INTRODUCTION ,.....
The Remoteness, heroism and mystery of myth have always fascinated
writers. Yeats too, was greatly enthused by the charm of myth and
used it in numerous poems to reveal his complex philosophical
understandings. Yeats was keen to replace traditional Greek and Roman
mythological figures with figures from Irish folk lore. He moulded his philosophy
after Berkley, Locke, Hegel, Nietzsche, and Bertrand Russell’s philosophical
implications. The juxtaposition of the Greek and the Irish myths, and his
enthusiasm for old and modern philosophy has distinguished his poems from his
cotemporaries. The following discussion hinges round Yeats’ handling of
myth,philosophy, and history along with a critical inquiry into some of his
major poems:
Example…..
Leda and the Swan
Myth is used in In Leda and the
Swan to express Yeats’ view of history. The legend of the girl Leda
being ravished by the Greek God Zeus in the guise of a swan is
interpreted by Yeats to illustrate his view of history. The mating of Zeus with
Leda gave rise to the Greco-Roman civilisation with the birth of Helen.
Helen was responsible for the Trojan War and Troy’s destruction as well
as Agamemnon’s downfall. Agamemnon was the King of Argos and as
the comandar of Greek army he went to Troy to recover Helen. Agamemnon was
murdered by his wife Clytemnestra, as he returned home after Trojan
victory. At the end of the poem the poet questions whether Leda was fully aware
of the significance of the forced mating. In other words, the incident either
simply refers that man are merely instrument of impersonal forces, or he has a
portion of divine intelligence himself.
The Wild Swans at Coole
Yeats’ philosophical understanding
is present in The Wild Swans at Coole. It is another poem where Yeats
uses the swans as the symbol of immortality. In this poem the old poet is
staring at the familiar scene of fifty nine swans moving together in loving
pairs flying upon noisy wings, and thinking of the change time has brought over
him. The birds of course are untouched by time. They almost give rise to an
illusion of immortality. As the nightingale in Keats’ Ode to a Nightingale,
so are the swans in Yeats’ poem. The poem, thus, presents us with an image of
personal dejection that uses the permanent glory of the swans to stress the
transience of human beings.
No Second Troy
Myth is used in No Second Troy
to highlight the true nature of Maud Gonne. The title makes it clear
that he equates her with Helen, the destructive force of Troy.
Yeats says that Maud Gonne was capable of making man so violent that she could
stir up masses against aristocracy. But this is not her fault. With her usual
nature, she cannot be peaceful, because she has a mind full of nobleness and
simplicity and her beauty is like a tightened bow, high and solitary and most
stern, a phenomenon which is hard to find in the present age. He concludes
that, if there was another Troy for her to burn, she could be responsible for
burning it just in the same way Helen was responsible for burning of the city
of the Troy.
Sailing to Byzantium
Sailing to Byzantium reveals Yeats use myth and philosophical understanding. In
the poem Byzantium symbolises some transcendental country, a place out of time
and nature, a world of art and philosophy. Here the poet rejects the natural
world of biological activity and decides to take refuge in the timeless world
of art with a view to retreat from the process of ageing and decaying. The poem
is a transition from sensual art to intellectual art. The poet feels that an
old man is disgraceful unless his soul can enjoy works of art and literature
which are immortal products of the human spirit. The weaker a man grows in
body, the greater should be his joy in the works of art. Appreciation of art
and understanding of art can be achieved only by studying magnificent and
immortal works of art, the poet decided to go to Byzantium to devote himself to
the study of its treasures.
the Second Coming
is also
based on the fundamental idea of mythology and its intertwining with reality.
From the
title itself, it is clear that Yeats is talking about Christ’s second coming as
promised in the Bible
by St.
John. However, apart from the Biblical elements, Yeats also describes his ideas
of history. He suggested that history moved in cycles, and through this poem he
weaved both mythology and his theory about history together.
Turning
and turning in the widening gyre
Yeats’
notion about the nature of history is very different from the traditional one.
His philosophy does
not have
the room for an apocalypse or regeneration. The gyres (interlocked) depict the
rise and fall of civilizations. He explains the position of mankind at each
point.
the centre
cannot hold; mere anarchy is loosed upon the world
Here, he
talks about how at one point in time,
the
balance of civilization is disrupted and then “things fall apart”, thus giving
birth to a new phase. He wrote it after the first World War had ended (1919) and
suggested that after the “anarchy is loosed upon the world”, there will come a
time when th
e balance
would be restored. He also depicts the loss of civilization that the War
brought with itself and uses
graphic
imagery and terms like “blood
-
dimmed tide”.
The first stanza focuses on the loss of a civilization
which
brings the gyre to the centre which has given up. But the second stanza brings
the hope of the second coming, the rise of mankind. Here he brings the Biblical
tale of Christ and other epic imagery. He says that mankind is moving to
Paganism from Christianity. He writes in such a way tha
t it’s
clear that he
is not
referring to the end of the world. It just suggests that the world is entering
a new phase, which is
complimented
by the use of the word “second” in the title.
He again
uses mythology to assert his points. He refers to the sphinx, a creature found
in Greek mythology which has the haunches of a lion, wings of a great bird and
the face of a woman. Here makes
use of
contrasting elements which denote death and life. The “darkness” refers to an
unknown mystery
which
might cause uph
eaval in
the world and lead to the second coming. The next line, “blank and pitiless as
the sun” again suggest death which he described in the first stanza as the
reason for the
arrival of
the second coming. In the last line, he reasserts his deliberate usage of myths
by mentioning Bethlehem which was where Jesus was born.
By citing
the place of Jesus’ birth, he reaffirms his argument of the impending second
coming. His poem
has ended,
but the world and civilization he is talking about is moving towards another
phase
–
a
new phase which will see creation again. When he wrote this poem, it had almost
been two hundred years since the birth of Christ which he also refers to:
the twenty centuries of stony sleep
. Yeats’
The Second
Coming
again sees
his calculated and well-crafted use of myths and history to create a combined
effect of death and birth, decay and regeneration. ******* Yeats uses different
legends to denote certain points in history and contextualizes it with reality
to create an intertwined web of myth and reality. Like
No Second
Troy
, his poem
Leda and
The Swan is
also
based on
Greek legends. From the title itself, it is abundantly clear that he is talking
about Zeus’s union
with a
mortal being, Leda. According to the legend, this led to the birth of Helen,
who later became the cause of the Trojan War. In a way, this point where Zeus
disguised himself as a swan to mate with Leda was the inception of the Trojan
War. But Yeats not only retells the epic tale in a fourteen line Petrarchan
sonnet but also questions the myths. He certainly suggests that this is one of
the points in the gyre which he referred to in The Second Coming. (academia.edu)
(Yeats)
Works Cited
academia.edu. (n.d.). academia.edu. Retrieved
from
https://www.academia.edu/9686439/Use_of_Myths_in_WB_Yeatss_Poetry?auto=download
Yeats, W. B. (n.d.). w.b.
yeats . Retrieved from Wikipedia contributors:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._B._Yeats
No comments:
Post a Comment