W. B. Yeats

1. W. B. Yeats “Among School Children” “Sailing to Byzantium” “Byzantium” A Comparison of “Sailing to Byzantium” and “Byzantium” Group: Kiwi, Candice, Tracy and Emily

2. Theme “Monuments of unageing intellect” is better than “sensual music.’’ Art is superior to nature in the poem. - The Tower (1927) “Sailing to Byzantium” source

3. Analysis of the poemI That is no country for old. The young In one another’s arms, birds in the trees, --Those dying generations-at their song, The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long Whatever is begotten, born, and dies. Caught in that sensual music all neglect Monument of unageing intellect. ☆The speaker thinks the living are caught in the sensual world, but neglect the spiritual life.

4. II An aged man is but a paltry thing, A tattered coat upon a stuck, unless Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing For every tatter in its mortal dress, Nor is there singing school but studying Monument of its own magnificence; And therefore I have sailed the seas come To the holy city of Byzantium. ☆ An old man is deemed useless in this world, so the speaker wants to sail to Byzantium.

5. III O sages standing in God’s holy fire As in the gold mosaic of a wall, Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre, And be the singing-masters of my desire And fastened to a dying animal it knows not what it is; and gather me Into the artifice of eternity. ☆ The speaker hopes the holy fire can cleanse his desire and purify his soul, and calls for the saints pictured in “gold mosaic” to take his heart from his body.

6. IV Once out of nature I shall never take My bodily form from any natural thing, But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make Of hammered gold and gold enamelling To keep a drowsy Emperor awake; Or set upon a golden bough to sing To lords and ladies of Byzantium Of what is past, or passing, or to come. ☆ The speaker wants to become an art sculpture, so he could sing past, present or future.

7. Symbols ＊Byzantium It can represent author’s ideal place. ＊tattered coat It means an old man. ＊stick It means soul. ＊the golden bird It is art and represents present, past, and future.

8. “Byzantium” • Yeats wrote “Byzantium” in 1930. • Byzantium is a symbol of a holy land both of arts and spirits. - The Winding Stair and Other Poems (1930) source

9. “Byzantium” Theme: Yeats thinks each human soul must be revived through constant transmigration and gradually comes to an immortal place. Each soul must be purified before his rebirth. This poem describes the situation of transmigration; those dead human body are purified for the last time before he is led to the eternal life.

10. Summary 1 The unpurged images of day recede; The Emperor’s drunken soldier are abed; Night resonance recede, night-walker’s song After great cathedral gong ; The first stanza creates a calm and peaceful picture of the city. The topic of this stanza is death. The whole imagery of quietness and sleep is a symbol for death. Great culture of Byzantium: a witness of the cultural strength of this city

11. Compared with those natural and eternal objects, a man is nothing. The human veins are dirty, so Yeats calls them mire. A starlit or a moonlit dome disdains All that man is, All mere complexities,The fury and the mire of human veins.

12. 2Before me floatsan image, man or shade,Shade more than man, more image than a shade; Yeats is talking about some kind ofghost. The verb “floats” describes that the image isn’t able to move.

13. 2For Hades’ bobbin bound in mummy-cloth May unwind the winding path; Hades: the Greek god of the underworld Hades’ bobbin: • A symbol for the thread of life • Leading the spirit out of Hades’ Realm into the world of the living humans May unwind the winding path: The thread of the bobbin unwinds the path out of Hades.

14. 2A mouth that has no moister and no breath Breathless mouths may summon; I hail the superhuman; I call it death-in-life and life-in-death. Yeats gives a description of the inhabitants of the Hades. Breathless: the dead are described as “breathless,” but the word also refers to the poem.

15. 3 Miracle, bird or golden handiwork, More miracle than bird or handiwork, Planted on the starlit golden bough, Can like the cocks of Hades crow, Or, by the moon embittered, scorn aloud In glory of changeless metal Common bird or petal And all complexities of mire or blood. Compared with the wonderful artwork, natural birds and flowers are inferior.

16. 4 At midnight on the Emperor’s pavement flit Flames that no faggot feeds, nor steel has lit, Nor storm disturbs, flames begotten of flames, Where blood-begotten spirits come And all complexities of fury leave, Dying into a dance, An agony of trance, An agony of flames that cannot singe a sleeve. The mosaic on the Emperor’s pavement: perfect, realistic. The image of the flames: (1) The fire as a purgatory power (2) The power of the arts. These spirits take a look at the mosaic and they loose their negative attributes.

