1. Elements of Romanticism in the Poetry of W. B.

Yeats
In the poem Coole Park and Ballylee, Yeats declared himself to be one of ‘the last romantics.’
Though the modern tradition to which the later Yeats belonged, takes a direction essentially
opposite to ''romanticism. There is enough in Yeats’s early poetry and also in his later poetry
which is unmistakably romantic.

Romantic Influences
Yeats’s poetry began by echoing Shelley and Spenser and the Pre-Raphaelites, and Blake
remained a dominant influence throughout his poetic career. All the characteristic features and
flavour of romantic poetry are present in most of Yeats’s poems. The tendency to escape to far
off lands of romance or to nature is present in Yeats’s poetry. Characters from folk-lore,
imagined wanderings with lovely phantoms, and occasionally a Keat sian richness of the
sensuous are all there in his early poems. Even the titles of the early poems like The Song of the
Happy Shepherd and The Sad Shepherd are suggestive of the Romantic traits and The Lake Isle
of Innisfree remains one of the best romantic poems of all times:

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,

And a small cabin build there,

  The Lake Isle of Innisfree was one of the dreamy romantic lyrics which first brought him fame.
There were other lyrics like, To an Island in the Water, The Sorrow of Love and When You are
Old which are essentially romantic in mood.
These poems owed their success to the fact that they gave substance to the kinds of dreams
that most people have and expressed the sentiments most popular with people escaping the
realities of the world.

Poetry of Escape
It is, thus, that heroes of most of his earlier poems—Oisin, Hanrahan etc. are fond of going in
for an ideal world, thus, escaping from the real world. The fairlyland is talked of as a place to
which mortals escape and dance on twilight lawns to the accompaniment of strange music. So
well was Yeats able to carry his readers into a kind of Celtic Twilight that R.L. Stevenson
commented on the Lake Isle of Innisfree in these words: “It is so quaint and airy, simple; artful
and eloquent to the heart.”
The poems like these established the early Yeats’s image as a late Pre-Raphaelite, a poet writing
in the vein of William Morris, a poet of escape, a singer of music in the deep recesses of the
heart. The Wanderings of Oisin thus, is a long romantic narrative poem with echoes of
Coleridge, Keats, Shelley, and Morris. Yeats himself was to admit that the poem had an over-
charged color of romanticism in it. The poems like The Stolen Child and The Man Who Dreamed
of Faeryland, with their special kind of escapism are also predominantly romantic. A poem like
The Happy Town Land deals with a place where:
“Boughs have their fruit and blossom
At all times of the year,
Rivers are running over
With red beer and brown beer.
And old man plays the bagpipes
In a golden and silver wood ;
Queens, their eyes blue like the ice,
Are dancing in a crowd.”
Yeats’s Mysticism
Yeats’s mysticism like that of Blake, is also a romantic trait. To Yeats, a poet was very close to a
mystic and the poet’s experience like the mystics is capable of giving to the poem a spiritual
world whose existence is very real. Much of the power, even of his later poetry has to do with
what he talks of in that mystical work, A Vision. A Vision, in many ways touches upon the
supernatural realities from which a poet can choose his imagery.

Yeats’s Occultism
The system of thought that Yeats constructed in A Vision was a substitute for religion. He was a
religious man and as he himself confessed in The Trembling of the Veil, he was unlike others
belonging to his generation as he was very religious. This is what he has to say on this score: “I
was unlike others of my generation in one thing only, I am very religious and deprived by
Huxley and Tyndall, whom I detested, of the simple-minded religion of my childhood. I had
made a new religion, almost an infallible church of poetic traditions, of a fardel of stories and of
personages and of emotions, inseparable from their first expression, passed on from generation
to generation by poems and painters, with help from philosophers and theologians.”
Thus, Yeats substituted magic and mysticism for religion and wrote poems which were greatly
influenced by this newly found faith in the occult. Most of his symbols have a touch of the
supernatural about them.

Romantic Love
It is not only When You are Old which shows Yeats talking of romantic love but The Lover tells
of the Rose in his Heart is also an intensely emotional poem of romantic love. The Song of
Wandering Aengus is also a poem of romantic love. Other poems treating romantic love are—
He Wishes his Beloved were Dead, Hears the Cry of the Sedge, He tells of a Valley Full of Lovers,
He thinks of Those Who have Spoken Evil of His Beloved and The Lover Asks Forgiveness, etc. 
One of Yeats’s most beautiful poems, A Prayer for My Daughter is unmistakably reminiscent of
Coleridge’s Frost at Midnight.
The Romantic Strain in Yeats’s Poetry
A sense of melancholy is a subject, most romantic poets (like Keats in his Ode to Melancholy
and Coleridge in Dejection: An Ode) treat in their poems. A kind of lament at the disappearance
of the good things of life is also there in most of the romantic poets (many of Wordsworth’s
shorter poems serve as an example). This sense of nostalgia and languor is there in Yeats’s
poetry also:

The woods of Arcady are dead

And over is their antique joy

  Apart from this Yeats’s love for mythology is also a romantic trait. Many of his poems
repeatedly refer to Helen of Troy, Leda, Zeus, Venus, Aphrodite and Byzantium. There are
dolphins, nightingales, mythological beasts, sphinx-like figures and fairy-like figures.
Revival of the ballads and other song forms was also a part of the romantic revival. Yeats wrote
quite a few ballads and songs

Self-Revelation
Self-revelation too is a romantic element and Yeats’s poetry, especially the earlier poems are
not free from this trait. Like some of the great romantic poets’ works, Yeats’s poetry too related
to his own personality, his inner conflicts, his friendships, etc. A Prayer for My Daughter, Among
School Children, A Dialogue of Self and Soul, are all deeply personal poems. But even though
they are personal poems, they do express certain profound thoughts which have their
importance for others as well.

Not Wholly a Romantic

But while keeping in mind these romantic characteristics of Yeats’s poetry we are never for a
moment to forget that beginning with the publication of the collection of poems called
Responsibilities in 1914, Yeats’s career as a poet took a direction essentially opposite to these
romantic tendencies. To the later Yeats, poetry was rarely what it was to most of the Romantics
—“a spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.” Even when he relies on magic, mythology,
beauty, religion and philosophy—things on which the Romantics also relied greatly, he is
making these at once necessary and compelling. Even when most of his poems begin in
personal feelings or emotions he is able to subject those feelings or emotions to an
impersonalisation which changes them into what Eliot would have called “art emotions.”

The Personal Touch (A Romantic Trait)

There is no doubt that like a typical Romantic poet, Yeats sought to formulate a general
philosophy of life and history from personal problems and conflicts but he always took care to
give these philosophies a broader, and more generally applicable basis. It is true that in the
poem of The Tower, he is able to sublimate his loss of Maud Gonne into a general rhetorical
question:
Does the imagination dwell the most
Upon a woman won or woman lost?

Yeats’s passion for order and his stress on form made him correct and polish his poems again
and again and this love of craftsmanship puts him nearer to the classicists.

Conclusion
To sum up, there are clear romantic qualities in the poetry of Yeats and some aspects of his
poetry retained trace of romanticism till the end but he was such a dynamic poet that neither
romanticism nor any other ‘ism’ could have held him long enough. Romanticism associated with
the lyricism and the escapism suited Yeats well when he was a young poet, but he was quick
enough in outgrowing these and stepping into a maturer, more economical and orderly poetic
mode which was a synthesis of the best that was available to poet at the beginning of the
modem era in poetry.

1.2.Elements of Romanticism in the Poetry of W. B. Yeats

William Butler Yeats was one of the famous modern poets and he is considered as a last
romantic poet. William Butler Yeats poems are full of romantic elements. There are some
romantic traits of romanticism in his poem. The are anti-classical/Neoclassical, interesting in
country life, presentation of common life, love of life and freedom, escapism, predominance of
imagination and emotion-Supernaturalism, note of subjectivity, lyricism, simplicity in style.
the Lake Isle of Innesfree
In the poem “The Lake Isle of Innesfree” which is is one of the best poems of William Butler
Yeats, Yeats reveals his desire to escape away from the hectic town life to the remote island of
Innisfree. He intends to build his own cottage and produce his dailies with his own hands and
wants to be entertained by the sweet music of the birds and insects.
He thinks that the rhyme of nature will help him into peaceful sleep. This desire to go in contact
with nature is so forceful in him that he can see the place in his imagination. In his mind’s eye,
he visualizes the gentle movement of the lake water. The poet says in the following way in this
poem:
“I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water tapping with low sounds by the shore”
These lines are evident of the Romantic and mystical quality.

leda and the swan poem analysis

In the poem “Leda and Swan”, he uses the Irish and Medieval myths and legends. He employs
Greek myths. In this poem, he tells the story of the sexual interaction between Leda and Zeus
who came in the shape of a swan.
Yeats not only describes the story but also relates its significance to the human civilization. The
union of Zeus and Leda gave birth to Helen and the subsequent destruction of Troy and death
of Agamemnon.

the second coming by william butler yeats literary analysis

Like William Blake, Yeats puts forward his personal notion about history and civilization,
expression them in a symbolic term. Thus in “The second Coming”, the poet says in the
following ways:
“Turning and turning in the widening gyre
he falcon can not hear the falconer;
Things fall apart, the center cannot hold
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world”

Here in the second coming yeats alludes to his idea of decay and destruction of the civilization.

