Journal of Literature and Art Studies, September 2022, Vol. 12, No. 9, 906-909
doi: 10.17265/2159-5836/2022.09.006
The Multiple Application of Myth in Yeats’s Poetry
ZUO Li-xiang, ZHOU Kang-mei
School of Foreign Language and International Trade, Guangdong Polytechnic, Foshan, China
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), the winner of Nobel Prize for Literature, has attracted extensive rearch
attention from academia in recent years. This paper aims to discuss various myths Yeats us in his poetic creation,
focusing on the analysis of the multiple application of myth, including myths performing as the mythic th
emes of
the worldly, the spiritual, and the emotional, as poetic images, as emotional and intellectual symbols, and as
political metaphors.
Keywords: W. B. Yeats, poetry, myth, image, symbol
Mythic Themes of the Worldly, the Spiritual, and the Emotional Yeats believes that myths provide him with various themes to develop his poetry. The themes of Yeats’s poems include Irish nationalism, mysticism, love, and Celtic myths. Among them, the mythic theme is one of the main themes, for the mystical life is the center of everything that the poet thinks, does, and writes (Brown, 1999).
“To the Ro Upon the Rood of Time” (Yeats, 1997) reflects Yeats’s u of myths as the mythic theme of the worldly, spiritual and emotional. This poem is about a narrator and his contempt for contemporary life. The “red ro” (Yeats, 1997, p. 77) is ud by Yeats to reprent mythological Ireland. The beginning of the poem is: “Red ro, proud ro, sad Ro of all my days!” (Yeats, 1997, p. 77). The “Ro” here stands for Ireland; while it can also be considered as the poet’s lifelon
g pursuit, Maud Gonne. Yeats’s description of her when they first met in 1889 in W. B. Yeats Memoirs (1972) also explains how beautiful she was, which explains how beautiful she was. To him, Maud Gonne reprents sublimity and beauty.
I had never thought to e in a living woman so great beauty. It belonged to famous pictures, to poetry, to some
legendary past. A complexion like the blossom of apples, and yet face and body had the beauty of lineaments which Blake calls the highest beauty becau it changes least from youth to age, and a stature so great that she emed of a divine race. (Donoghue, 1972)
The story of Yeats and Maud Gonne runs parallels the relationship between him and the mythical worlds in this poem. The ominous atmosphere of the first stanza and the beginning of the cond one emphasizes this remblance: “Come near, come near, come near-Ah, leave me still/A little space for the ro-breath to fill!” (Yeats, 1997, p. 77). Although Yeats belongs to a part of the world, he has no illusions about it. He can realize
ZUO Li-xiang, Master degree, Teaching Assistant, School of Foreign Language and International Trade, Guangdong
Polytechnic.
ZHOU Kang-mei, Teaching Assistant, School of Foreign Language and International Trade, Guangdong Polytechnic.
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that it had no danger of its own and that things were not perfect; the same could be said of Gonne that may be a fanatical and violent person, just like her days in turbulent Irish politics.
Yeats then turns to the mythological elements of Irish myths. By using words and phras including “the bitter tide” (Yeats, 1997, p. 77), “thine own sadness” (Yeats, 1997, p. 78), and “grown old” (Yeats, 1997, p. 78), This is a brief exploration of Irish myths, ending with obvious melancholy, referring to “lonely melody” (Yeats, 1997, p. 78), which may be Irish songs that encapsulate ancient stories. The stanza ends unexpectedly with the negative side of the spiritual world being described. Similarly, this refers to the spiritual world and Maud Gonne, both of which embody “Eternal beauty” (Yeats, 1997, p. 78) to Yeats, although there are many hidden dangers. The poet claims that only by not being obscured by “man’s fate” (Yeats, 1997, p. 78), this perfect vision can be en. There are many explanations for this. This refers to the ultimate fate of people, that is, death, or it may be more
related to people’s tendencies to fall and a shortage of some qualities that Yeats considered esntial; human beings do not have Yeats’s insight into the spiritual world. Mankind will eventually die becau of “boughs of love and hate” (Yeats, 1997, p. 78) in the prent world. The material world reflected in “foolish things” (Yeats, 1997, p. 78) will soon end, as they can only “live a day” (Yeats, 1997, p. 78). Rebirth will be with her with “eternal beauty wandering on her way” (Yeats, 1997, p. 78) after death. Yeats hopes to go beyond the normal trappings of daily life, and he desires to go beyond worldly life and move towards apotheosis of a kind.
When the first stanza yearns for the spiritual world and continues to portray it, the cond one begins with the hope of keeping control of reality so as not to lo the varies idiosyncrasies of the mortal world: “The weak worm hiding down in its small cave… And heavy mortal hopes that toil and pass” (Yeats, 1997, p. 78). This indirectly mentions his feelings for Maud Gonne again. Yeats then returns to his hope to join the spiritual world: “But ek alone to hear the strange things said…” (Yeats, 1997, p. 78). No matter how much he wants the ro to be clo to him, it can merely be a wish-another “heavy mortal hope” (Yeats, 1997, p. 78) that may never be realized. What happened was that he kept going back to the starting point and hoping again and again that his fate would change and his wishes would come true. Gonne’s impact on this poem once again prevailed.
