Analisi poesie Yeats ("The second coming" e "Sailing to Byzantium"), Appunti di Letteratura Inglese

Scarica Analisi poesie Yeats ("The second coming" e "Sailing to Byzantium") e più Appunti in PDF di Letteratura Inglese solo su Docsity! THE SECOND COMING "The Second Coming" is easily one of the most famous and frequently quoted poems in all of Western literature. Several famous prose writers have used lines from W.B. Yeats’s poems as titles to their books, and "The Second Coming" is no exception. For example, Chinua Achebe, an African writer, used part of the third line as the title of his novel, Things Fall Apart, and Woody Allen recently wrote a book called Mere Anarchy. Yeats’s poem was first published in 1920, a year after the end of World War I, "the Great War," in which millions of European died. While many people at the time just wanted to get on with their lives, Yeats thought that European society had pretty much broken down, and the poem is a terrifying prediction of future violence. Unfortunately, the rise of Hitler and fascism in the 1930s proved him largely correct, and many find the poem disturbingly prophetic in light of the later wars of the twentieth century. However, we shouldn’t somehow think that Yeats was a depressive based on this single work, his bleakest. Many of his other poems engage with more uplifting subjects, like love and Irish folklore. Nor should we think that Yeats was defeatist. After all, he was a very active figure in Irish politics throughout his life, which was in the process of gaining its independence from England. By the time this poem was published, he had already been famous for many years, and he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1923. The language is blunt and direct, but the rhythm is complicated and musical. When you repeat lines like, "The blood-dimmed tide is loosed," it’s like an entire period of history has been summed up in only a few words. Indeed, people still quote from Yeats during every war. The recent war in Iraq is no exception: for example, in 2006 a Congressman Jim McDermott gave a speech titled "The Center Cannot Hold." Another reason the poem has been so popular is that its mysterious symbolism can be interpreted in a meaningful way by anyone, regardless of their social or political views. Some people think that Yeats is trying to steer society back to its traditional values; others say that he thinks only a revolution will lead to a new order. Above all, "The Second Coming" amounts a frightening document of how poets often have a specific perspective – a "vision" of the way things are that most of the rest of us are unable to see. The poem begins with the image of a falcon flying out of earshot from its human master. In medieval times, people would use falcons or hawks to track down animals at ground level. In this image, however, the falcon has gotten itself lost by flying too far away, which we can read as a reference to the collapse of traditional social arrangements in Europe at the time Yeats was writing. In the fourth line, the poem abruptly shifts into a description of "anarchy" and an orgy of violence in which "the ceremony of innocence is drowned." The speaker laments that only bad people seem to have any enthusiasm nowadays. At line 9, the second stanza of the poem begins by setting up a new vision. The speaker takes the violence which has engulfed society as a sign that "the Second Coming is at hand." He imagines a sphinx in the desert, and we are meant to think that this mythical animal, rather than Christ, is what is coming to fulfill the prophecy from the Biblical Book of Revelation. At line 18, the vision ends as "darkness drops again," but the speaker remains troubled. Finally, at the end of the poem, the speaker asks a rhetorical question which really amounts to a prophecy that the beast is on its way to Bethlehem, the birthplace of Christ, to be born into the world. STANZA I SUMMARY Lines 1-2 Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; • The falcon is described as "turning" in a "widening gyre" until it can no longer "hear the falconer," its human master. • A gyre is a spiral that expands outward as it goes up. Yeats uses the image of gyres frequently in his poems to describe the motion of history toward chaos and instability. • In actual falconry, the bird is not supposed to keep flying in circles forever; it is eventually supposed to come back and land on the falconer’s glove. (Interesting fact: falconers wear heavy gloves to keep the birds from scratching them with their claws.) Line 3 Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; • The "notion" that "things fall apart" could still apply to the falcon, but it’s