Sailing to Byzantium

BY  WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

OUTLINE :
POEM SAILING TO BYZANTIUM BY W.B. YEATS
SAILING TO BYZANTIUM TEXT.
CRITICAL APPRECIATION AND SUMMARY.
LITERARY DEVICES USED IN THE POEM.
IMPORTANT POINTS AND DATES.
THEMES.

The structure of the poem

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Sailing to Byzantium
• Its verse form is called “Otta Rima”.
• Otta Rima’s verse style is related to the fact that each stanza has eight lines.
• The Otta Rima’s rhyme scheme is “a-b-a-b-a-b-c- c”.
• The poem is styled in iambic pentameter.
• A dramatic monologue.

IMPORTANT POINTS
• “Sailing to Byzantium” was published in 1928. In a collection called THE TOWER
• The poem uses a journey to Constantinople (Byzantium) as a metaphor for a
spiritual journey. Yeats explores his thoughts and musings on how immortality, art,
and the human spirit may converge. Through the use of various poetic techniques,
Yeats describes the metaphorical journey of a man pursuing his vision of eternal life
as well as his conception of paradise.
• Yeats was old and was afraid he was becoming temporal as his inevitable end
approached him. Age and immortality play a big part in the poem.
• Poet is in Ireland and wants to go Byzantium.
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Sailing to Byzantium
• Yeats is 63 years old and writing this poem.
• The world around Yeats was changing as the old world slipped into the new.
• The mysticism of Byzantium binds together Yeats's interests in mysterious
esotericism and the beauty of the distant orient. Yeats in 1933 by Pirie MacDonald,
six years before his death
• Spirituality

THEMES
•Old Age
•Transformation
•Men and the Natural World

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 Sailing to Byzantium
TEXT

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

II

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
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 Sailing to Byzantium
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.

III

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.

IV

Once out of nature I shall never take

My bodily form from any natural thing,
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 Sailing to Byzantium
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enameling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

LITERARY DEVICES

• Assonance: Assonance is the repetition of vowel sounds in the same line, such as
the sound of /a/ in “An aged man is but a paltry thing” and the sound of /o/ in “My
bodily form from any natural thing.”
• Alliteration: Alliteration is the repetition of consonant sounds in the same line in
quick succession such as the sound of /l/ in “To lords and ladies of Byzantium” and
the sound of /f/ in “Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long.”
• Enjambment: It is defined as a thought in verse that does not come to an end at a
line break; instead, it rolls over to the next line. For example,

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Sailing to Byzantium
• “And fastened to a dying animal
• It knows not what it is, and gather me
• Into the artifice of eternity.”
• Imagery: Imagery is used to make readers perceive things involving their five
senses. For example, “In one another’s arms, birds in the trees”, “O sages standing
in God’s holy fire” and “Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing.”
• Metaphor: It is a figure of speech used for an implied comparison between different
objects. There are three metaphors used in this poem. For example, “A tattered
coat upon a stick, unless”. Here, the poet compares himself to a scarecrow. In “And
fastened to a dying animal,” he compares himself to a dead animal. In “For every
tatter in its mortal dress,” he compared the body with a dress that will be worn out
someday.
• Personification: Personification is to give human qualities to inanimate objects. For
example, “Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing.”
• Oxymoron: It is a figure of speech in which contradictory terms appear in
conjunctions. For example; “Consume my heart away; sick with desire”, here
sickness presents desire and desire suggests passion.

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