Question: Discuss the symbols of Yeats poetry.
Introduction
One of the most influential poets of 20th-century literature is W. B. Yeats (1835-1939). The idea of the symbol is central to understand his poems. He was deeply influenced by the French Symbolists and is also considered to be the most significant symbolist poet of the twentieth century.
Symbolism
A word has two-fold meanings in terms of use such as original meaning and targeted meaning. Symbolism is the study of the targeted meaning of the words as for example white is a color but it symbolically indicates purity and likewise, the dove is a bird but symbolizes peace.
According to the Cambridge Dictionary, “symbol is a sign, shape or object that is used to represent something else which means to represent a quality or idea”. The wheel in the Indian flag is a symbol of peace.
Purpose of Yeats’ symbols in his poetry
W. B. Yeats has written an essay “The Symbolism of Poetry” published in 1900 in which he has clearly recounted the function of symbols in his poetry which is “evocation and suggestion”. About the poem “Upon a Dying Lady” Yeats himself says that he does not speak but only uses symbols that have made the poem unique.
Prospects of symbols in Yeats’ poetry
Yeats’ poetry is full of symbols and he is a symbolist from the artistic sense of the words that is why his symbols have multiple aspects or prospects.
The aspect of the total mood
The symbol in Yeats’ poems serves as an aspect of total mood that stands for the intellectual and emotional qualities of his symbols. Because of the total mood of the symbols, he has returned again and again to certain images and symbols such as the stone, bird, tree, wind, sea, colors, etc. Besides, the title of Yeats’s poems is symbolic and allusive too. “Easter 1916” and “The Second Coming” of the collection of poetry “Michael Robartes and the Dancer” are such poems.
Wherever green is worn,
Are changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.
Here in these lines, green is an emotional symbol of the memory of the martyrs of the independent movement and terrible beauty is an oxymoron-based intellectual symbol for freedom or good governance. So, the prospect of total mood signifies purity and sovereignty.
Unification and perfection
For the conjunction of the real and the ideal, Byzantium has been used as unity and perfection. The poet means to say that a world of art can defeat the traditional concept of birth, generation, and death and ultimately moves to immortality.
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.
These last two lines of the poem “Sailing to Byzantium” included in the collection of poetry “The Tower” clarify the poet’s decision of unification and perfection with ideality.
Occult or supernatural prospect
As we have already known that the symbols of Yeats have versatile aspects, his creative faculty cannot be satisfied for only ritual and hypnotic symbols. He has been able to give his images occult deeply connected to the richness of man’s deepest reality with them. His famous poems “The Second Coming, A Prayer for My Daughter, No Second Troy” etc. are replete with the occult aspect of symbols.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Spiritus Mundi is the best emblem occult prospect of symbol to reform the world with a civilized governing system vanquishing anarchy and autocracy.
Mysterious cosmic forces
Sundry things have their own significance in Yeats’ poetry. It seems that the poet feels pleasure in depicting his imagination in guise. Moon is often seen in his poems. He uses it very magnificently. In “The Phases of the moon”, the moon symbolizes all the mysterious cosmic forces which shape man’s destiny.
Magical mystery
The most outstanding aspect of Yeats’ symbols is a magical mystery. It has been appreciated for the special purpose in his poetry. In the poem “A Song of the Rosy Cross”, the poet means to say that his beloved has unusual beauty and he has an obligation or responsibility of suffering and pain in which he can find that for the archetype of perfect union, his suffering and pain in love help him for being more patient.
He measures gain and loss,
When he gave to thee the rose,
Gave to me alone the cross.
Miscellaneous
There are a host of other symbols that have central importance to Yeats. Birds represent the soul of man in “Sailing to Byzantium” and “The Wild Swan at Coole”. The sea signifies the unknown and the dancer in “Among School Children” symbolizes a perfect balance between body and soul.
Conclusion
From the light of the above discussion, it can be asserted that without symbols there is no value in Yeats’ poetry and with symbols they are unique.