also vague enough to serve as a transition to the images of more general chaos that follow. • The second part of the line, a declaration that "the centre cannot hold," is full of political implications (like the collapse of centralized order into radicalism). This is the most famous line of the poem: the poem’s "thesis". Lines 4-6 Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; • These three lines describe a situation of violence and terror through phrases like "anarchy," "blood-dimmed tide," and "innocence [. . .] drowned." ("Mere" doesn’t mean "only" in this context; it means "total" or "pure") • With words like "tide," "loosed," and "drowned," the poem gives the sensation of water rushing around us. It’s like Noah’s flood all over again. • What’s Yeats referring to here? Is this a future prophecy, the poet’s dream, or maybe a metaphor for Europe at war? There’s really no way to be sure – Yeats doesn’t seem to want us to know too much. Lines 7-8 The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. • Who are "the best" and "the worst"? • One way of deciphering them is that Yeats is talking about "the good" and "the bad." But he doesn’t use those words in the poem, and these lines are a clue as to why not. • For one thing, if "the best lack all conviction," can they really be that good? Believing in something enough to act on it is kind of what being good is all about. • The "slouching" of this beast is animalistic and similar to the slow gait of the sphinx in the desert. It sounds more than a little menacing. • Yeats is using the birth at Bethlehem as a metaphor of the passage of this malevolent beast from the spirit world – Spiritus Mundi – to the real, everyday world, where its effects will be visible to everyone. • By phrasing these lines as a question, Yeats tantalizes us with all the possibilities of what he might be describing. In the time since Yeats wrote the poem, the beast has been interpreted as a prediction of everything bad that the twentieth century has wrought, particularly the horrors of World War II: Hitler, fascism, and the atomic bomb. • It is the "nightmare" from which society would not be able to awake. Of course, Yeats would not have known about these specific things. However, he did seem to have a sense that things were still getting worse while most people around him thought things were getting better. • Some readers have thought that the birth at the end was an ironic vision of the Antichrist, an embodiment of evil as powerful as Christ was an embodiment of goodness. • Others believe that the beast, even though it is described as "rough," might not be evil, but merely a manifestation of the kind of harsh justice that society as a whole deserves. In other words, things have become so violent and decadent that God’s only solution is to deploy his all-purpose cleanser. THE GYRE The "gyre" is an important recurring symbol in Yeats’s poetry. Technically, it stands from the alternation between two historical cycles: one characterized by order and growth, the other by chaos and decay. It’s comparable to the Chinese concepts of Yin and Yang. Yeats wrote a poem called "The Gyres" in his collection The Tower, but even there it’s still pretty confusing. MEDIEVAL Lines 1-2: Falconing was an activity that is associated with medieval times. People with enough wealth – that is, feudal landowners – often built aviaries where they kept birds to use for hunting. The most common were falcons and hawks. As such, this activity is associated with violence, but not the kind of uncontrolled, chaotic violence that characterized World War I. Falconing was a noble activity in which the bird was tightly controlled by its master. Obviously, that is not the case here. The reference to falconing should also be read as a symbol of the virtues of the Middle Ages: order, tradition, strong religious faith, unified government, and "civilized" warfare. Line 19: The word "stony" has many connotations here, but one of them might refer to the Middle Ages again. After all, when you think of a medieval structure like a Gothic cathedral or a castle, you probably think of a big, strong, stone building. "Stony" here suggests something that endures and lasts a long time. However, we also call a person "stone-like" when they are incapable of feeling or reacting. In addition, Yeats is using the image of an infant’s "sleep" as a metaphor for the roughly 2,000 years between the First and Second Comings. It’s easy to forget that the Middle Ages lasted around 800-1000 years, from around the 5th to the 15th centuries in Europe. Therefore, it was the longest period of the last "twenty centuries," and Yeats might be using it as representative of