1.Sailing toByzantiumA Poem by W.B. Yeats

2. The Yeats William Butler Yeats was born inDublin, Ireland on June 13, 1865.Parents were John B. Yeats andFamilySusan Mary PollexfenYeats had three siblings: Susan,Elizabeth, and Jack. John B. Yeats, Williams father, wasa lawyer by trade and left it tobecome a painter. His mothercame from an affluent Irish family. All of his sibling pursued artisticcareers. His brother was a painterand his sisters were involved in thearts-and-crafts movement. John B. Yeats was a Republicanand influenced his sons laterbeliefs. Yeatss mother was raisedby a loyalist. The Yeats family were AnglicansA portrait of WB Yeats by his living in a deeply Catholic Ireland.John B. Yeats done in 1900 3. Moving and The Yeats family moved to London when William was very Education young. His mother Susan introduced him to Irish folklore. Yeats never went to school until he was eleven at a grammar school in England. His family moved back to Ireland where he attended high school. His mother introduced her children to County Sligo. Sligo became a very important place to Yeats both spiritually and in his later career. Yeats attended an art school,Light Green: Republic of Ireland but left it after two years toPink: Northern Ireland pursue becoming a writer. Dark Green : County Sligo 4. Yeats pursued writing with a The Poetpassion and took manydifferent approaches andinterests that he expressed inhis work. Yeats is primarily seen as amodernist. Yeats was not only a poet, buta playwright, an essayist, asocial critic, and a short storywriter. His greatest influences werethe great English Romantics;namely, Shelley, Spenser, andBlake. Attempted to mix English andIrish culture while being anotable Republican. Took a special interest in Irishfolklore, the occult, and theoriental. Yeats died in France onJanuary 28, 1939.Yeats in 1911 by George CharlesBeresford 5. Sailing to Byzantium (1928) O sages standing in Gods holy fireThat is no country for old men. The youngAs in the gold mosaic of a wall, In one anothers arms, birds in the treesCome from the holy fire, perne in a gyre, Those dying generations at their song, And be the singingmasters of my soul. The salmonfalls, the mackerelcrowded seas, Consume my heart away; sick with desire Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long And fastened to a dying animalWhatever is begotten, born, and dies.It knows not what it is; and gather me Caught in that sensual music all neglect Into the artifice of eternity. Monuments of unageing intellect.Once out of nature I shall never takeAn aged man is but a paltry thing, My bodily form from any natural thing, A tattered coat upon a stick, unlessBut such a form as Grecian goldsmithsSoul clap its hands and sing, and louder singmake For every tatter in its mortal dress,Of hammered gold and gold enamelling Nor is there singing school but studyingTo keep a drowsy Emperor awake;Monuments of its own magnificence;Or set upon a golden bough to singAnd therefore I have sailed the seas and comeTo lords and ladies of Byzantium To the holy city of Byzantium.Of what is past, or passing, or to come. 6. The structure of Sailing isBreaking Down sophisticated and concise. the PoemIts verse form is called Otta Rima. Otta Rimas verse style is related to the fact that each stanza has eight lines. The Otta Rimas rhyme scheme is a-b-a-b-a-b-c- c. The poem is styled in iambic pentameter where there is an accent on every second beat of the syllables used in that line.A Byzantine Mosaic 7. Yeats and the Motifs Sailing to Byzantium was of Sailing topublished in 1928. Yeats was old and was afraid he was becoming temporal as hisByzantium inevitable end approached him. Age and immortality play a big part in the poem. The world around Yeats was changing as the old world slipped into the new. The material nature of the physical is often contrasted with the eternity of the metaphysical. Yeats studied the occult all his life hoping to unite himself with something more than the temporary world around him. The mysticism of Byzantium binds together Yeats interests in mysterious esotericism and the beauty of the distant orient. Yeats in 1933 by Pirie MacDonald, six years before his death 8. The First Two StanzasFirst StanzaSecond Stanza That is no country for old men This stanza reflects specifically onThe poem opens boldly. The aging as the speaker comparesspeaker in the poem makes aan old man with a scarecrow.conclusive statement about the The scarecrow is described asphysical Eden the poem beginsworn and tattered; but, by adding the word unless, thein.speaker seems to offer another The speaker states in the first line choice other than this vagabondof the first stanza that this poem state. This choice being sailing towill be about old age. Byzantium. Yeats contrasts an Eden-like The metaphysical singing of thevision of a bountiful place with soul is contrasted with the firstvisions of age and physicalstanzas birds physically singing. This implies the immortal souldecay and death. sings out inside the aging body. 9. The Last Two Stanzas Third StanzaFourth Stanza The sages invoked in the first line The Speaker imagines escaping thephysical world and his aged bodyof the stanza are mystics and and becoming a jeweled birdmasters of esoteric knowledge,made to amuse Byzantineknowledge that Yeats himselfemperors.studied and tried to understand. Yeats invokes many things over and Fire has powerful symbolism in this over again in this poem. Thephysical singing of birds in the firststanza. The sages stand in thestanza has become metaphysicalholy fire of God and the Speakeras the speaker dreams ofasks for his heart to be consumed becoming the golden and jeweledin a sacrifice. bird. Age is also brought up again. The By leaving the birds in the trees inthe old world and becoming a birdheart is fastened to a dying himself in the next, the speakeranimal while the immortal soul creates a sense of unity in his questbegs for eternity.for immortality and meaning. 10. BibliographyText Based Sources: http://literature.proquestlearning.com/quick/displayItemById.do?origin=toc&PubID=kno&QueryType=reference&ItemID=EALKN129+pqllit_ref_lib http://www.online-literature.com/yeats/ http://www.gale.cengage.com/free_resources/poets/bio/yeats_w.htm http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/william-butler-yeats http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/117Media Based Sources: http://www.youtube.com/user/SpokenVerse?feature=watchPicture Based Sources http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:William_Butler_Yeat_by_George_Charles_Beresford.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:William_Butler_Yeats_by_John_Butler_Yeats_1900.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:William_Butler_Yeats.jpg http://www.123rf.com/photo_12444627_a-byzantine-mosaic-depicting-a-bird-on-the-floor-of-the-great-basilica-in-the-ancient-city-of-heracl.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Island_of_Ireland_location_map_Sligo.svg