Sailing to Byzantium

A Poem by W.B. Yeats

The Yeats Family

A portrait of WB Yeats by his John B. Yeats done in 1900

William Butler Yeats was born in Dublin, Ireland on June 13, 1865. Parents were John B. Yeats and Susan Mary Pollexfen Yeats had three siblings: Susan, Elizabeth, and Jack. John B. Yeats, Williams father, was a lawyer by trade and left it to become a painter. His mother came from an affluent Irish family. All of his sibling pursued artistic careers. His brother was a painter and his sisters were involved in the arts-and-crafts movement. John B. Yeats was a Republican and influenced his sons later beliefs. Yeatss mother was raised by a loyalist. The Yeats family were Anglicans living in a deeply Catholic Ireland.

Moving and Education

Light Green: Republic of Ireland Pink: Northern Ireland Dark Green : County Sligo

The Yeats family moved to London when William was very young. His mother Susan introduced him to Irish folklore. Yeats never went to school until he was eleven at a grammar school in England. His family moved back to Ireland where he attended high school. His mother introduced her children to County Sligo. Sligo became a very important place to Yeats both spiritually and in his later career. Yeats attended an art school, but left it after two years to pursue becoming a writer.

The Poet

Yeats pursued writing with a passion and took many different approaches and interests that he expressed in his work. Yeats is primarily seen as a modernist. Yeats was not only a poet, but a playwright, an essayist, a social critic, and a short story writer. His greatest influences were the great English Romantics; namely, Shelley, Spenser, and Blake. Attempted to mix English and Irish culture while being a notable Republican. Took a special interest in Irish folklore, the occult, and the oriental. Yeats died in France on January 28, 1939.

Yeats in 1911 by George Charles Beresford

Sailing to Byzantium (1928)

O sages standing in Gods holy fire That is no country for old men. The young As in the gold mosaic of a wall, In one anothers arms, birds in the trees Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre, Those dying generations at their song, And be the singingmasters of my soul. The salmonfalls, the mackerelcrowded seas, Consume my heart away; sick with desire Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long And fastened to a dying animal Whatever is begotten, born, and dies. It knows not what it is; and gather me Caught in that sensual music all neglect Into the artifice of eternity. Monuments of unageing intellect. Once out of nature I shall never take An aged man is but a paltry thing, My bodily form from any natural thing, A tattered coat upon a stick, unless But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing make For every tatter in its mortal dress, Of hammered gold and gold enamelling Nor is there singing school but studying To keep a drowsy Emperor awake; Monuments of its own magnificence; Or set upon a golden bough to sing And therefore I have sailed the seas and come To lords and ladies of Byzantium To the holy city of Byzantium. Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

Breaking Down the Poem

The structure of Sailing is sophisticated and concise. Its verse form is called Otta Rima. Otta Rimas verse style is related to the fact that each stanza has eight lines. The Otta Rimas rhyme scheme is a-b-a-b-a-b-cc. The poem is styled in iambic pentameter where there is an accent on every second beat of the syllables used in that line.

A Byzantine Mosaic

Yeats and the Motifs of Sailing to Byzantium

Sailing to Byzantium was published in 1928. Yeats was old and was afraid he was becoming temporal as his inevitable end approached him. Age and immortality play a big part in the poem. The world around Yeats was changing as the old world slipped into the new. The material nature of the physical is often contrasted with the eternity of the metaphysical. Yeats studied the occult all his life hoping to unite himself with something more than the temporary world around him. The mysticism of Byzantium binds together Yeats interests in mysterious esotericism and the beauty of the distant orient.

Yeats in 1933 by Pirie MacDonald, six years before his death

The First Two Stanzas

First Stanza That is no country for old men The poem opens boldly. The speaker in the poem makes a conclusive statement about the physical Eden the poem begins in. The speaker states in the first line of the first stanza that this poem will be about old age. Yeats contrasts an Eden-like vision of a bountiful place with visions of age and physical decay and death.

Second Stanza This stanza reflects specifically on aging as the speaker compares an old man with a scarecrow. The scarecrow is described as worn and tattered; but, by adding the word unless, the speaker seems to offer another choice other than this vagabond state. This choice being sailing to Byzantium. The metaphysical singing of the soul is contrasted with the first stanzas birds physically singing. This implies the immortal soul sings out inside the aging body.

The Last Two Stanzas

Third Stanza The sages invoked in the first line of the stanza are mystics and masters of esoteric knowledge, knowledge that Yeats himself studied and tried to understand. Fire has powerful symbolism in this stanza. The sages stand in the holy fire of God and the Speaker asks for his heart to be consumed in a sacrifice. Age is also brought up again. The heart is fastened to a dying animal while the immortal soul begs for eternity.

Fourth Stanza The Speaker imagines escaping the physical world and his aged body and becoming a jeweled bird made to amuse Byzantine emperors. Yeats invokes many things over and over again in this poem. The physical singing of birds in the first stanza has become metaphysical as the speaker dreams of becoming the golden and jeweled bird. By leaving the birds in the trees in the old world and becoming a bird himself in the next, the speaker creates a sense of unity in his quest for immortality and meaning.

Bibliography
Text Based Sources: http://literature.proquestlearning.com/quick/displayItemById.do?origin=toc&PubID=kno& QueryType=reference&ItemID=EALKN129+pqllit_ref_lib http://www.online-literature.com/yeats/ http://www.gale.cengage.com/free_resources/poets/bio/yeats_w.htm http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/william-butler-yeats http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/117 Media Based Sources: http://www.youtube.com/user/SpokenVerse?feature=watch Picture Based Sources http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:William_Butler_Yeat_by_George_Charles_Beresford.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:William_Butler_Yeats_by_John_Butler_Yeats_1900.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:William_Butler_Yeats.jpg http://www.123rf.com/photo_12444627_a-byzantine-mosaic-depicting-a-bird-on-the-floorof-the-great-basilica-in-the-ancient-city-of-heracl.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Island_of_Ireland_location_map_Sligo.svg