the period as a whole. BIBLICAL Title: "The Second Coming" is an allusion to the reappearance of Christ as prophesied in the Book of Revelation. Lines 4-6: These lines contain two more allusions to the Bible. First, the word "anarchy" calls to mind the reign of Satan on Earth before Christ comes back. However, more specifically, it also brings to mind the Biblical flood that sent Noah packing the wife, kids, and a few pets into the ark. Interestingly, the poem spans the entire length of the Bible in these lines, from Genesis (the flood) to Revelation. Yeats’s image is noticeably more violent than the Bible ("blood-dimmed tide," "drowned"). It’s like the big flood viewed from the perspective of those who didn’t make it into the ark. Another notable thing about these lines is the work being done by the word "loosed," which translates roughly to "unleashed" or "let free." It’s a word that can be applied to a liquid like water, but also has the implication of a more animalistic force. In this way, it prefaces the symbolic unleashing of the "rough beast" later in the poem. Lines 13-14: The description of the sphinx in the desert recalls several themes from the Bible. First, as we know, the sphinx is that big stone animal in Egypt. In the Book of Exodus in the Old Testament, Egypt is where the Jewish people where held in bondage until they were freed by Moses. Also, these lines bring to mind the story of Christ’s temptation by Satan in the desert. So, in a sense, the desert is the devil’s home. Finally, the sphinx itself, as a mash-up of two different animals (man and lion), can be compared with similarly confused species in the Book of Revelation, such as locusts with scorpion tails. Line 19: "Stony sleep," "nightmare," and "rocking cradle" are part of an extended metaphor comparing the "twenty centuries" between Christ and the Second Coming as only one night of an infant’s sleep. The metaphor of sleep suggests either the relative peacefulness or the obliviousness (probably both) which characterized the "twenty centuries" between the First and Second Comings, assuming that the latter is just around the corner. Line 22: Compared to the weird images inspired by the Book of Revelation, this one’s easy. Christ was born in Bethlehem, so that city is a symbol of the entrance of absolute and messianic forces in the world. In the case of Christ, absolute Good. In the case of the "rough beast," well, let’s just say nobody’s going to be greeting this thing with frankincense and myrrh. SPIRITUS MUNDI Lines 12-17: These lines are an example of symbolism, and they contain several symbols that can really be disconnected from another. In general, they represent a confused "veiled" vision of the "rough beast" described later in the poem. They are said to originate in Spiritus Mundi, a "spirit world" of images and symbols that Yeats believed to have been traditionally available to the most perceptive people (like poets) throughout history. Although lots of smart-sounding people like to say that symbols always have to "mean" something specific, Yeats thought that the best symbols couldn’t ever be fully explained in words. They are "expressive" in a way that passes beyond ordinary speech. ANALYSIS: FORM AND METER Blank Verse “The Second Coming" is written in blank verse, which means that has a consistent meter but no rhyme scheme. With 22 lines divided into two stanzas, it does not appear to follow a particular formal tradition. However, notice that the second stanza has fourteen lines, making it the same length as a sonnet. At eight lines, the first stanza could be thought of as a fragment of a sonnet that is "interrupted" by the full sonnet of the second stanza. However, these aren’t "true" sonnets in the classic sense because they don’t rhyme. The meter is roughly iambic pentameter, the most common type in all English-language verse. For example, iambic pentameter was the preferred meter in all of Shakespeare’s plays. It has five two-syllable "iambs" in each line, each of which approximates the rhythm of a heart-beat (ba-dum, ba-dum, etc.). In formal language, this iambic rhythm is described as an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one. Each line, then, has around ten syllables. Yeats’s use of this meter is not regular. The very first syllable has a stress on it: "Turn-ing." Also, some lines have well over ten syllables, such as line thirteen, which has thirteen syllables (and knowing Yeats, we shouldn’t assume this is a coincidence). However, most of the lines in the poem do have around ten syllables. ANALYSIS: SPEAKER The speaker of this poem is someone capable of seeing things that no one else can see. He is a poet-prophet of sorts. While