Yeats’s poetry shows his life long search for the “Unity Of Being.

” He aimed to
organize his personal convictions as a protection against the intellectual chaos
constantly threatening him. He built up a system of thought, whose images and
ideas can be traced back to earlier mystics and philosophers. One such was the
practice of symbolizing superior wisdom in terms of geometrical figures. Circle,
and the interlocking gyres or cones, are basic images in Yeats’s symbolic system,
and they display the principle of conflict in the individual’s life as well as the
human civilization’s life.

The Great Wheel has twenty-eight spokes, representing the twenty-eight phases
of the moon. These phases relate to the human personality as well as the
incarnations of the soul. Phase one stands for objectivity and at the opposite end is
phase fifteen standing for subjectivity—these are the extremes of the human
personality. Thus, movement from phase 1 to 28 represents a movement from the
primary (or objective) to full subjectivity at phase 15 after which a counter-
movement starts towards the antithetical self-completed by the 28th phase one, life
is lost in darkness; man is pure body and life is not possible, because life subsists
through the tension between the conflicting opposites of good and evil, beauty and
ugliness, flesh and mind, body and soul.

A Dialogue of Self and Soul involves the issue of the rejection of human life as
opposed to the acceptance of it. ‘The Tower’ stands for the contemplation of
heavenly realities. The sword in its sheath, decorated with the tattered finery of a
country lady's dress represents the untarnished purity and vitality of the mind
blended with the love and desires of the decaying body—ultimately, love of life
wins over the deliverance of the soul from the cycle of rebirth.

The soul wants the self to leave off thinking about the perishable earthly thing
and its illusions of life, and turn to the permanent heavenly things of that dark
world where the soul can be at rest. But the self refuses to ascend the Tower and
points at the sword in its tattered covering, symbolizing a vital mind in a decaying
body. The soul urges the self to concentrate on that darkness which, if man
surrenders himself to it, will deliver him from the imprisonment of the web of birth
and death and earthly desire. But the self accepts “birth and death,” even if it is a
crime, and is ready to repeat it.

It is apparent that the soul wants the self to reach "after-life”, a state of
breathless mindlessness, which is the end of the soul’s journey through bodily
incarnations. The soul urges withdrawal, solitude and contemplation of darkness:
“Who can distinguish darkness from the soul ?” The darkness, of course, suggests
complete withdrawal from common life, where no conflict can be, and signifying
the ascension of the soul of the heaven—thus the soul cannot be distinguished from
darkness. Without the body, the soul many no longer have any existence. The
winding stair leads to a state in which the senses will be suspended, and the
personality will no longer exist:

For intellect no longer knows

Is from the ought, or knower from the known

The ascent to the Tower is achieved only by destroying ourselves. It signifies

the body left without the soul, i.e., death of all that is temporal. It is a state of
being, which is close to phase one of the Great Wheel. The soul will leave, and
merge into darkness and life will not be possible when man becomes pure body.
But the self will not allow it. The self prefers to face life with all its failures and
sufferings and be subject to the cycle of life, birth and death.

A Dialogue of Self and Soul is a record of the struggle within the poet’s mind,
between the attraction of an ascetic withdrawal from life and the alternative of
accepting temporal life with its sufferings and sorrows. It records the conflict
between choosing an afterlife from which there is no return and the cycle of birth
and death, or life afterlife.

The life-symbols of the self is Sato’s sword—the “consecrated blade.” It

stands for war, love, sex and life. The tattered and faded covering can “still
protect” and “adorn.” The dress is a symbol of body, and can still protect the sword
—the untarnished vital elements. The sword, the sheath, the dress material
covering it with the purple flowers embroidered on it, all are “emblems of the day.”
The Tower and The Winding Stair, which the soul urges the self to follow, are
“emblematical of the night” and darkness. The Soul gives a glowing description of
the heavenly state in which the senses and the intellect cease functioning, the ideal
and the real, the subject and the object have become one, and the crime of birth and
death is forgiven. It is a state which cannot be described by the tongue of living
man.

The self, however, rejects the soul’s arguments. In the affirmative second
section of the poem, the self asserts its right to live again, to accept life after life, or
the cycle of birth, death and rebirth. It prefers the world-imposed Mask. Yeats here
rejects what Sailing to Byzantium seems to offer as a solution. Life, as lived by
human beings is full of suffering, pain, weakness, ignorance, sordidness and
humiliation at all stages—from childhood through awkward adolescence to
maturity. Old age creeps upon one all to soon. But all this does not discourage the
self from opting for “life after life”, to live this life again. It does not want to
escape the cycle of birth and death; it would willingly go through the same sadness
and humiliation, struggle and folly.

Yeats appears to be speaking for himself when he says he is ready to forgive

and forget. He is content to follow again to its source,

Every event in action or in thought.

Once the remorse is cast out, there comes “tragic joy”, the bitter sweetness
which characterizes the acceptance of life. He concludes.

We must laugh and we must sing,

We are blest by everything,
Everything we look upon is blest.

Temporal life is foul and impure, slimy and dirty, the breeding place of
obnoxious vermin. But from the assessment of all the events and experience of life,
however ugly and bitter they might be then conies a realization of their meaning
and worth. Thus is the sweetness born out of the bitterness. It is this sweetness,
evolving out of intense bitterness that constitutes for the artist the only blessedness
he can know. It leads him towards insight and understanding. This is surely a
matter of joy.

