and the Sivan and Among School Children

The Fourth Phase (1928-1935)

      The Fourth and the Last Phase contained poems like A Dialogue of Self and
Soul, Byzantium, the Crazy Jane Poems, An Acre of Grass, Lapis Lazuli, The
Municipal Gallery Revisited, Long Legged Fly, A Bronze Head, News for the
Delphic Oracle and Under Ben Bulben.

The “Last Poems” (1935-1939)

      The pattern of the Last Poems swings once again from chaos to order. Yeats
here seems to be saying that all things may be meaningless but the man who
comprehends the meaningless designs, has achieved the most that can be
accomplished in life. Having lifted himself to the vantage point of age. Yeats is
able to form a final attitude. A kind of special joy is now to be his.