Europe was setting out to rebuild itself after the Great War had ended, this speaker is saying, "Wait a minute, not so fast. We need to look at what kind of world we’ve left ourselves with, and what it might mean for the future." Obviously, the speaker is deeply pessimistic. He’s also not afraid to use religious imagery, although he puts his own, weird spin on it. He can be thought of as trying to repeat the achievement of the Book of Revelation, which has all kinds of amazing, memorable symbols but is also vague and wild enough that no one could say what exactly it is supposed to mean. In the first stanza he uses a bunch of metaphors to evaluate the present state of the world, and in the second he has a weird vision, followed by "darkness" and a rhetorical question, which amounts to a prophecy regarding the Second Coming. The first person appears only twice in the poem, but the prophetic voice feels very distinct and personal throughout. Like Yeats in real life, this speaker has an interest in the occult, as we can see from his reference to the Spiritus Mundi. Otherwise, he doesn’t use a lot of fancy language; but phrases like "mere anarchy" and "stony sleep" demonstrate that he doesn’t exactly talk like a regular Joe, either. He presents himself as a moral authority and feels comfortable making general pronouncements about the state of things, such as "the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity". ANALYSIS: SETTING Post-WWI Europe, around 1919 The first stanza doesn’t seem to have a definite location. It refers to medieval falconing, so we can imagine a guy calling to a bird in some forest or meadow, trying to catch some deer or rabbits to bring back his lord. There’s also a description of violence that is vaguely reminiscent of the Biblical flood. But, from the perspective of the speaker, the setting is post-WWI Europe, circa 1919. He’s taking an overview of the devastation wrecked on the continent. In the second stanza, the setting abruptly shifts to Spiritus Mundi, as the speaker has a vision of a desert with a sphinx-like creature and some birds. It’s all very cloudy, which makes sense because the speaker is essentially looking into his crystal ball here. In line 18, "the darkness drops again," but we get one more image of the beast "slouching towards Bethlehem." This might be described as a memory, echo, or "after-shock" of the Spiritus Mundi vision. All in all, the poet bounces around in various mental locations without really landing anywhere specific. and possibilities of his modern world (This was a pretty huge theme in his poetry). Folks in his day seemed to respect the man for his attention to poetic tradition, too. He wrote most of his famous work (including this poem) after he was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1923. "Sailing to Byzantium", one of the very popular poems from his later collections, came out in The Tower, a book published in 1928. Yeats's poem dives head first into the craziness of living. After all, we still have to deal with the fact that our bodies are made of flesh and bones. Byzantium is a holy city, which works out well for our speaker. In fact, he’s expecting a revelation. Once in Byzantium, our speaker starts thinking about death. In Byzantium, death becomes something that can be thought about realistically (which is a big improvement over our speaker’s old home). In fact, once he starts reflecting about death, he actually begins to figure out ways to commemorate life. According to the speaker, the best way to commemorate life is art. He finally decides that art becomes a way to lodge the soul in a new "bodily form". Art can, however, bear witness to the past. STANZA I SUMMARY Line 1 That is no country for old men. • We’re told that "that country” isn’t so great for the old folks. But which country is "that" country? We’re not going to get any help on that one from the poem itself. • All we can say for sure is that it’s not "this" country: that is, it can’t be the place where the speaker is now. • "That" country is not for old people. As far as we can tell, then, our speaker must be an old person. After all, if it’s so good over there for the youngs, then why would our speaker leave? • More importantly, the first line of the poem lets us know that our speaker seems to be a pretty opinionated sort of guy. He seems perfectly happy to let us travel down the road of his thoughts. Lines 1-3 The young In one another's arms, birds in the trees - Those dying generations - at their song, • We’re talking about "that" country again. It seems pretty nice. It’s full of lovers "in one another’s arms" and birds in the trees. In other words, it’s got all the makings of