The poem is, indeed an “impassioned outburst” as B. Rajan remarks, and

affirms life’s bitterness with daring intensity in order that its sweetness may be
vindicated. Strong terms are employed to bring out life’s ugly aspects—impure
ditches, ignominy of boyhood, clumsiness, defiling and disfigured shape. Life may
be “the frogspawn of a blind man’s ditch.” Repulsiveness is strikingly and boldly
stated so that the acceptance of life is all the more convincing and glorious. All the
ugliness and unhappiness can be merged in to a meaningful pattern; then regrets
and fretting evaporate. “There is in the creative joy an acceptance of what life
brings, because we have understood the beauty of what it brings, or a hatred of
death for what it takes away, which arouses in us, through some sympathy perhaps
with all other men, an energy so noble, so powerful that we laugh aloud and mock,
in terror or the sweetness of our exultation, at death and oblivion,” said Yeats in a
letter. The poet certainly looks boldly at life’s reality and makes the choice of life
after life, as A.G. Stock observes. But more than the obvious feet that life even at
its most bitter is worth living, the poem postulates Yeats’s proposition that “what
we know of ultimate reality is only known by the extent that it is lived.”
Summary
SECTION I
Stanza I—My Soul
My preference is for the ancient winding stair of spiritualism (a kind of
‘Nirvana’) and for setting one’s mind upon the steep ascent (of the stair) and upon
the broken, crumbling battlement. I am also in favor of setting one’s mind upon the
breathless starlit air and upon that star i.e., the Pole Star which makes the hidden
pole. I am in favor of fixing one’s thought upon that area where all thought stops
i,e., the area of an afterlife with no return. This involves being led to a special kind
of darkness which is indistinguishable from the soul.

Stanza II—My Soul

The sacred sword lying upon my knees is Sato’s ancient sword which has not
lost any of its keenness and brightness over many years. It is still the same and is
still shining like a looking glass. The passage of centuries has had no effect upon
its shine and it is spotless. The remarkable thing about this sword is that the
flowering silken and embroidered cloth which was tom from some court lady’s
dress and wound around the wooden scabbard of the sword is still capable of
protecting and adorning the sword though it is now tattered and faded.

Stanza III—My Soul

Now that the prime of the body is left long back why should your imagination
remember things concerning love and war (Sato’s sword is emblematical i.e.,
symbolic of love and war). The right thing for you to do now is to think of the
ancestral night (spiritualism) which alone can deliver us from the crime of being
subject to life and death. The only condition for this deliverance is that the
imagination should start scorning the earthly things and the intellect should stop
wandering here, there and everywhere.

Stanza IV—My Soul

Montashigi who was the third of his family, fashioned this sword five hundred
years ago and the flowers which are there in the embroidery on the cloth covering
the scabbard though beyond comprehension are purple colored like the heart. All
these are the emblems of the day and I set these against the tower which is a
symbol of the night (spiritualism). My claim is that I may be given permission to
commit the crime once more as it is my right as a soldier.

Stanza V—My Soul

In that area (of spiritualism) such fullness flows and falls in to the reservoirs of
the mind that man is unable to hear or speak or see. All this happens because the
distinctions between ‘is’ and ‘ought’ ‘knower’ and ‘known’ no longer exist as far
as the intellect is concerned. Intellect, in fact, ascends to heaven. Even forgiveness
comes only to the dead. The very thought of all takes my power of speech away.

SECTION II
Stanza VI—My Self
A living man may well be blind to things like his true nature and other things
but then he drinks his drop i.e., lives life to the full. Even if the ditches (from
which the living people drink their drop even when those ditches are the very place
where they lie) are impure how does it matter. In other words, it does not matter
even if living life to the full involves some impure actions. How does it matter if I
reassert my ‘right’ to live life again, to suffer the hazards of growing up and the
ignominy of boyhood once again. I want to re-live the distress of boyhood
changing into manhood and one’s own clumsiness which one is brought face to
face will when one bears the pain of realizing that he is no longer a boy and not as
yet a complete man.

Stanza VII—My Self

Once the complete man is among his enemies he can’t but think of his image
and the malice which he’ll have to face if his image as a warrior is spoilt. In such a
situation escape is no way out because honor binds one to facing one’s cold and
wintry death right on the battlefield (the sword stands not only for love but also for
war).

Stanza VIII—My Self

I am quite happy to live it all again even if re-living it all means no more than
men fighting blindly and the worst possible folly of wooing a proud woman whose
soul is not the right company for your soul. Even if re-living life all over again
means falling into all sorts of blind ditches I am quite happy to do that.
Stanza IX—My Self
I am quite content to follow every event to its source in action as well as in
thought. Once one starts measuring life and art in terms of achievement and yet is
ready to forego all achievement without any remorse he gets tragic joy—the bitter
sweetness that is involved in the acceptance of life. This tragic joy involves the
casting out of remorse. This sweetness is, for the artist, the only blessedness he can
experience and this sweetness leads inevitably to insight. Artists who accept this
insight, who experience this tragic joy must sing.