17. 5 Astraddle on the dolphin’s mire and blood, Spirit after spirit! The smithies break the flood, The golden smithies of the Emperor! Marble of the dancing floor Break bitter furies of complexity, Those images that yet Fresh images beget, That dolphin-torn, that gong-tormented sea. Smithies: The creator of the golden bird and the mosaic The symbol of the victory of the artist

18. “Sailing to Byzantium”& “Byzantium” • The two Byzantium-poems have four major topics in common: -The invocation of the dead -The fire -The golden bird -The city of Byzantium

19. The invocation of the dead • Reincarnation, communication with the dead, mediums, supernatural systems and Oriental mysticism fascinated Yeats throughout his life. • O sages standing in God's holy fireAs in the gold mosaic of a wall,Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,And be the singing-masters of my soul. (Sailing to Byzantium stanza Ⅲ ) • …. For Hades' bobbin bound in mummy-clothMay unwind the winding path;A mouth that has no moisture and no breathBreathless mouths may summon;I hail the superhuman;I call it death-in-life and life-in-death.(Byzantium Stanza Ⅱ)

20. The fire • It illustrates the liveliness and the vivacity of this artwork. • The second symbolic level the fire has in both poems is its purgatory power. • This fire shows the reader the importance and spiritual power of these wise men. • O sages standing in God's holy fireAs in the gold mosaic of a wall,Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,And be the singing-masters of my soul. (Sailing to Byzantium stanza Ⅲ) • At midnight on the Emperor's pavement flitFlames that no faggot feeds, nor steel has lit,Nor storm disturbs, flames begotten of flame,Where blood-begotten spirits comeAnd all complexities of fury leave,Dying into a dance,An agony of trance,An agony of flame that cannot singe a sleeve. (Byzantium stanza Ⅳ)

21. The golden bird • Symbol for the mystery of handiwork in Byzantium; the bird has also got supernatural abilities. In both poems, it is able to tell secrets of the past, the present and the future.  The distance between permanence in art/immortal and the forever changing world/life in reality.

22. The city of Byzantium As early as 1907 Yeats had visited the Romanesque church of S. Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna, Italy, and seen the "sages", the saints and apostles on the mosaic-clad walls of the basilica. Yeats had revisited Ravenna in November 1924. He was clearly inspired by the Byzantine mosaics at Monreale and the Capella Palatina at Palermo (Jeffares A New 211). The art of this period continues to inspire him and provide him with material for his poetry.

23. Byzantine mosaics atCapella Palatina at Palermo

24. “Among School Children” (p. 2111) 1.I walk through the long schoolroom questioning;A kind old nun in a white hood replies;The children learn to cipher and to sing,To study reading-books and histories,To cut and sew, be neat in everythingIn the best modern way - the children's eyesIn momentary wonder stare uponA sixty-year-old smiling public man.

25. * This stanza is about Yeats went to school and he asked many questions about what children do at school (line1). Then the nun replied to him (lines 2-6). When Yeats was looking at children, from their eyes, he could see his “old face” (line 8).

26. 2.I dream of a Ledaean body, bentAbove a sinking fire. a tale that sheTold of a harsh reproof, or trivial eventThat changed some childish day to tragedy -Told, and it seemed that our two natures blentInto a sphere from youthful sympathy,Or else, to alter Plato's parable,Into the yolk and white of the one shell.

27. *When the poet looked at these beautiful children, he was reminded of a woman’s body. (Maud Gonne ) (line1) Yeats also mentioned the “Plato’s parable.” ( footnote 2 on p. 2111 ) Yeats wanted to express that Maud Gonne and him should be together such as “yolk and white of the one shell.” But they did not marry (lines7-8).

28. 3.And thinking of that fit of grief or rageI look upon one child or t'other thereAnd wonder if she stood so at that age -For even daughters of the swan can shareSomething of every paddler's heritage -And had that colour upon cheek or hair,And thereupon my heart is driven wild:She stands before me as a living child.

29. *In this stanza, by looking at the children, Yeats thought about that the child was like Maud Gonne standing in front of him. (line 8)* “daughters of the swan” means “Maud Gonne,” because in the 2nd stanza, Yeats mentioned that Helen, Leda’s daughter, is like Maud Gonne. (line 4)

30. 4.Her present image floats into the mind -Did Quattrocento finger fashion itHollow of cheek as though it drank the windAnd took a mess of shadows for its meat?And I though never of Ledaean kindHad pretty plumage once - enough of that,Better to smile on all that smile, and showThere is a comfortable kind of old scarecrow.

