PoemoftheWeek

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Petrarch - Those are beautiful images. It was Yeat's poem which made me go an explore the artistry of the Byzantines. The early Renaissance painters owe a bit to them. I would not be surprised if the works you pasted here were prior to the Italian Renaissance and a comparison would show just how far ahead the Byzantines were artistically.

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Yes, the Hagia Sophia mosaics in the pictures I posted were indeed prior to the Italian Renaissance, mostly about ninth century AD. In Italy the truly stunning 11th to 14th century Byzantine mosaics in San Marco, Venice (see below), as well as the mosaics in Ravenna and the ceiling of the baptistry in Florence were no doubt an influence on the art of the early Renaissance. I was wondering if it were possibly these mosaics in Italy that Yeats might even have had in mind or if he had actually travelled to Byzantium. Does anyone know?

San Marco, Venezia (But the pic. doesn't do it justice. It's absolutely incredible in person.)
http://homepage2.nifty.com/kenkitaga...-Mosaic-in.jpg

Does anyone else get a sense of desperation to become immortalized in this poem-maybe even to a point beyond desperation?

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Originally Posted by The Unnamable

Yes, I can see the fear of growing old and I can ‘enjoy’ the unembellished image of “A tattered coat upon a stick” but can he really be serious about that golden bird?

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Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing

Does he have control over such things as this?

[QUOTE=ktd222]

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Does anyone else get a sense of desperation to become immortalized in this poem-maybe even to a point beyond desperation?

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You know, there may be a sense of desparation. He is on a quest:"I have sailed the seas..."


Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing

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Does he have control over such things as this?

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I supposed he does as an artist, if that is how to reach his concept of immortality.

[QUOTE=Virgil]

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Originally Posted by ktd222

You know, there may be a sense of desparation. He is on a quest:"I have sailed the seas..."


Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing


I supposed he does as an artist, if that is how to reach his concept of immortality.

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Do you think that there may be resignation by him?

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.

What I mean is: he is also neglecting the 'monuments of unageing intellect./Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.'

Maybe we should talk about the above in comparison with this line: 'to sing...of what is past, or passing, or to come.' How can he talk about 'past, or passing, or to come' if himself is avoiding ' the Beyond this world.' What I mean is that I get sense of him wanting to hold on to immortality-but immortality as it belongs in this mortal world.

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Originally Posted by ktd222

What I mean is: he is also neglecting the 'monuments of unageing intellect./Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.'

Maybe we should talk about the above in comparison with this line: 'to sing...of what is past, or passing, or to come.' How can he talk about 'past, or passing, or to come' if himself is avoiding ' the Beyond this world.' What I mean is that I get sense of him wanting to hold on to immortality-but immortality as it belongs in this mortal world.

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He is belittling mortal artifacts in favour of gold symbols, or platoish symbols that are supernatural amongst the mortal ones. I think you mean 'hold on to mortality???', he is still mortal as he writes this. This is what I recall of Greek and Roman existentialism, supernatural combined to the natural World. He is desperate to solve his heart, he would rather no heart, so I think he is desperate, but I also sense resignation, because of how he depicts himself as a supernatural, sitting on a bough for Emperors. He would rather this. Thanks for your comments, Ktd, I really wanted to see what someone else thought of it. Again here, I am wondering if he has a trite sense of humour, where he uses the word 'Never', for example. Why use that word, or am I reading too much into it??

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Originally Posted by ktd222

Does anyone else get a sense of desperation to become immortalized in this poem-maybe even to a point beyond desperation?



Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing

Does he have control over such things as this?

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I think, overall, its a sense of resignation. It took me a few reads to come to this impression, and I think most will disagree with me, and I would like to know whether others think he is really being serious or not - kind of black humour.

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Originally Posted by ktd222

Does anyone else get a sense of desperation to become immortalized in this poem-maybe even to a point beyond desperation?

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I see a lot of pretentious and rather precious aesthetic fartiness. The idea is silly and, as I said above, Yeats champions what I would consider gaudy artifice over what is natural and ‘real’. I don’t really care how ‘beautiful’ his imagery is, the idea of wanting to be a golden bird sitting in a golden tree in some imaginary place is laughable. I think he needed to get out of his Tower more.

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Originally Posted by ktd222

What I mean is that I get sense of him wanting to hold on to immortality-but immortality as it belongs in this mortal world.

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If I could feel such a tension, I might dislike the poem less – it would humanise it for me but I think he is so convinced by his own artifice that he retreats into his own rarefied world – one too far removed from the “fury and the mire of human veins” for me. The poem from which these words come is better.

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What I mean is: he is also neglecting the 'monuments of unageing intellect./Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.'

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I'm not sure what you're saying, but I take these lines as saying that the mortal (or perhaps a better phrasing would be mortal flesh) neglects the monuments.

