William Butler Yeats

Analytical Essay # 58340

English > Analysis
Literature > Poetry
Political Science > Marx / Engels

An analysis of three poems by William Butler Yeats: "Sailing to Byzantium", "Easter 1916" and "Wild Swans at Coole".

1,857 words () | 4 sources | MLA | 2004 Australia

Paper Summary:

This paper argues that any text is a source of endless speculation, argument and debate in relation to three poems by William Butler Yeats: "Sailing to Byzantium", "Easter 1916" and "Wild Swans at Coole". Each poem is analysed through two critical approaches, namely New Critical, which focuses on the specific devices used by the poet in the actual poems and Marxist, which looks at the context of the poet and poem to extract meaning.

From the Paper:

""Sailing to Byzantium" is not an exception to the fact that any text is a source of endless speculation, argument and debate. The debate in this poem arises over the interpretation of the golden bird that is "set upon a bough to sing". A New Critical reading of the golden bird holds that it is a symbol of the "artifice of eternity" and the ideal world of art. The golden bird defies all change and, as apart of art, comments on life and the natural world which is subject to mutability and transformation. A Marxism, however, argues that the golden bird along with the "holy city of Byzantium" represent aristocratic values, and the stability and immutability of the aristocracy is what Yeats yearns for. To a Marxist, nature symbolizes a society that changes."