PoemoftheWeek

[Virgil]

It’s far less convincing than either and seems to miss the point of both.

I didn't make a point. I asked a question. I would agree. I don't have time now. Although you're (all, not just you) partially right, you guys are being a little harsh. He's an old man who has gone through the life and is now searching for something more. He's not saying this is how we should lead the bulk of our lives; he's talking about an after life.

[The Unnamable]

I didn't make a point. I asked a question. ... he's talking about an after life.

I didn’t mean that you’d missed the point but that Yeats had.

However, I don’t feel that he is talking about an afterlife so much as a state beyond life. Where’s “the fury and the mire of human veins”, Virgil? (Don’t tell me it’s in a different poem, I know that.)

[Virgil]

I didn’t mean that you’d missed the point but that Yeats had.

Oh, Ok.

However, I don’t feel that he is talking about an afterlife so much as a state beyond life.

I agree, but you (and the rest) are implying that it's at the expense of life. I don't feel that way. He has lived life. He understands the "sensual music" of those "dying generations." After all, what is the bird singing of, but the sensual music of life, of "what is past, or passing, or to come."

Where’s “the fury and the mire of human veins”, Virgil? (Don’t tell me it’s in a different poem, I know that.)

Yes, I know, that's "Byzantium" and he wrote that a few years after this one. Perhaps he had the same qualms you are pointing out here. While there is an element of escapisim here in "STB", I think the state beyond life requires him to experience life. Look there are plenty of Yeats poems that emphasize life's experience: his love poems, "Easter 1916", "A Prayer For My Daughter," (quite touching) and his "Crazy Jane" poems. In fact the Crazy Jane poems emphasizes the same things you want him to emphasize.

But even here I don't think he is minimizing the importance of life's experience. Look at the first stanza:

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.

Let me bring you back to that question I asked about "commend." From M-W:

commend
Main Entry: com·mend
Pronunciation: k&-'mend
Function: verb
Etymology: Middle English, from Latin commendare, from com- + mandare to entrust -- more at MANDATE
transitive senses
1 : to entrust for care or preservation
2 : to recommend as worthy of confidence or notice
3 : to mention with approbation : PRAISE
intransitive senses : to commend or serve as a commendation of something

He is commending life. Here that bird is a real life bird, a Keatsian nightinggale, if you will. But now he is an "aged man," a "dying animal," and now is searching for eternal permanence, and he finds it in art (well, he's an artist). I take the purging in the third stanza as a metaphor for the dying process. And then, "once out of nature" he can become through his art, through his poem, the golden bird which will sing to subsequent generations. He going through the process of the "dying generations" (not avoiding it) is what allows him to sing.

[Grumbleguts]

I agree with a lot of the posts here. This is not one of my favourite Yeats Poems. To my mind Yeats was at his best when he stuck to Ireland and Irish politics, most of his metaphysical works leave me cold, with the exception of Second Coming. I have never seen why this poem is vaunted as one of his greatest and I am glad to see that I am not alone in that.

Read No Second Troy, Easter 1916 or The Lake Isle of Innisfree. They are among his best, this is just Muzak, it sounds dramating and meaningful but is essentially nothing but empty masturbation in rhyme.

[The Unnamable]

empty masturbation in rhyme.

Wasn’t that an early Led Zeppelin album? It included their hugely overrated “Stairway to Onan”.

[Petrarch's Love]

I agree, but you (and the rest) are implying that it's at the expense of life. I don't feel that way. He has lived life. He understands the "sensual music" of those "dying generations." After all, what is the bird singing of, but the sensual music of life, of "what is past, or passing, or to come."

Lest I be too quickly lumped in with "the rest," I thought I'd clarify that I agree with this point. Compared with Keats, I don't think this Yeats is as thorough and as deeply rooted in the human experience, but I don't think it's uprooted either. Considered purely on its own merits, rather than comparatively speaking, I don't know that I would classify it as completely absurd as Unnamable seems to think it is. As I said in my last post, that final line "what is past, or passing or to come" (partly a chiasmatic echo of the earlier "whatever is begotten, born or dies") in particular for me brings what might have otherwise escalated into an aesthetic daydream, back to a sympathy with the human experience, a return of the "sensual music of life" as Virg. so aptly puts it. So I'm somewhere between the two extremes in this debate. I do think it's quite a beautiful poem, but not perhaps as deeply reflective as some others I've come across.

