BYZANTIUM – W. B. YEATS
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William
Butler Yeats was born at Sandymount, a Dublin suburb on June 13, 1865. His
father John Butler Yeats, a Protestant was friendly with Henry Irving and later
members of The Pre-Raphaelite school of painters. Yeats, naturally influenced
by his father, studied art for a short while only to abandon it later. His real
interest lay in composing poetry. In the beginning he imitated Shelley,
Spenser, Rossetti and Morris.
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He
is regarded as the national poet of Ireland and the irish
background contributed to the major themes of his poetry. Yeats’s poetic career
can be roughly divided into four phases: i) Romantic phase (1882 – 1907) ii)
The Realistic Phase (1907 – 1917) iii) The symbolic or the visionary phase
(1917 – 1928) iv) The phase of Calm (1928 – 1939)
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Yeats
attains fame with The Wanderings of Oision (1889) which
features Celtic mythology.
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The
award of the Nobel Prize for Literature to him in 1924 only
proves his poetic genius excelling in symbols and mysticism.
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The
country that speaker is in does not suit the old. It is full of bounty, with
fish in the water and birds in the trees. The young and reproductive are caught
in the earthy cycle of life and death. They do not heed ageless intelligence.
An old man can be mere pathos. To escape this fate and to get away from his too
vital country, the aged speaker has sailed to Byzantium. Once arrived, he calls
out to the elders who are part of God’s retinue. He asks them to move in a gyre
and take him away to death.
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He
has a living heart fastened to a dead body, and as such cannot live. Once the
speaker has died, his body will no longer be organic, but fashioned of metal,
like the statues that preserve dying emperor, or perhaps instead molded into a
mechanical bird, which will sing to the lords and ladies to Byzantium. This is
Yeats’ most famous poem about aging – a theme that preoccupies him
throughout The Tower.
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The
idea of elders waiting upon God is not familiar from any Western religion, but
would be acceptable under theosophy, which holds that all spiritualities hold
some measure of truth. Yeats imagines this process as being consumed by a
healing fire that will allow his body to take on any form he wishes when it is
finished. His first wish, to become a statue, seems too static.
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His
second, to become a mechanical bird, alludes to the Byzantine Emperor
Theophilus.
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Theophilus
according to legend, had just such mechanical birds. It is thus the poet’s wish
to be granted a body immune to death and to sing forever.
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This
poem is written after four years of his writing the poem entitled “Sailing to
Byzantium”.
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The
poem Byzantium is parallel to Sailing to
Byzantium. Both poems are the poems about escape from a world of flux
to the kingdom of permanence.
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The
former is a proper presentation of an ideal state beyond life but the latter
describes the voyage to the country of the mind.
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The
opening lines of the poem take us to the scene of night in Byzantium, the
ancient capital of the Eastern Roman Empire. All unpleasant images faded away.
The soldiers in inebriated condition gone bed. The prostitute’s song inviting
customers has stopped. Only the dome of the Cathedral of St. Sophia announces
spiritual aspirations, looking down upon man’s complexities, feelings, passions
and confusion.
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In
the second stanza, he introduces the Persona who sees before him an image, man
or shade and concludes it can be an image more than a shade. The spirit longs
for liberation from the cycle of birth and rebirth. This is evident in
the appearance of the ghost from the land of the dead dressed in mummy-cloth.
The ghost with no moisture and breath calls the other spirits. The Persona
salutes the arrival of the spirit, in its elemental form. It is dead in life as
it is a ghost. This superhuman shape is alive, free from all and so it
experiences life-in-death.
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In
the third stanza, he elaborately describes the permanence of art as represented
by the golden bird. This golden bird is not made by any goldsmith. It is a
miracle and therefore superior to any natural bird or flower which grows and
dies, or any artificial bird which again changes. The miraculous golden bird
planted on the golden branch is a powerful symbol of changelessness and
permanence. It looks down upon the moon (waxing and waning). This bird can crow
like the cocks of Hades, the land of the dead. The golden bird is scornful of
the conflicting emotions and passions of the human heart.
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In
the fourth stanza, Byzantium is presented as purgatory. At midnight on the
Emperor’s pavement, immaterial flames, not made by friction of steel with steel
nor of burning wood, appear undisturbed by winds. Here the spirits from the
world after their death come leaving all their complexities, feelings and
passions. The flames purify the spirits as they die in a purgatorial dance
getting into a trance. This purifying flame does not harm anything that is
material. It only does the function of purifying the spirits.
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In
the last stanza, The dolphins are believed to be carriers of the spirit from
the world to the land of the dead according to the mythology. Spirits one after
another arrive riding on the backs of dolphins. The flood of life beats against
the smithies and they destroy the water of life filled with complexities and
conflicting feelings and passions of human heart. The spirits are thus purified
through the purgatorial dance. The ocean is agitated by the struggle between
the flesh and spirit, as it brings about fresh images of their life experience.
Points
to Ponder:
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Byzantium
was the ancient capital of the Eastern Roman Empire.
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The
cathedral in Byzantium is the cathedral of St. Sophia.
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Bobbin
bound in mummy-cloth is the experiences covering the soul.
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The
great Cathedral song stands for religious aspiration.
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The
golden bird stands for Permanence of art.
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The
cocks of Hades refer to cocks found on Roman tombstones symbolizing rebirth.
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The
flames on the Emperor’s pavement are not lit by steel or wood.
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The
Dolphin stands for the carrier of the dead to the land of the dead.
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The
complexities of fury mean feelings and passions of the world.
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It
is written in ottava rima, journey to Constantiniople.
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