Modern Poetry: Elements of Modernism in Yeats' poetry.

Discuss the elements of Modernism in Yeats' poetry.

William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) stands at the turning point between the Victorian period and Modernism, the conflicting currents of which affected his poetry. Yeats started his literary career as a romantic poet and gradually evolved into a modernist poet. He shifted his focus from Irish folklore to contemporary politics. His connection with the changes in literary culture in the early twentieth century led him to pick up some of the styles and conventions of the modernist poets. The modernists experimented with verse forms, wrote about politics, shifted away from conventions and traditions, and rejected the notion that poetry should simply be lyrical and beautiful. These influences caused his poetry to become darker, edgier, and more concise.

Yeats abandoned the conventional poetic diction of his early work in favour of unadorned language, verbal economy and more direct approach to his themes and subjects. His critical attitude made him one of the moderns. His later poetry and plays are written in a more personal element, and the works written in the last twenty years of his life include his musings on growing old.

Yeat's 'A Coat' is a self-dramatization of a stylistic change, he is casting off the old, rhetorical, ornate style of 'embroideries' for a new, simple, realistic style of 'walking naked'. The coat is romanticism that he is abandoning, and the naked state is the state of modernism he is adopting. It was a liberating poem for Yeats, since it showed him moving resolutely in a single stride from one poetic age to the next. He became more direct, truthful, terse and realistic. This poem showed that he had become increasingly self-critical and disillusioned with others.

Yeats eliminated poetic language, easy rhymes and rhythm and what he put in their place were the qualities evident in 'A Coat' --- conversational speech, irregular rhythms and imperfect rhymes, startlingly frank imagery, and above all honesty and a humility of tone. The poem is a juxtaposition of the poet being adorned with a coat and being naked.

The metaphor of the coat is complicated in that it involves an ambiguity which the reader is bound to struggle with. His 'coat' is a complex, multi-layered metaphor for the kind of poetic style he had previously, 'covered with embroideries/out of old mythologies/from heel to throat;'. The poem is a good example of free verse, a style popularly known to be modern. There is a personal element to the poem as well. Yeats wrote the poem as a response to an argument with George Moore, who accused Yeats of pretending to support Irish culture. The 'fools' in the poem are those who copied Yeats' style and 'wore it' as it was their own creation.

“An Acre of Grass”, written in 1939 when Yeats was 71, is increasingly personal as it describes how Yeats felt about growing old. The authors personal experiences form the center of this poem. Yeats is markedly preoccupied with the flesh and the decay,desolation and dullness that accompanies old age. The poem consists of several modern features such as unconventional metaphors, references such as Michelangelo and William Blake, and simple diction. There is a juxtaposition of ideas, such as 'old man's frenzy', and 'old man's eagle mind'. The tone of the poem is confessional.

Some of the examples of unconventional metaphors are the use of the word 'midnight' to refer to the end of days, end of life and darkness in life. Similarly, by 'an old house', Yeats means his own body which has suffered senility, it can also mean Yeats' life which has now come nearer to its end as the poet has grown old. The 'wall' that is mentioned in third stanza can mean the wall of classicism and tradition which limits the minds of men to following of rules and regulations. In the last line of the poem, the use of the word eagle is metaphorical since it represents clarity, sharpness of vision and goals of life, it is synonymous to the frenzy that the poet refers to. It can also mean that an old man's mind is as sharp as an eagle in the sense that he remembers every moment of his past, memories and regrets. 'The words 'picture' and 'book' refer to the peace, rest, poise, calm and serenity that was a part of his happy conjugal life with George Hyde-Lees in the Norman Towers. The word 'acre' has several meanings, it can refer to to the small plot of green land for fresh breath and exercise, it can also suggest confinement to a small space, metaphorically speaking, the confinement of the mind and body. It can also be taken as a reference to a grave, the final destination for someone who has reached old age like Yeats. The old house may recall the mind which has now become old due to the rest and calm. Timon, Lear and William Blake are the men who 'can pierce the clouds'. 'Pierce' is the antithesis of the diffuse, ineffectual thought of the 'loose imagination' of old men who do not possess frenzy. 'Mill' is reference to Blake's symbol of the mill which stands for the mechanical, repetitive routine of the industrial machine, but Yeats extends it to 'mill of the mind', that mode of habitual and uncreative thinking which he despised. The allusion of the word 'truth' is the understanding of the true spirit of the mind, it is the ability to do something new and inspiring, gain recognition or critical acclaim. Truth can also mean a position with the great frenzied minds of the past 'forgotten else by mankind'.