There's a whole genre of poetry across the ages in which the poet expresses the idea of his own immortality through his art. For example, it's all over Shakespeare's sonnets (take #55: "Not marble nor the gilded monuments/ Of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme"). This conversation has me thinking about the way poets chose to couch what is essentially the same claim about immortality through art. What is at stake when Shakespeare is contemplating immortality by describing his lover, another mortal creature; when Keat's is describing a man-made artifact; when Yeats is describing an imagined artifact? What claims are they making about the power of art over life when they give it power over death? Because "Sailing to Byzantium" is more abstracted from "the fury and the mire of human veins" so to speak, does that mean that it is in some way making a larger claim for the power and authority of the poet/artist who now stands in an omniscient god-like state with a body not "from any natural thing"? Is this in some way a stronger or weaker claim about the power of art than one in which art is more a reminder than an embodiment of the immortality of beauty?

OK, I'll stop throwing out questions now. Just thought that since Unnamable has alluded to it more than once and others might not be catching the allusion I'd post "Byzantium" (which isn't here on Lit. Net for some odd reason) with the appropriate line in bold (you can also find the signature of one of the members here ):

Byzantium

The unpurged images of day recede;
The Emperor's drunken soldiery are abed;
Night resonance recedes, night walkers' song
After great cathedral gong;
A starlit or a moonlit dome disdains
All that man is,
All mere complexities,
The fury and the mire of human veins.
Before me floats an image, man or shade,
Shade more than man, more image than a shade;
For Hades' bobbin bound in mummy-cloth
May unwind the winding path;
A mouth that has no moisture and no breath
Breathless mouths may summon;
I hail the superhuman;
I call it death-in-life and life-in-death.
Miracle, bird or golden handiwork,
More miracle than bird or handiwork,
Planted on the star-lit golden bough,
Can like the cocks of Hades crow,
Or, by the moon embittered, scorn aloud
In glory of changeless metal
Common bird or petal
And all complexities of mire or blood.
At midnight on the Emperor's pavement flit
Flames that no faggot feeds, nor steel has lit,
Nor storm disturbs, flames begotten of flame,
Where blood-begotten spirits come
And all complexities of fury leave,
Dying into a dance,
An agony of trance,
An agony of flame that cannot singe a sleeve.
Astraddle on the dolphin's mire and blood,
Spirit after Spirit! The smithies break the flood.
The golden smithies of the Emperor!
Marbles of the dancing floor
Break bitter furies of complexity,
Those images that yet
Fresh images beget,
That dolphin-torn, that gong-tormented sea.
--W.B. Yeats

[Petrarch's Love]

“Gods chase
'round vase.
What say?
What play?
Don't know.
Nice, though.”

Thanks Unnamable, I hadn't come across that before. Maybe I can make it easy on myself and assign this version rather than the original to my students next year. They might actually read all of this one without any recourse to spark notes.

[Virgil]

Wasn’t that an early Led Zeppelin album? It included their hugely overrated “Stairway to Onan”.

Hey, you know I beginning to think we agree on lots of things.

[jackyyyy]

Here, he is maybe not so romantic compared to some, but I think he could have painted it up a lot more that he actually did. Especially when I compare with the Keats that someone just posted. Yeats used his word space to build a picture of humanity and myth. I can't give any of the myth part a grain of salt, thats why its myth. But, the human part I can. I think this is where the Keats impression wins over with people, he is more relatable. As for efficacy, a golden bird endowed with supernatural powers is really no different to a live bird endowered with a something else, except in One Flew Over the Cookoos Nest. All poets colourize with different brushes and what Yeats did was more focused. I mean, it was not that hard to read, other than the perne gyre he threw in. Apart from Virgil, and I think I did with some reservations, no one else has really summed it up. What was his message, even if you think its silly or ludricous, what did he intend?

After all, what is the bird singing of, but the sensual music of life, of "what is past, or passing, or to come."

The bird is sitting in front of Lords and Ladies singing, "you silly fools" or "whos a pretty polly?". Its being compared to the Keats but I don't think there is any comparison to be made because he has a different message.

[ktd222]

Oh, Ok. I agree, but you (and the rest) are implying that it's at the expense of life. I don't feel that way. He has lived life. He understands the "sensual music" of those "dying generations." After all, what is the bird singing of, but the sensual music of life, of "what is past, or passing, or to come."

It is at the expense of his life. Hes obsessive about what had been. He doesn't want to let go, even if retaining life in this world means not being in possession of his own heart, his own soul. Hes 'sick with desire...' Hes clinging to whatever part of this world that will let him be a part of this world.
I don't know if 'what is past, or passing, or to come' means what you say, or means that people can't let go of the good part of their life.
A good analogy, although at a lower scope, are people like Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretzy, etc, who come back from retirement believing they are still as good as they once were-just to find out that their not. This may not affect their past legacies, but it definity does tarnish the latter part of their life.
I see something like this happening in this Yeat's poem, but on a larger scale: his soul's life trapped in this mortal world.
This does not mean that I don't like this poem because I do.

