[In the following essay, Sullivan interprets “Sailing to Byzantium” as a yearning for the past, a “regression to the early, non-sexual state of oral union with mother.”]

In “Sailing to Byzantium,” an old man failing in physical powers rejects his own country, with its birth-decay-death pattern of sensuality, for Byzantium and its passionless, immortal artifices. There he would be transformed from his natural, dying state into a golden bird singing on a golden bough, into immortal art. This is, very briefly, what Yeats's poem is about on its conscious level. It asserts the superiority and desirability of immortality over earthly life, of art over sensuality.

Beneath its conscious level, beneath the intellectual, spiritual, and aesthetic values we find openly expressed lies an unconscious wishful fantasy that moves in an opposed direction—not forward toward some higher and superhuman state (expressed as becoming a “monument of unageing intellect” or an “artifice of eternity”) but backward toward very early infancy. The conscious yearning for release from a dying body in the timelessness of art is an unconscious yearning for freedom from adult sexuality, freedom achieved through regression to the early, non-sexual state of oral union with mother. Adult sexuality makes the speaker anxious and so he retreats to a presexual phase where these demands cannot be made and where, in fact, nothing is demanded and everything is given.

This is the thesis of my paper, one I'll try to persuade you of in a stanza-by-stanza analysis. But first let me make clear how I am approaching the lyric psychologically. At the heart of this or any lyric lies an unconscious fantasy—a wish, an anxiety, or both—which the poet presents in a particular form. Since the fantasy cannot be presented raw if the poem is to give pleasure, it must be adequately disguised or defended against and thus made both acceptable and pleasurable. Such handling of the unsconscious material of a poem is a function of its form. In this paper I am going to talk about the unconscious wishful fantasy that lies beneath the surface of Yeats's poem; the defensive maneuvers by which the fantasy is disguised or otherwise dealt with; and the function of form in this handling of the unconscious material. Form will be discussed only in this very limited way, however: a complete work of art has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Psychologically, we can say that the beginning of the poem lures us into the material, especially into the raw fantasy. It bribes us with pleasure, gives us what Freud calls an “incentive bonus” or “forepleasure” (if we submit ourselves to a work of art at all, surely it is because we expect pleasure from it). The middle expresses the raw fantasy itself, and the end brings us out of the poem by vigorously defending against or possibly resolving that fantasy. In “Sailing to Byzantium,” the beginning is stanzas one and two; the middle, stanza three; the end, stanza four.

I. THE FIRST STANZA

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
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.

The first stanza says, “That is no country for old men” because sensuality is its prime value and activity. Since the old are sensually incapable, there can be no place for them here, especially since such a country neglects “monuments of unageing intellect”—art and philosophical, intellectual, and religious systems. The stanza contrasts the sensual and temporal world of youth with the non-sensual and immortal world open to the old and implies commendation of the latter. Immortality is superior to mortality, art is superior to sex.

This is the conscious, intellectual message of the stanza, but the unconscious level denies what the conscious asserts. While the mind is distracted and held by the stanza's intellectual content, the emotions are free, like unwatched children, to respond to the unconscious meaning: sex is lovely and only one who cannot sexually enjoy himself turns to art (non-sexual activities) with strong assertions of its superiority. The stanza really is lushly appealing. Look at the images—for art: “monuments of unageing intellect” (an abstract, cool, hard kind of image); for sex: “The young / In one another's arms,” “the salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,” “birds in the trees / … at their song,” and all “caught in that sensual music.” For all the intellectual disparagement of sex, it is nevertheless appealingly presented.

The denial of the conscious by the unconscious content of this stanza serves two purposes. First, it provides the “forepleasure” I talked about earlier. It bribes, lures, the reader into the poem by its pleasant emotional suggestions even as it captures him with its idealism. Our feelings consent to the “sex is pleasurable” unconscious level and our minds consent to the observation that sensual delights are brief and transient while intellectual monuments endure. Emotion and mind are both satisfied. Second, the denial of the conscious by the unconscious level introduces us to the speaker's anxieties and gives us a hint of how he defends himself against them. The anxieties have to do with the sensuality disparaged in the stanza; the defenses at this point are devaluation, denial, and flight. By devaluation—he says in effect, “sex is not all that great, and furthermore, it is inferior to immortality;” by denial—“so, who wants it, anyway;” and by flight—he has sailed from “That country” (sexuality itself) for passionless Byzantium.

II. THE SECOND STANZA

An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.

This stanza tells how an aged man, “a paltry thing,” can become happy and creative again. Since he cannot achieve this through his decaying body, he must achieve it through his soul. He must come to Byzantium, where he will find a “singing school” in the examples of what man's immortal spirit has already created.

On the unconscious level, the stanza moves nearer the speaker's desire for total oral union. And it continues the forepleasure given in the first stanza. About the forepleasure: the first two lines continue the pleasant feelings aroused by the first stanza insofar as we adopt the writer's own attitude toward old age—it's awful; to be old and therefore incapable of the sensual delights imaged in stanza one is really too bad. Furthermore, the images of rejoicing (the soul clapping its hands and singing, the singing school) and the hopeful tone of the passage might also be considered as bribes, for the speaker says in effect, “All right, the body is fleshless and ugly, but the soul inside it is magnificent. It can sing and dance and be happy.” By emotional tone and by message, the passage is alluring.