a delightful romance. • Line three takes a bit of a sharp detour, though. • First we’re reading about young things and pretty birdies. Suddenly, however, our speaker tosses in a casual reference to death. Not just one death: lots of death. Whole flocks of birds and generations of young lovers. • Birds may be singing right now, but that’s just because they don’t know how crumby the winter’s going to be. Anything natural must also be mortal: you may be young now, but one day you’ll wake up with grey hairs and wrinkles. • It’s not all fun and games in this life. It’s what our speaker seems to be suggesting. • Yeats’s use of the word "generations" in line three is particularly provocative. The poem was published in 1928. It’s smack in the center of a literary movement called "modernism." Here’s why that’s important to us, though: modernism was partially born out of the devastating losses and tragedy of WWI. After 1918, the world changed. Disillusioned by the senseless violence and seeming futility of war, the generation of young men and women who came back from the battlefields became pretty cynical about the whole state of their society. After all, pretty much everyone living in Britain lost somebody they knew in the war. A certain group of early twentieth-century thinkers and modernist writers was even known as "The Lost Generation." The group usually included only American writers, but the term was a popular one. • Back to our poem, then: line 3 seems to be deliberately invoking the language of wartime losses. After all, it’s not just a couple of folks who are dying. Generations are dying. Lines 4-6 The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas, Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long Whatever is begotten, born, and dies. • We’re back in nature again. Lots of fish, and then some more fish. • The same pattern that occurred in lines 1-3 repeats itself here. Things live and then they die. • Our speaker insists upon the natural world in this stanza. Humankind (that would be "flesh" here) is sandwiched between "fish" and "fowl." We’re just like the birds and the fishies. We live, and then we die. • What distinguishes people from animals? Well, in "that country," at least, not much. Lines 7-8 Caught in that sensual music all neglect Monuments of unageing intellect. • The speaker is so down on "that country" because folks there live in the moment. Unfortunately, they’re so caught up in all that "begetting" and living and dying that they completely forget to think about things that might outlast their own brief lives. • Yeats weaves a deliberate set of artistic references into this line. • He wants to compare living in the moment to thinking about something long-lasting (and even immortal). To do so, he compares music to sculpture. Music sounds really great for some minutes. Sculptures, however, are around for a long time. • Comparing life to "music" may sound sweet, but it’s actually a pretty damning critique. If you’re too absorbed in the here and now, you’ll never be able to think about things that might matter more than your petty little problems. STANZA II SUMMARY Lines 9-11 An aged man is but a paltry thing, A tattered coat upon a stick, unless Soul clap its hands and sing, • Once you get done with all that lovin’ and livin’ that young people do, you’re nothing more than a bunch of clothes on an old, wrecked frame. It’s not a pretty picture – unless, of course, you have a brain (or, in this case, a soul). • Using personification to allow the soul itself to "clap its hands and sing," Yeats introduces a teeny tiny bit of distinction between the soul and the body. • The body is just a stick with some clothes on it. The soul, however, seems to almost have a body of its own. It’s just a figurative body at this point, of course. The soul doesn’t actually have hands to clap. Lines 11-12 and louder sing For every tatter in its mortal dress, • What do people usually sing about? Well, love probably tops the list. Lost love, love gone wrong, love that hasn’t happened yet, loving somebody so much that your heart’s going to break. • Our speaker, however, doesn’t seem to be interested in songs that celebrate love. • When he (or she) thinks about the soul and its singing, he’s focused on the way that songs come out of aging and suffering. In other words, the older you get, the louder you should sing. • This is metaphorical singing here. After all, it’d be a bit weird if everyone walked around humming all the time. Our speaker’s talking about living out loud – letting your soul stay alive and kicking, even if your body’s a "tatter," or disintegrating. Lines 13-14 Nor is there singing school but studying Monuments of its