Most notably in his poems of 1920's, such as “Sailing to Byzantium”, Yeats displays many of the characteristics of modernist disenchantment: skepticism towards the notion of 'truth', a sense of the individual's disorientation within modernity and a pessimism over contemporary life combined with an understanding that the modern world has become spiritually bankrupt and culturally fragmented. Sailing to Byzantium proves to be the poet's long entertained concept of art by which he seeks to cure the malady of the 20th century life. The poem is an evidence of Yeat's excellence of art and symbolic interpretation of modern life . It contains subtle symbolism and a complexity of thought and style. The juxtaposition of concepts like nature vs. artifice, art vs. nature is apparent in the poem. The tension between art and life is a dichotomy in Yeats' poetry. The poem has many symbols, for example, the symbol of the 'gyre' in Yeat's poem shows his philosophical belief that all things could be described in terms of cycles and patterns. Similarly, the mackerels, salmons, fish and fowl symbolize morality and transience of life. The metaphors used for an aging body numerous, such as, 'a tattered coat upon a stick', 'tatter in its mortal dress', 'fastened to a dying animal'.

There is a political and personal reference of Ireland, the poet wishes to go back to a time when Ireland was a peaceful and economical country. “That” in the beginning of the poem is a reference to the Ireland of the contemporary time, or the modern era. The poem traces the speaker’s movement from youth to age, and the corresponding geographical move from Ireland, a country just being born as Yeats wrote, to Byzantium. Yeats felt that he no longer belonged in Ireland, as the young or the young in brutality, were caught up in what he calls “sensual music.” This is the allure of murder in the name of republicanism, which disgusted Yeats. 'The young/In one another's arms' and 'dying generations' possibly refers to the Irish Rebellion, when people suffered deaths and losses and had to part with their loved ones, thus saying goodbye through a last embrace.

Byzantium was the center of a successful civilization in the 6th century, it is a reference to the ancient city (previously named Constantinople) built by the Roman Emperor Constantine, it was the headquarters of Eastern Christianity. The city was believed to be a place where God existed. It was a place culturally rich and artistically Utopian in nature. Byzantium is far away, remote, exotic and has an added connotation of a spiritual and artistic center, it is also a metaphor for creativity or a platonic heaven of ideal forms of art.

The main theme of the poem is 'aging', a theme quite personal and common for Yeats' later poems. "An aged man is but a paltry thing,/ A tattered coat upon a stick." He renounces his almost-dead state and imaginatively "sailed the seas and come to the holy city of Byzantium."The speaker thinks that by escaping to Byzantium, he can escape the conflict between burning desire and a wasted body. The modern feature of realism is apparent here when Yeats likens an old man's body to a 'dying animal'.

Through his unceasing desire of escaping to the perfect land of Byzantium, Yeats is indirectly pointing at the imperfect land that he wishes to leave. One of the most common and important themes of Modern poetry, the degeneration and chaos of modern life is evident in this poem. Yeats is saying that the “Monuments of unageing intellect” cannot be produced in modern chaotic times. Line 6 of the poem, 'Whatever is begotten, born and dies' conveying the feelings of loss familiar to the modern poetry. Waste, death, decadence and crumbling of mortal beings is prevalent throughout the poem especially in association with old age.

Yeats invokes the holy "sages" to transform him, to "Consume my heart away; sick with desire/ And fastened to a dying animal" and "gather" him into the "artifice of eternity." Art (artifice) is the only thing that is immortal or eternal; human life is not eternal. It is thus the poet’s wish to be granted a body immune to death and to sing forever. Yeats' own note said: "I have read somewhere that in the Emperor's palace at Byzantium was a tree made of gold and silver, and artificial birds that sang" which would keep the Emperor awake. (2040) A fascination with the artificial as superior to the natural is one of Yeats' most prevalent themes. Yeats says that once he is out of his body he will never appear in the form of a natural thing again. The artificial is seen as perfect and permanent, while the natural objects or human body can decay and become ugly. At the same time Yeats is praising the 'Grecian goldsmiths' and the artisans of that time for creating such perfect and immortal golden birds that inspired him.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, the modernism in Yeats' poetry is clear mainly through his use of simple language, metaphors having several interpretations, smybols, political references, allusions and juxtaposition of ideas. His themes, subjectivity and realism reveal his modernist style. Though Yeats straddles the line between Romanticism and Modernism, some of his later poems are considered the best representations of modern poetry.

REFERENCES

1. Pratt, William (1996); “Singing the Chaos: Madness and Wisdom in Modern Poetry”; University of Missouri Press; Columbia, USA. p.65
2. Childs, Peter (2008); “Modernism” ; Second Edition, Routledge, NY
3. http://www.sparknotes.com/poetry/yeats/themes.html
4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._B._Yeats
5. Koch, Vivienne (1969) “W.B. Yeats: The Tragic Phase ; a Study of the Last Poems”; The John Hopkins University Press, U.S.A pg. 43
6. Yeats, William Butler; (2006) "Sailing to Byzantium." The Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Twentieth Century and After. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. New York: Norton. 2040.
7. http://www.gradesaver.com/poems-of-wb-yeats-the-tower/study-guide/section1/
   
   
   -Credits: Muneeza Rafiq