[Virgil]

It is at the expense of his life. Hes obsessive about what had been. He doesn't want to let go, even if retaining life in this world means not being in possession of his own heart, his own soul. Hes 'sick with desire...' Hes clinging to whatever part of this world that will let him be a part of this world.

Frankly, ktd, I don't understand your point. It is at the expense of life, but he doesn't want to let life go? I thought the point was that he wants to let life go. It's not at the expense of life, because he's at the end of life. He's already lived it.

I don't know if 'what is past, or passing, or to come' means what you say, or means that people can't let go of the good part of their life.
A good analogy, although at a lower scope, are people like Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretzy, etc, who come back from retirement believing they are still as good as they once were-just to find out that their not. This may not affect their past legacies, but it definity does tarnish the latter part of their life.
I see something like this happening in this Yeat's poem, but on a larger scale: his soul's life trapped in this mortal world.

I don't follow. I don't feel this analogy is apt.

[ktd222]

He's already lived it.

Ok, so when do you think life ends, when your in your 50's, 60's? Is he talking from beyond the grave?

I don't follow. I don't feel this analogy is apt

Thats because your stern with your point-of-view.

Frankly, ktd, I don't understand your point. It is at the expense of life, but he doesn't want to let life go? I thought the point was that he wants to let life go. It's not at the expense of life, because he's at the end of life.

Is this one of those statements where you pretend not to understand me. Once you live you life(in this world) thats it! move on. And he can't move on.

Wouldn't you rather do something else with the latter part of your life than dwell on the past?

[Virgil]

As I said in my last post, that final line "what is past, or passing or to come" (partly a chiasmatic echo of the earlier "whatever is begotten, born or dies") in particular for me brings...
):

I don't know what "chiasmatic" means but it sounds great! There are all sorts of echoes and sound interconnections that make this such high art, for me. And yet it reads so smoothly as if no work actually went into it, as if it just rolled off his tongue. And perhaps it did.

There's a whole genre of poetry across the ages in which the poet expresses the idea of his own immortality through his art. For example, it's all over Shakespeare's sonnets (take #55: "Not marble nor the gilded monuments/ Of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme"). This conversation has me thinking about the way poets chose to couch what is essentially the same claim about immortality through art...

It goes back at least to Horace, that I can think of. It must go back even further.

Because "Sailing to Byzantium" is more abstracted from "the fury and the mire of human veins" so to speak, does that mean that it is in some way making a larger claim for the power and authority of the poet/artist who now stands in an omniscient god-like state with a body not "from any natural thing"?

Too many questions. I'll just answer this one. I would characterize it as supernatural state, not "ominiscient god-like state," if we can percieve a difference. I still maintain that even in his supernatural state he's intimately linked to nature: singing of "the dying generations," and of "the mortal dress". I'm not sure I would characterize it as "power and authority." All the golden bird is doing is entertaining, as far as we can see. In fact, the Emperor doesn't seem to even want to be entertained. It seems the singing is for beauty's sake. Art for art's sake, perhaps?

Is this one of those statements where you pretend not to understand me. Once you live you life(in this world) thats it! move on. And he can't move on.

Wouldn't you rather do something else with the latter part of your life than dwell on the past?

Why do you say he can't move on. I read it as he questing for it. He's desiring it. I can't read the third stanza any other way:

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.

"Come...and be" and "Consume," and "gather me."

Thats because your stern with your point-of-view.

Well, so are you.

Wouldn't you rather do something else with the latter part of your life than dwell on the past?

Oops, I didn't see this last question before. He's not dwelling on his personal past. He will sing of the sensual music (admittedly abstract) of life in a genereal sense, of the mortal dress. He's not being specific, I don't think.

[ktd222]

Look at the next post. I was playing with Image Insert and posted multiple times without knowing.

Why do you say he can't move on. I read it as he questing for it. He's desiring it. I can't read the third stanza any other way:

Ok then, does he achieve his quest? And if he does, what form does he take? I read the third stanza as a resignation:'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(as if); and gather me into the artifice.'

Check out this link:
http://courses.washington.edu/englht...l481/dali.html

Well, so are you

Then we, ourselves are resigned to our point-of-view.

[Virgil]

Ok then, does he achieve his quest? And if he does, what form does he take? I read the third stanza as a resignation:'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(as if); and gather me into the artifice.'

Check out this link:
http://courses.washington.edu/englhtml/engl481/dali.html

I'm sorry, it won't let me open the link. But those are active verbs in the third stanza. I just don't see the resignation. I read it as he achieving his quest.

Then we, ourselves are resigned to our point-of-view.

I guess so.