own magnificence; • These lines are confusing. • Where exactly is there no singing school? Based on our speaker’s previous thoughts, we’re guessing that he’s still talking about "that country." • The geographical vagueness of the first lines seems to be repeating itself here. • Perhaps the speaker means that in his old country nobody really valued the life of the mind or the soul. Perhaps he’s trying to make a broader claim about people in general, the world over. • What we do know, however, is that the speaker seems pretty upset about the fact that folks spend most of their time talking and thinking about how great they are. Sculptures and monuments = good. Sculptures of yourself = bad. • Self-indulgence in general isn’t something that our speaker’s too keen about. Lines 15-16 And therefore I have sailed the seas and come To the holy city of Byzantium. • Now we’re getting somewhere. We’re getting to Byzantium. STANZA IV SUMMARY Lines 25-26 Once out of nature I shall never take My bodily form from any natural thing, • Nature fades. Seasons change. People die. Art, however, lasts forever. • As our speaker decides, to preserve part of yourself you have to lodge it in "unnatural" things like art. • Once our speaker moves into a sort of speculative mood, his options seem better than they were in his present. It’s almost like he’s daydreaming about his next life. • Right now nature’s got him locked in her claws; after death, however, he’ll be free to return as something else. Lines 27-29 But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make Of hammered gold and gold enamelling To keep a drowsy Emperor awake; • Once he’s imagined himself as an artwork, our speaker clarifies what sort of art he’d like to be. Like the sages, he’s thinking that he’s solid "hammered" gold. • He emphasizes the gold part once more for good measure. He won’t just be hammered gold. He’ll be hammered gold and "gold enamelling". • At this point he’s alluding to the gold that went into the sages’ mosaic in stanza three. Now, however, our speaker seems to be imagining himself as a sculpture of some sort. • Hammering gold was a technique frequently used in crafting Byzantine jewelry and sculptures. • And here’s where his imagination takes over. Because art sticks around for such a long time, it can have many audiences. • It’s a weird sort of popularity, but our speaker seems to want it. He imagines his audience as a "drowsy Emperor". Lines 30-32 Or set upon a golden bough to sing To lords and ladies of Byzantium Of what is past, or passing, or to come. • Moving deeper into a reverie about his future form, our speaker loops back to the first stanza of the poem. • Envisioning himself "set upon a golden bough," our speaker seems to suggest that he’d like to be a bird. Unlike the birds of nature, however, which fall in "dying generations," he’ll be a golden bird. Nature transforms into art over the course of the poem. • This time, though, the birds actually have someone to listen to their song. The "lords and ladies of Byzantium" will turn to the golden bird as a touchstone, something that allows them to connect the past, present, and future. • Because art lasts for all time, it can be relevant to all ages. That is immortality. . ANALYSIS NATURE Yeats begins his poem with a description of nature in all its youthful glory. Anything that starts out this perfect, however, can’t stay that way for long. Death is the dark underbelly of all the delightful life that the speaker references. As he ages, death seems to occupy more and more of his time. Mimicking his need to escape thoughts of dying, the poem shifts from a contemplation of nature to a discussion of art as it progresses. • Lines 2-3: Referring to the birds singing as "dying generations" seems to be a form of synecdoche. Yeats isn’t only referring only to birds (or to the "young/ In one another’s arms"), he’s talking about all living creatures. • Lines 5-6: Using lists to describe both all living creatures and the stages of their lives is a form of parallelism. The repetition of this pattern helps to create the sense that the speaker’s talking about all life forms – they all fit into the same pattern. • Lines 9-10: Yeats deliberately uses a metonymic phrase in these lines, describing a man as a "tattered coat upon a stick." The tattered coat stands in for the human who wears it; in this case, Yeats uses metonymy to suggest that the man might actually waste away until the coat is all that’s left of him. • Line 11: Using "Soul" as a way to represent the human as a whole, Yeats employs metonymy. • Line 29: The last stanza of this poem returns to the figure of a bird in a way that’s deliberately ironic. Now the bird