Sailing to Byzantium, William Butler Yeats - Richard Ellmann (essay date 1948)
Richard Ellmann (essay date 1948)
SOURCE: Ellmann, Richard. “‘Sailing to Byzantium.’” In Yeats: The Man and the Masks, pp. 252-56. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc., 1948.
[In the following essay, Ellman examines the poem's history, dramatic structure, and symbolism, and shows how the poem builds upon Yeats's earlier work and experiences.]
In ‘Sailing to Byzantium’ Yeats reached the climax of this period by creating richer and more multitudinous overtones than before. He attempted here to evoke a symbol—in the poem as a whole and also in the symbolic bird spoken of in the poem—which would have a life of its own into which he could put himself:
“SAILING TO BYZANTIUM”
I
That is no country for old men. 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...
[The entire page is 1599 words long]
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