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Maybe we should talk about the above in comparison with this line: 'to sing...of what is past, or passing, or to come.' How can he talk about 'past, or passing, or to come' if himself is avoiding ' the Beyond this world.' What I mean is that I get sense of him wanting to hold on to immortality-but immortality as it belongs in this mortal world.

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That last line has always been a little mysterious to me. Is he avoiding the "beyond"? I take the poem as a quest toward the beyond.

Do people see the dichotemes Yeats has set up: mortality/flesh/ nature versus soul/intellect/artifice?

And how about the word "commend" in the first stanza? Why such an odd way of saying that the animals are in life's cycle?

And what exactly is the soul singing in the second stanza? He repeats singing several times.

Why is the city "holy" and how does the God thing fit in?

What about that last line?

And we could talk all day about the repetitions and sounds within the poem.

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Originally Posted by The Unnamable

I think he needed to get out of his Tower more.


If I could feel such a tension, I might dislike the poem less –

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I think he is in a basement as he writes this, can't reach his tower, and would settle for a bough. I can feel the tension in the word 'never', and the imagery might be jealousy.

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Originally Posted by Virgil

That last line has always been a little mysterious to me. Is he avoiding the "beyond"? I take the poem as a quest toward the beyond.

Do people see the dichotemes Yeats has set up: mortality/flesh/ nature versus soul/intellect/artifice?

And how about the word "commend" in the first stanza? Why such an odd way of saying that the animals are in life's cycle?

And what exactly is the soul singing in the second stanza? He repeats singing several times.

Why is the city "holy" and how does the God thing fit in?

What about that last line?

And we could talk all day about the repetitions and sounds within the poem.

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1. I think he wants a foot in both, supernatural and sit on a bough amongst mortals.
2. The dichotomy is clear but it seems wishy washy. If you were supernatural, why would you want to sit amongst mortals? There is something else going on here. Is he being humble, or (????).

Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
3. Pointing out food is good. I think this is only extra imagery.
4. Singing = typical religious chanting.
5. They have a god who is head of that place. He starts with 'THAT', pointing at it. I think this is what hurts his heart, he feels spurned by life.. going at the 'tattered coats' and 'every tatter in its mortal dress'.
6. The last line is 'inevitable', his resignation and doctrine, and he would have some 'use/purpose' (Plato) in pointing this out to Lords and Ladies.

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Originally Posted by The Unnamable

I see a lot of pretentious and rather precious aesthetic fartiness. The idea is silly and, as I said above, Yeats champions what I would consider gaudy artifice over what is natural and ‘real’. I don’t really care how ‘beautiful’ his imagery is, the idea of wanting to be a golden bird sitting in a golden tree in some imaginary place is laughable. I think he needed to get out of his Tower more.

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Ya, I don't think hes being realistic. But I think thats what realizing your own mortality can do to you: warp the very notion that death comes to every mortal being.
I hope before I'm 60yrs of age someone will discover the pill for everlasting life.

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Originally Posted by The Unnamable

If I could feel such a tension, I might dislike the poem less – it would humanise it for me but I think he is so convinced by his own artifice that he retreats into his own rarefied world – one too far removed from the “fury and the mire of human veins” for me. The poem from which these words come is better.

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For some reason I do get the feeling that there is tension in his search for immortality-even beyond sanity: 'Consume my heart away; sick with desire and fasten to a dying animal it knows not what it is; and gather me into the artifice of eternity.'

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Originally Posted by ktd222

I hope before I'm 60yrs of age someone will discover the pill for everlasting life.

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By the time you get to thirty you’ll no longer wish this. The idea that this might go on forever is truly terrifying. There’d just be more Sudoku.

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Originally Posted by jackyyyy

1. I think he wants a foot in both, supernatural and sit on a bough amongst mortals.
2. The dichotomy is clear but it seems wishy washy. If you were supernatural, why would you want to sit amongst mortals? There is something else going on here. Is he being humble, or (????).

Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
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I take it that one has to go throught the mortal phase in order to reach "the artifice of eternity." The artists of the sixth century, the "sages" perhaps, have gone through it have reached "such a form."

How much does this owe (and how much does it contrast with) Keat's Odes, "To A Grecian Urn," and To A Nightingale"

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Originally Posted by ktd222

I hope before I'm 60yrs of age someone will discover the pill for everlasting life.

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I would take that pill in a heartbeat. I love life. you just got to know how to live it.

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I see a lot of pretentious and rather precious aesthetic fartiness. The idea is silly and, as I said above, Yeats champions what I would consider gaudy artifice over what is natural and ‘real’. I don’t really care how ‘beautiful’ his imagery is, the idea of wanting to be a golden bird sitting in a golden tree in some imaginary place is laughable. I think he needed to get out of his Tower more.