1.3.Romantic elements in W.B Yeats poetry

W. B. Yeats is one of the major and influential modern poets, his poetry is soaked in the
Romantic Tradition. The early period of his poetry, known as ‘Celtic Twilight’, is marked by
subjectivity, high imagination, romantic melancholy, escapism and the romantic interest in
myth and folklore.
In one of his poems, Yeats declared himself to be one of the ‘last romantics’. It is true that in
his later poetry, Yeats gradually cut himself loose from the romanticism, but the ingredients of
romanticism are present in them too.
Escapism from the realities of life is a distinctly romantic quality. This quality is found in the
poem ‘The Lake Isle of Innisfree’. Yeats in this poem expresses a desire to escape from the roar
and din in the busy London life to the beautiful and quiet island of Innisfree. He intends to build
his own cottage and produce his dailies with his own hands. He also wants to be entertained by
the sweet music of the birds and insects.
Yeats's mysticism like that of Blake is also a romantic trait. To Yeats, a poet was very close to a
mystic and the poet's experience like the mystics is capable of giving to the poem a spiritual
world whose existence is very real. In the poem ‘The Second Coming’, Yeats feels that the
forces of Christian love are almost spent and that a new, brutal force is about to take over:
 And what rough beast, its hour come round at last.
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

A very important ingredient of Yeats's romanticism is his use of symbols. Yeats was inclined
towards symbolism in the very modern sense of that word. He had a large number of symbols
at his disposal. The Irish mythology is nearly as rich in great stories and figures because the
Greek mythology, and equally rich is that the borderland wherever myth and history meet. It
was upon this huge store that he drew for symbols.
Self-revelation is another romantic element in Yeats's poetry. A large bulk of Yeats's poetry
relates to his own personality, his inner conflicts, his friendship etc. ‘A Prayer for My Daughter
and Sailing to Byzantium’ are deeply personal poems.
In ‘A Prayer for My Daughter’, Yeats expresses his hopes and fears about the future of his
daughter, Anne, and in Sailing to Byzantium Yeats expresses the problem of his old age.
Love too is regarded as a romantic theme. Yeats wrote a large number of love-poems, but all of
them cannot be regarded as romantic. The romantic poet exalts and glorifies love. For him, love
is a grand and sublime passion. The early work of Yeats does contain a number of romantic love
poems. And in a number of poems, Yeats expresses his vain longing for his beloved.
Yeats's love for mythology is also a romantic trait. Many of his poems repeatedly refer to Helen
of Troy, Leda, Zeus, Venus, Aphrodite and Byzantium. There are dolphins, nightingales,
mythological beasts, Sphinx-like figures and fairy-like figures. And the revival of the ballads and
other song forms was also part of the romantic revival. Yeats wrote quite a few ballads and
songs.
To sum up, there are clear romantic qualities in the poetry of Yeats and some aspects of his
poetry retained a trace of romanticism to the end but he was such a dynamic poet that neither
romanticism nor any other ‘ism' could have held him long enough.
Romanticism associated with the lyricism, and the escapism suited Yeats's well when he was a
young poet, but he was quick enough in outgrowing these and stepping into a maturer, the
more economical and orderly poetic mode which was a synthesis of the best that was available
to the poet at the beginning of the modern era in poetry.

2.Yeats as a modern poet. Elements of modern time

Intro 1. William Butler Yeats, one of the modern poets, influences his contemporaries as well as
successors, such as T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound and W.B. Auden. Though three common themes in
Yeats’ poetry are love, Irish Nationalism and mysticism, but modernism is the overriding theme
in his writings. Yeats started his long literary career as a romantic poet and gradually evolved
into a modernist poet. As a typical modern poet he regrets for post-war modern world which is
now in a disorder and chaotic situation and laments for the past. Yeats as a modern poet is
anti-rationalist in his attitude which is expressed through his passion for occultisms or
mysticism. He is a prominent poet in modern times for his sense of moral wholeness of
humanity and history.