Yet these images are two-faced. They also give us clearer insight into the old man's buried wishes and anxieties. Take the scarecrow image, for instance. In the language of the unconscious, “a tattered coat upon a stick” means “I have no body.” It expresses the speaker's wish to be rid of that adult body with its anxiety-causing sensuality, and it also expresses his sense of physical inadequacy. Now this (the sense of physical inadequacy) he expresses quite consciously, too, but on the conscious level he says: “True, an aged man is a poor, insignificant skeleton, but what does that matter? Inside that scarecrow is his immortal soul through which he can be joyfully creative. And he more than makes up for his physical inadequacy by his soul's powers.” But defensively the image conveys the speaker's sense of being burdened with a body that experiences its sexual drives but is inadequate to happily fulfill those. A scarecrow suggests sensual incapability (because it is fleshless, limp, feeble, immobile, impoverished); repulsiveness (because emaciated, dry, grotesque—its purpose is to frighten); sterility (it guards the fertility of the field but is itself sterile); and isolation (a scarecrow stands alone in a field). This image mediates between that of the aged man in a sensual land and the golden bird on a golden bough, for like the aged man, a scarecrow is human at least in form, but like the golden bird on a golden bough it is an object, and one that serves human needs without partaking of those needs. Depersonalization—getting rid of the human body—is one of the speaker's defenses, and the scarecrow represents the first step in the depersonalization process.

To go on to the rest of the stanza—now, having started his depersonalization, having already denied, devalued, and fled from sex, in this stanza he announces his oral wishes more clearly. He wants to return to warm maternal care, happy and self-absorbed. He returns to mother (the “holy city of Byzantium”) where he will be happy (he will join a “singing school,” his soul will clap its hands and sing, and louder sing) and where he will become happily self-absorbed “studying monuments of its [the soul's] own magnificence.” He will worship “His Majesty, the Ego” in this return to the bliss of maternal care and to a secondary narcissism. Then, safe and strong in mother's arms, he will express his joy by clapping his hands and singing. This imagery of pleasurable oral activity occurs not only here, but in every stanza of the poem. “Singing” is mentioned in all of them.

The last two lines of the stanza, “And therefore I have sailed the seas and come / To the holy city of Byzantium” are transition from the beginning, forepleasure, part of the poem to the middle, or raw fantasy. The speaker leaves his adult physical being and embraces his child-self and his deepest wish.

III. THE THIRD STANZA

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 soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.

The third stanza presents the whole wishful fantasy, though disguised beneath a surface that invokes sages of the holy city to teach his soul to sing, to purge him of his sensuality that he might be transmuted, pure now, into timeless art. The unconscious wish is to return to the timeless state of early orality in which the parent cares for the helpless infant. Imagery analysis will support this interpretation: images of authority: “O sages standing in God's holy fire,” “singing masters;” images of warmth: “holy fire” repeated twice; images of caretaking: “come from the holy fire,” “be the singing-masters of my soul,” “consume my heart away,” “gather me / Into the artifice of eternity;” image of rejoicing: “singing.” The speaker is unconsciously saying, “I am oppressed by the sexual desires of my adult body (‘sick with desire / and fastened to a dying animal’) and want to be released from the oppression and anxiety (‘consume my heart away’). So come father and mother (‘sages standing in God's holy fire,’ ‘singing-masters,’ the church in which are the gold mosaics, and Byzantium itself), relieve me of anxiety by taking care of me (‘come,’ ‘perne,’ ‘gather me’—there is much passive imagery in the stanza), by enveloping me in your warmth (‘holy fire’), by letting me become an infant too young to know adult sexual anxieties and young enough to return to the timeless bliss of oral union (‘the artifice of eternity’). That way you will make me happy and I will sing (‘be the singingmasters of my soul’).” In this third stanza the wishful fantasy glimmers beneath the conscious level like a fish risen near but without breaking the water surface.

IV. THE FOURTH STANZA

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 enameling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or sét upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

Now in the fourth stanza the fantasy sinks back beneath a heavy layer of intellectual defenses. The old man becomes specific about the timeless artifact he wishes to be: a golden bird singing on a golden bough. Himself out of time, he would sing of earthly time to Byzantine lords and ladies, “sing / … of what is past, or passing, or to come.” On both the conscious and fantasy levels, the old man's wish has been granted, the conscious wish to become wise, passionless, immortal in a Byzantine art object, the unconscious wish to be freed of adult sexual needs and demands. Altogether depersonalized now, he is not even “a tattered coat upon a stick” (human at least in form) but a mechanical bird on an artificial branch. Though he makes music still, it is not “that sensual music” of “birds in the trees / … at their song.” All the imagery in this stanza complements the old man's metamorphosis from what he was in the first stanza, an old man in a sensual temporal land. The real birds, “those dying generations,” of the first stanza become a gold enameled bird in the last; their song in the trees becomes a mechanical bird song sung from a golden bough; the “salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas” become forms “out of nature” made by “Grecian goldsmiths;” the love-making and procreating become drowsiness (“drowsy Emperor”) and goldsmithing; the “young / In one another's arms” become “lords and ladies of Byzantium.” Vitality, spontaneity, naturalness have been replaced by courtly opulence and by fixed, unchanging forms. Even the literary allusions—to the golden bough of Virgil and Frazer, to Keats's “Ode on a Grecian Urn”—reenforce this shift and add to the weight of aesthetic and intellectual defenses the stanza offers against the speaker's anxiety. In this world he can feel safe, for he has become a kind of toy, a beautiful and pleasure-giving object happy to sing for those who granted his oral wishes, happy in his release from the demands of vital, sexual adulthood.