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Unnamable--Think he'd been hanging out with these guys too long? ;) :

The Scholars

Bald heads forgetful of their sins,
Old, learned, respectable bald heads
Edit and annotate the lines
That young men, tossing on their beds,
Rhymed out in love's despair
To flatter beauty's ignorant ear.

All shuffle there; all cough in ink;
All wear the carpet with their shoes;
All think what other people think;
All know the man their neighbour knows.
Lord, what would they say
Did their Catullus walk that way?

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Originally Posted by Virgil

I take it that one has to go throught the mortal phase in order to reach "the artifice of eternity." The artists of the sixth century, the "sages" perhaps, have gone through it have reached "such a form."

How much does this owe (and how much does it contrast with) Keat's Odes, "To A Grecian Urn," and To A Nightingale"

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The mortal phase, as I think you are referring, would be along Christian lines. Many of us have a picture of immortality and how to arrive, whether 30 is the resignation point or its 75, or if its been shoved down our throats or we were actually suddenly enlightened. We may face death situations at any time of life, and many times. Facing it is tough, or you neglect it, or you resign.

Who says eternity is an artifice? The Sages. Yeats may have been so collected in 'his' vision, that he was simply applying these images (Byzantium, Gold, etc) to further his message. Finally, what I see is a resignation, but also an offer: 'you might as well be useful'. Yes, be a Greek Urn.... as in dust to dust, be returned to the soil, to be useful, instead of a tattered up derelict, without use. I don't know enough of his other works to comment, but I can see he is fascinated with mythology, and that would be his education. We explain best by analogizing what we know the most against/for what we are projecting in discussion, as a poem in this case. Here, he is using his knowledge of Byzantium (a utopia of blind beauty and surrealism) to propell futility. When I wrote earlier that I wondered if he was being sarcastic or black humoured, atheist makes an easier envelope for the message, unless we are not atheist ourselves, of course.

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How much does this owe (and how much does it contrast with) Keat's Odes, "To A Grecian Urn," and To A Nightingale"

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I had just been about to post the same question. Much as I do like the Yeats, I have always felt a little of what Unnamable expresses about this poem. I must say, given a choice, I prefer the Keats because both the poems you mention do seem--to me at least--to address the issue in a slightly deeper or more emotionally relateable way. Perhaps it is because Keats' urn is an object he is contemplating, not only as some symbol of the "artifice of eternity", but as an actual object created by someone not unlike himself. In Keats "Ode on a Grecian Urn" the eternity of art is rooted in the way the member of one generation can identify with what is produced by someone from a previous generation. Eternity is not for the individual but for the beauty in the world that will continue to be enjoyed by future people just as it was for the speaker of the poem. Art is not the provider, so much as the reminder of that beauty, and the acknowledgment of mortality and sadness is not only present but central to the argument of the poem.
Yeats personalizes this by specifically making himself a golden artifact, and hence he and his art are in some way handed the authority of being set apart from the rest of humanity. What the "golden bird" image lacks is that connection between the artwork and the flawed human maker of that object. It seems to suggest that Yeats himself is art itself in some way, rather than simply someone who creates things in order to remind people about the beauty in life. I think the last line is what saves him from coming across as too absurd though. The "what is past or passing or to come" does seem to acknowledge some sort of ongoing connection with life, a desire for immortality not seperate from the mortal world, to paraphrase someone earlier on this thread (ktd?).

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Originally Posted by Virgil

How much does this owe (and how much does it contrast with) Keat's Odes, "To A Grecian Urn," and To A Nightingale"

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It’s far less convincing than either and seems to miss the point of both. Keats’s bird is a real one, even though he endows with a kind of immortality. His awareness of the real world is much more affecting than Yeats’s:


“Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
What thou among the leaves hast never known,
The weariness, the fever, and the fret
Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,
Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
And leaden-eyed despairs,
Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.”

I’ve known enough of “the weariness, the fever and the fret” to prefer the Keats by miles (and I’m not that much of a fan of him, either) as well as find the Yeats pretentious, self-indulgent and silly.

Keats is no less concerned with aesthetics than Yeats but I agree with Petrarch’s Love here, especially “Perhaps it is because Keats' urn is an object he is contemplating, not only as some symbol of the "artifice of eternity", but as an actual object created by someone not unlike himself.”

When I wrote earlier that I didn’t see the tension in the Yeats poem, I had in mind the kind of tension that is in Keats. Remember that the scene on the urn is described as a “Cold Pastoral!” The 'Bold Lover' will never 'die' but he'll never plant that kiss either.

PS Do you know Desmond Skirrow’s parody of Ode on a Grecian Urn? -

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