MODERNISM:-

Q. Comment on W.B Yeats use of myth and symbol to convey contradictions and confusion in
the modern age.
The time during Yeats lived saw the end of the Romantic era of literature and the dawn of
Modernism and different fields of art were going through transformation due to worldwide
phenomena that included the two world wars. Yeats’ poetry is neither modernist nor
romantic, but both. He writes about the tranquility of the country which takes him away
from the mechanical ethics of the modern era. His poems see him retreating into nature to
escape the changing world. However, at the same time he uses imagery and elements which
make his work modernist. He uses symbolism, juxtaposition, allusions and myths to create
the modernist effect in his poetry. The use of myth arose early in English poetry. It has been
used since the Romantic and the Victorian eras. Generally, myth is defined as stories of
ancient origin which people once believed to be true. It was used to explain why the world is
like that and things happen the way they do. Additionally, myth is used to set the
punishments for the rules that conduct people’s lives. Myth has been distinctively used in
modernist poetry. He uses mythical images to represent the decaying society and moral
values which became prevalent after the wars. His poems No Second Troy, The Second
Coming and Leda and the Swan very well depict his usage of myths to emphasize the
combined effect of modernism and imagination. Yeats’ ideas were very unconventional
because of the way he used mythology in his poetry and switched between past and
present. He narrated epic texts in compressed yet aesthetic poems. He put in the original
motifs and images but presented in a newer light to relate them to ongoing circumstances
or certain other points in history. By doing so, he retold the epics and questioned them at the
same time. Through this intermingling, he blurred the lines between myths and reality and
thus, No Second Troy,  The Second Coming and Leda  and  the Swan stand as reasons
his deliberate attempts to go back to the epics but not using them like the neoclassicists
did. Yeats's use of myth and folklore looks at how, in order to justify his view of Irish
independence movement and the value of Irish history, he created his own form of elegiac
poetry. Such form explains his poetry, re-created the ancient forms of Irish epic myths based
upon old folkloric poems and created a new self-enclosed schema of mythology within the
framework of his own individual vision. Also Yeats's use of myth which is an anticipation of
modernism is frequently perceived as an attempt to escape from history, to avoid
confronting the realities of modern life and from mass culture through to democracy. The
Second Coming depicts well his use of mythic vision, what emphasizes the modernist effect
in his writing. Yeats used history in The Second Coming in order to make it a contemporary
mythological literature. According to his mythological-historical theory, the end of a
historical era is indicated by the beginning of a dreadful war and the birth of a new spiritual
leader to which he referred, in The Second Coming, as being a rough beast that is slouching
towards Bethlehem to be born. In this poem, Yeats used the myth which says that the
antichrist will be born in the same birth place of the Christ. The mythological stories were
used by William to unify the antichrist with the stone sphinx in the Egyptian desert, slowly
coming to life and “moving its slow thighs”. Yeats alluded to the sphinx, a horrible creature
taken from the Greek mythology, and gave him the effect of being evil and terrifying by
using words such as “slouches” and “rough”. Through using the sphinx’s myth, the poet
added to the poem the impression of horror and evil. Yeats is horrified by the vision of the
rough beast. He saw that the world is moving towards a new phase that will witness more
decay and destruction by the birth of this creature. As shown above, the poet unified myth
with history in order to create the sense of pessimism and death in his poem. "Leda and the
Swan" is based on Greek Mythology. The poem begins with a picture of Zeus, disguised as a
swan, descending with great force upon the girl Leda and taking hold of her in order to rape
her. A Sudden blow: the great wings beating still Above the staggering girl, her thighs
caressed. The whole action of the poem is sudden, and totally unexpected by Leda. This
immediacy of action has been shown through the phrase " A sudden blow". The word
"staggering" has been used to express the involuntary reaction of the girl. In spite of her
feelings of shock and terror, she is already fielding to sexual pressure which is shown
through the phrase "loosening thighs". The following lines weave the myth. A shudder in the
loins engenders there The broken wall, the burning roof and tower And Agamemnon dead
Leda experiences a shudder in her uterus and this shudder is a sign of her orgasm. The
climax of the swan's sexual intercourse with Leda is the shudder in the loins. At this moment
of the climax, Leda conceives a child, and this child will make history. This is an obvious
Greek myth according to which Helen was born of Zeus's sexual union with Leda.
Symbolism is considered one of the first signs of modernism and modern poetry. W.B. Yeats
is considered as the founder of symbolic school of poetry. His symbols are derived from
occult studies which included a fascination for fairies, astrology, automatic writing and
prophetic dreams. Yeats was a symbolist and he was a symbolist from the beginning of his
career to the end. Yeats’ use of symbols is another modern trait in his poetry which is
complex and rich. He is the chief representative of the Symbolist Movement. He draws his
symbols from Irish folklore and mythology, philosophy, metaphysics, occult, magic, paintings
and drawings. Several allusions are compressed into a single symbol. His symbols are all
pervasive key symbols. His key-symbols shed light on his previous poems and “illuminates
their sense”. ‘The Rose’, ‘Swan’ and ‘Helen’ are his key-symbols. Symbols give ‘dumb things
voice, and bodiless things bodies’ in Yeats’ poetry.The term symbolism is derived from a
Greek verb: ‘Symbollein’, means ‘to put together.’ A symbol means, a mark, token or sign. It
means representation of some hidden things through a sign or mark that is called a
symbol. When an unseen thing or idea is expressed through seen, we use a symbol. The
symbolism is the presentation of objects, moods and ideas through the medium of
symbols. Yeats was much influenced by French writers but his symbolism was based on the
poetry of Blake, Shelley and Rossetti. He had been called as the greatest poet. According to
him, symbol gives voice to the dumb things; it gives body to the bodiless things. He was
against personal symbols. Yeats was an heir of the French. No doubt, Yeats was influenced
by the French symbolists, but he was a symbolist-poet before he had heard of the French.
Yeats himself declares:
 I’ve no speech but Symbols
The Pagan speech I made
Amid the dream of youth.