Intro 2. William Yeats is often considered to be the 'last romantic' as opposed to being the
founding father of modern poetry. Yet one can not simply place Yeats into just one mould, one
rigid and defined style of poetry because as a writer during both periods of Romanticism and
Modernism, Yeats straddles the line between the two periods and incorporates 'romantic
ideologies' into his modern work. His poems seen as the examples of modern liyerature. In his
poems, we found astounding variety, political note, realism, religion, mysticism and so on. And
all these matters have made him a true modern poet. By nature he was a dreamer, a
thinker,who fell under the spell of the folklore and the superstitions of the Irish peasantry. He is
a prominent poet in modern times for his sense of moral wholeness of humanity and history.
Elements of Mysticism
Yeats may be credited primary with the owner of contributing the elements of mysticism to
modern poetry. He juxtaposes historical figures with Irish legends and myths and hence create
something new and different, it is to be considered that Yeats is one of the writers that utilized
the elements of the supernatural stemming from Irish mythology, and one of the fewer who
also integrated romantic notions into his poetry. Yeats is the only modern poet who initiated
occult system and mysticism in his poetry. Mysticism runs throughout his poetry in which the
Gods and fairies of the Celtic mythology live again. To Yeats, a poet is very close to a mystic and
poet's mystical experience give to the poem a spiritual world.
Obscurity
It is not at all surprising that obscurity in Yeats poetry is due to his occultism, mysticism, Irish
mythology, use of symbolism and theory of 'Mask'. Yeats was keen to replace traditional Greek
and Roman and mythological figures with figures from Irish folklore which results in obscurity.
The juxtaposition of the past and the present, The spiritual and the physical, and many such
dissimilar concepts and his condensed rich language make his poetry of obscure.
Modernism in 'Second Coming'
After the World War -I people got totally shattered and they suffered from frustration
boredom, anxiety and loneliness. Yeats has used different type of landscape to symbolise the
spiritual and psychological states of modern man." The Second Coming" is a superb example of
Yeats modernism as in the poem Yeats portrays the modern chaotic and disordered condition
after World War -I and the poet tends to escape from the situation.
" Turning and turning
In the widening gyred.
The falcon cannot
hear the falconer."
This poem has been seen as an example of modern zeitgiest literature at once depicting the
decentring and internal fissure of 20th century culture and analysing the parting of a classical
psychological period.
Yeats portrays that the war has been ended, its effects are continuously affecting the people of
modern age. He says that there remains insecurity and disorder everywhere. Yeats feels gloomy
and fears of a stormy future. He knows that the world is full of disorder and there, "Mere
anarchy is loosed upon the world."
Modernism in “Easter 1916”
In “Easter 1916”, Yeats sense of humanism is seen which is another modern trait in literature.
The horrible effects of war cast a gloomy shadow on the poetic sensibility of the modern poets.
The sad realities of life paved the way of humanitarian aspect in modern literature. Yeats’
poetry also abounds in humanism. In this poem, he feels even for his rival. He says:
“He had done most bitter wrong/ To some who are near my heart,”
Modern elements in "Leda and the Swan"
The use of the swan in the poem "Leda and the Swan" is intriguing because usually swans
represent love and beauty, yet in this instance they represent power, destruction, and
fearfulness. They are such serene animals, so this poem contradicts the common image. Not
only in the bird terrifying, it is also a God- it is divine. As Yeats characterizes this generally
gentle creature as volatile, he manipulates poetic conventions, a common theme of the
modernism period. During this time, this poem begins to embrace the modernism idea of
imagisn - it paints a vivid image, an image that can stand alone without any other context.
The poem can be read without knowing the historical background, and it can be a piece of art -
however dark it may be. This piece also seems to be a part of his transition to modernist
writing. It challenges the usual poetic conventions of symbolism in the case of the swan; and as
it displays the problems that came about when religion overpowers the human experience he
alludes to the politics he is facing. This poem also rejects the romantic theme of beauty in
poetry. It strays away from nature, and takes a look into history as well as politics. Through his
language, Yeats created and image throughout "Leda and the Swan" that exemplified themes of
modernism.
pessimism
Like Eliot, Yeats poetry is marked with pessimism. After his appointment with Maud Gonne and
his disenchantment with the Irish National Movement, Yeats started writing bitter and
Pessimistic poems. But he tried to dispel this feeling by philosophizing in his poems. "To A
Shade", "When Helen Lived," and teo Byzantium poems along with many more of his poems
reflected this mood. Yeats believe in magic as he was anti -rationalist. By "Magic" Yeats means
the whole area of occult knowledge. Occult was very much common in modern poetry for
numerology was lately been introduced in nineteenth century.
Yeats was an anti- war poet and does not admire war fought under any pretext. In his last years,
he wrote poems dealing with the crumbling of modern civilization due to war. He believed that
a Revolutionary change is in offing. Humanism is another modern trait in literature. The threat
of war cast of gloomy shadow on the poetic sensibility of the modern poets. The sad reality of
life paved the way of humanitarian aspect in modern literature. Yeats poetry also abounds in
Humanism.
Conclusion
As one of the most important figures in the transitional period from Romanticism to Modernism
,William Butler Yeats struggled for a systematic updating of subject matter and styles
throughout his literary career and wrote extraordinary poems in every school he was involved
in weather it was Post - Romanticism, Aestheticism, Symbolism or Modernism. In his later
years, skillfully combining reality, symbols and metaphysics together, he found his own unique
system of philosophy and symbolism. Constantly self criticism and self examination make Yeats
finally find what he called anti self. The anti self gives the poet new inspiration and poetic
power. Its modernist quality remarkably reflected in his poems.