31. *Yeats thought of Maud Gonne and wondered what she would look now, and the beautiful image floated into his mind. (line 1) He is also reminded his young age. He has been a high-spirited person who was very famous. However, he is just an old man now.(line5) So he said to himself “enough– I’m an old man now, the only thing I can do is I can smile to everyone and be a comfortable kind of old scarecrow.” (lines 6-8)

32. 5.What youthful mother, a shape upon her lapHoney of generation had betrayed,And that must sleep, shriek, struggle to escapeAs recollection or the drug decide,Would think her Son, did she but see that shapeWith sixty or more winters on its head,A compensation for the pang of his birth,Or the uncertainty of his setting forth?

33. *Honey of generation (footnote 4 on p.2112)*Yeats said a young mother who got a baby on her lap. She takes of the baby and hopes the baby can grow up happily.However, sometimes life is painful and full of sorrow.

34. 6.Plato thought nature but a spume that playsUpon a ghostly paradigm of things;Solider Aristotle played the tawsUpon the bottom of a king of kings;World-famous golden-thighed PythagorasFingered upon a fiddle-stick or stringsWhat a star sang and careless Muses heard:Old clothes upon old sticks to scare a bird.

35. *In this stanza, the poet mentioned many philosophers-- Plato, Aristotle and Pythagoras. Even though they were famous and had many great theory, all of them still had to face the death finally--“Old clothes upon old sticks to scare a bird.” (line 8) Here, the poet also talked about himself. He wrote this poem after getting his Nobel Prize. He is a famous person, but now, he is an old man and going to die. Nothing he can take after death.

36. 7.Both nuns and mothers worship images,But those the candles light are not as thoseThat animate a mother's reveries,But keep a marble or a bronze repose.And yet they too break hearts - O PresencesThat passion, piety or affection knows,And that all heavenly glory symbolise -O self-born mockers of man's enterprise;

37. Here, the poet expresses that mothers idolize their children and nuns (prayers) idolize gods. But he wonders what mother ever pictures her child at sixty, or as a grown philosopher.Gods or children won’t give compensation back to prayers or mothers. So their hearts break.( Ex. The phenomenon in Taiwan: praying to gods in the hope of obtaining wealth, power… )

38. 8.Labour is blossoming or dancing whereThe body is not bruised to pleasure soul.Nor beauty born out of its own despair,Nor blear-eyed wisdom out of midnight oil.O chestnut-tree, great-rooted blossomer,Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole?O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,How can we know the dancer from the dance?

39. Theme:Yeats is espousing the virtues of youth, and the uncorrupted. Even the ideas, successes and hard won triumphs of age are a blemish on youth. He is arguing for a sort of integration of body and soul --a healthy youthful body is as much a goal as anything else. The core of humanity is in childhood.Structure:The poem has eight stanzas. Each stanza has eight lines, a regular rhythm, and a regular rhyme scheme of “a b a b a b c c.”

40. “Byzantium”:1. What did Yeats call the “superhuman” death-in-life and life-in-death?2. What is Yeats’ so-called immortal or eternal life?3. Do you believe human can become immortal through art? If not, why not? Study Questions:

41. Study Questions: “Among School Children”:1. If you are a 60-year-old man like Yeats, in what ways do you face your remaining years? A positive attitude, or a passive way? 2. What did Yeats call God a “self-born mocker of man’s enterprise”?3. What kinds of image do time and dance present? Why does Yeats compare time to dance?

42. “Sailing to Byzantium” • Study Questions 1.Why does the speaker sail to the holy city of Byzantium? Is it a city that we can find on the map? Or it has a special symbolic meaning? If yes, what is it? 2. What is the tone of the poem? Dreamy, romantic, earnest, serious, playful or what? 3. Where are the “sages” in the 2nd stanza, what does the speaker pray for?

43. Works Cited • “Sailing to Byzantium.” 17 Oct. 2005 <http://www.uky.edu/Classes/A-H/322/yeatssailing.htm>. • “Summary of Some W. B. Yeats Poetry.” 17 Oct. 2005 <http://puzzling.org/writing/hsc/yeats>. • William Butler Yeats. LitWeb.net. 17 Oct. 2005 <http://www.biblion.com/litweb/biogs/yeats_william_butler.html>.