isn’t "natural", it’s a form of art. ART Art’s pretty. It’s often sparkly and full of gold (in this poem, at least). As old age approaches and nature becomes threatening, art starts to sound like good. It doesn’t age (like his body will). It doesn’t ever go out of circulation (again, like his body will). The speaker is figuring that, if he can concentrate his soul and his artistic sensibilities into a single work of art, he’ll turn what’s left of his spirit into something that’s eternal. • Lines 7-8: References to "sensual music" and "monuments" craft a metaphor that refers to the human experience as different forms of art. • Lines 13-14: The second stanza picks up the same metaphor that we’ve read about in the first. Now, however, the speaker extends the metaphor, suggesting that music (like life) remains a rough art because no one is available to teach you how to sing. • Lines 16-17: This is a simile. The sages stand as if they were pieces of gold in a mosaic. The "as" (a comparative term) is our signal that a simile’s in action here. • Lines 26-27: The repetition of "g"s at the beginning of several words in this line is a form of alliteration. Here, the alliterative effect is also a repetitive one: the word "gold" appears three times in the two lines cited. • Line 29: He’s talking about a golden sculpture of a bird. Imagining that the bird can sing, the speaker employs animism to give a piece of artwork animal-like characteristics. REGENERATION In this poem, regeneration takes on huge spiritual overtones. The artwork and the work of human life become one and the same as our speaker tries to figure out how to break through the boundaries of human experience. Yeats is using some specialized symbols here, but the general concepts he works with are pretty commonplace. • Lines 20-23: These lines are the continuation of an apostrophe: the speaker addresses the sages of Byzantium, asking them to "consume" him and "gather [him] into the artifice of eternity." The first step towards regeneration, after all, is giving up what you’ve already got. • Lines 24-25: The speaker feels like he can choose the bodily form that his soul will take. Is he speaking metaphorically here, or does he really want to become a work of art? CIRCLES AND SPIRALS Circles are bad. Spirals are good. Walking in a circle, you’d follow the same path forever. If you walk in a spiral, however, you’re going places. For Yeats, the cycle of natural life is an endless circle. Things are born; they live; they die. Repeat. How to break out of this circle is the challenge of this poem. • Lines 1-2: The first lines of the poem create a vivid image of two lovers encircled in each other's arms. It’s a mortal circle, of course (the arms live only as long as the lovers themselves do). In other words, it won’t last forever. • Line 6: Ah, the circle of life. It’s not an actual circle, it’s just a pattern that repeats itself over and over and over again. • Line 18: Here’s the biggie for this poem: asking the sages to "perne in gyre," the speaker distinguishes between the cyclical work of nature and the spiraling work of the spirit. A gyre is a spiral. It’s moving in new directions all the time. • Line 29: Back to the bird again! You’d think this was a cycle (or a circle), right? But it’s not. Yeats constructs a loose metaphor for the changes that have occurred over the course of the poem by comparing the "dying generations" of birds in the first lines to the everlasting golden sculpture of a bird in this line. FORM AND METER Ottava Rima Divided into four eight-line stanzas, "Sailing to Byzantium" takes on a sort of formal regularity. It’s actually written in ottava rima, which was traditionally an Italian poetic form usually used in epic poems. "Sailing to Byzantium" is in the form of traditional epics, its title even sounds like the beginning of an epic quest. We’re all stoked to read about bloody battles and young heroes. What we get, of course, is an old, crotchety man. He’s certainly not trying to point out the incredible abilities that he’s got. In fact, he’s trying to leave his body completely. Yeats changes the content of a poem in ottava rima into something which isn’t an epic. Ottava rima traditionally contains the following rhyme scheme: ABABABCC. Yeats starts out with rhymes that seem to be following the traditional scheme, but then he introduces these weird, dissonant half-rhymes instead of full rhymes. SPEAKER Although our speaker’s the only real character in this poem (besides the sages, who get a tiny shout out a bit later on), he never really reveals that much about his background. For one thing, we don’t know if the speaker’s a man or a woman. (We’re betting that he’s a