W.B. Yeats has brought a large number of symbols from Irish Mythology. The Irish
Mythology is almost as rich in great stories and figures as the Greek Mythology, and equally
rich is the borderland where myth and history meet. It was upon this vast store that he
meet. It was upon this vast store that he drew for symbols. The symbols of Yeats's poetry are
occult in character. He makes use of the occult symbols of rose, cross, lily, bird, water, tree,
moon, sun etc. That's why his symbols are not vague and hazy. The poems like "Leda and the
Swan" and "Among School Children" use Helen having symbolic significance. She symbolizes
destructive beauty and the linking up of Helen with Maud Gonne sometimes symbolizes
narcissistic view. Thus the symbol in Yeats's poetry is more often its own starting point, not
the end but the beginning of the process. Yeats used the symbol to evoke the world; and his
interest ultimately was less in the symbol than in the things evoked. The symbol in his hand
became a true metaphor which evoked the world in terms of itself. Yeats wanted to
reconcile world and spirit and to integrate himself with world and spirit. The symbols create
unity of being which is impossible in the physical phenomenon world. The Use of Symbol In
his poem “The Second Coming”, Yeats predicted that the coming days will surely bring more
darkness than is already existing in the present world. He leant extensively on various
symbols in order to enable the readers to understand his prediction of the world’s end. The
prominent employed symbols are the gyre and the cradle. One of Yeats major symbols, the
“gyre” is used systematically to show the destruction of the current civilization and the
emergence of a new one. It symbolizes history or life cycles of men. The continuing “turning
and turning” of the gyre illustrates the last breath of a period of history and its plunge into a
new repressive world. This means that the disintegration of the gyre points to the end of
time. In the line twenty, the mention of the “cradle” plays a significant role in the poem since
it symbolizes the manger in which the Jesus Christ was born. This symbol suggests that the
beast will be born in the place of the Christ which represents a threat to the humankind and
the world as a whole. Yeats extensive use of symbols in his poem helps him in
communicating his ideas and views to the reader. The symbols have different meanings
depending on the interpreter. Thus, employing symbols enables the interpreter to associate
the poem’s different aspects and understand the greater meaning that Yeats is attempting
to convey

NAME:- Riya
Roll No. :- 4064/18