3.Time and human condition in yeats poetry:

William Butler Yeats's later poetry is particularly characterized by a stark, naked, brutal and
even coarse truth about the fragmentation of modern human life. The poet was caught
"between two worlds." His poetry reflects the clash of opposites. Yeats saw man as torn in
conflict. For him, the human existence is made up of antinomies: the spiritual and the physical,
the sensuous and the artistic, the past and the present, the personal and the
impersonal,physical decay and intellectual maturity. These conflicts are ever present in Yeats'
poetry.

To Yeats, the modern civilization has made our fundamental consciousness of ourselves so
blunt that we have not been able to differentiate between our own inner voice and the reason.
The rise of democracy and mob (mafia) violence which he witnessed in Ireland and Europe did
not appeal to him. He felt that these events reflected a brutalization of humanity.
Yeats was not over-impressed by the scientific progress made by modern man. He foresaw the
destruction and chaos looming large before his eyes. The sordid and common life led by the
people, their imagination and spirit blunted and barren have disgusted Yeats. This view of the
Irish people becomes a statement of universal validity in the twentieth century-the truth of
which may, of course, is unpalatable and unpopular. In Easter 1916, Yeats celebrates the
transformation of the Irish people under the spell of violence. For once, they "resigned their
parts in the causal comedy"-a woman who spent her days in "ignorant good-will" and "her
nights in argument", and the "drunken vainglorious lout" were transformed. "A terrible beauty
is born" the sordidness has been discarded to show vitality and a spirit of independence. But,
Yeats raised hidden, but bitter truth and questioned on the martyrdom of the rebels "needless
death after all"? However, unpopular, Yeats does not fear the truth.

The evil fragmentation of our civilization is best expressed in The Second Coming. Yeats bluntly
puts the truth before us-"Things fall apart; the center cannot hold", and "anarchy is loosed
upon the world". The fragmentation in our lives can cause disorder and corruption. The good
people, unfortunately lack conviction, while the bad pursue their wicked ends with passionate
intensity. The falcon, the symbol of intellectual power, has got free of the control of the
falconer, who represents the heart or soul. In other words, the intellect's progress is
directionless at these times, and separated from human instinct. In such a situation, the future
seems bleak-a brutal and savage force is about to take over. All this might have sounded
pessimistic and certainly unappealing to his readers, but we cannot deny the basic truth of his
vision. In the situation, Yeats wants to seek some kind of beauty and permanence beyond all
the ugliness, corruption and impurity. Thus, in his Sailing to Byzantium, the wish is not merely
to escape sensuality and mortality, but also the impurity and corruption of this world-the
"complexities of mire and blood". Byzantium presents the ideal world, free of the "dissipations
and despairs" of the modern world, and, representing the unity of all aspects of life. In
Byzantium, there is none of the multiplicities, hate, strife or confusion which is peculiar to the
everyday life of men and women.

The Byzantium poems bear out the contention that Yeats presents the clashing opposites of
the human situation "country-city, sensuality-intellectuality, dying-unageing, body-soul, flesh-
spirit, holy-unholy". We may not agree with his way of reconciling the opposites, but we are
fully conscious of the fragmentation in the human being and society of today. "Bodily
decrepitude is wisdom; young/we loved each other and were ignorant", Yeats says in one of his
poems. He was always bewildered by the problem of the dissociation of power and knowledge-
again a fact true to the human situation. As he questions in Leda and the Swan, are we fully
aware of the actions done or their significance? Man, according to Yeats, was faced with a
fragmented life, unable to achieve the unity of being, where all contradictions are resolved.
Only art and philosophy triumph over tragedy; only wisdom can teach us the value of tragic
gaiety-that is his rejoinder to "hysterical women" who say that something "drastic" should be
done. Byzantium to him represented that point in history where "religious, aesthetic and
practical life was one and architects and artificers spoke to the multitude and few alike." All in
all, Yeats' poems present the truth about the human situation and he does not hesitate to use
blunt and brutal terms to express it.