Myths as Poetic Images
An image in literature refers to the elements employed in literary works to arou a nsory impression, emphasize a theme or create a particular tone, both visually and emotionally (Yuan & Du, 2008, p. 45). Yeats considers myths as an important source that has provided him with imaginative images. In his poems, the u of “swan”, “ro” and other recurring images is beneficial to draw his whole work as a coherent whole.
There is a fusion of the opposites in “Leda and the Swan” (Yeats, 1997), which reflects Yeats’s view that to build eternity and a n of harmony, there must be a synthesis of opposing forces. Through his poems, Yeats explores the oppositions between passion and intellect, imagination and moral responsibility, and art and reality. In “Leda and the Swan” (Yeats, 1997), Yeats asked whether a synthesis appearing as Zeus’s “brute blood” (Yeats, 1997, p. 366) mastered Leda.
The image of “ro” derives from Greek and Roman myths. According to the myths, the ro is the sacred plant to Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty. Ros came from the a foams, which dripped from
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Aphrodite’s body when she was born of a foam. Additionally, the first ro was cultivated by Aphrodite’s tears and the blood of her lover Adonis who died accidentally in hunting.
“The Ro of Peace” (Yeats, 1997) is dedicated to Maud Gonne. In the poem, the image of ro, referring to Gonne, becomes a force for peace, ending the battle between Heaven and Hell. The battle is not as simple as the battle between God and Satan. It also implies Yeats’s inner conflicts, such as between ideal and reality, soul and body, peace and wrath, mortal and eternal. When he is struggling, Gonne appears like a red ro, which plays the role of reconciliation and creates the rosy peace of Heaven for the poet.
In the poems analyzed above, Yeats us images, such as “swan” and “ro” borrowed from varied myths to deal with his emotions and views. The myths as poetic images are beneficial to express his feelings and views and lay the foundation for his high artistic achievements.
Myths as Emotional and Intellectual Symbols
According to Yeats, symbols can be divided into emotional symbols and intellectual symbols and the
two should be unified (Yeats, 1987). He defines the symbols that arou ideas alone, or ideas intertwined with emotions as intellectual symbols and tho that evoke emotions alone as the emotional symbols (Yeats, 1987). Yeats believes that mere emotional symbols are not sufficient, while mere intellectual symbols are not vivid; by integrating emotional symbols into intellectual symbols, the infinite vitality of symbols can be reflected to the maximum extent (Zhu, 2005). The poet attaches great importance to the expression of intellectual ideas, thus putting forward the literary concept of the intellectual symbol. Yeats believes that a poet should achieve the combination of artistic imagination and rational meditation, and a reader must accept the poet’s call mixed with emotional and intellectual symbols to comprehend and perceive poetry so that the poet can successfully guide people to approach the real world behind the objective world (Zhu, 2005).
Yeats is a master of poetic art of creating and using symbols. The symbols in his works are drawn from myths, philosophy, Irish folklore, metaphysical literature, and magic. Among them, myths provide a lot of inspiration for the formation of symbols widely ud in his works. His poetry incorporates varied symbols, making him one of the main reprentatives of the Symbolist movement in English Literature to u many symbols.
“Helen” is an emotional symbol widely celebrated by Yeats. The celebration of Helen in Yeats’s poetr
y is related to his lifelong love, Maud Gonne. Despite Yeats’s repeated offers to marry, she married George Mcbride. After years of struggling with love, frustration, and despair, Yeats strived to express his desire for love and beauty by appealing to Greek mythology. “The Ro of the World” (Yeats, 1997) describes the first appearance of Helen as en: “Who dreamed that beauty pass like a dream? /For the red lips, with all their mournful pride” (Yeats, 1997, p. 86). Yeats express that true beauty is eternal. Physical beauty has such great power and effect that “Troy pass away in one high funeral gleam” (Yeats, 1997, p. 87). “The red lips” refer to the beauty of both Helen and Maud Gonne who do not value the men who love them and fall into the arms of others. They have similarities, for example, leading to deep suffering in the hearts of their lovers. Helen’s beauty brought terrible conquences and she even aroud the enthusiasm of the old people. As Homer describes in Iliad (Homer, 2020), “Though they can be hard, they grow gentle as the old men of Troy grew gentle, when Helen pasd by on the walls”. The Greeks thought she was so noble and beautiful a woman that they slaughtered and burned Troy. Not
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only the Greeks but also the Trojans were willing to love Helen, no matter how high the cost was. In this poem, Helen, the most beautiful woman in Greek myth, symbolizes Maud Gonne. Through this s
ymbolic meaning of myths, Yeats tries to articulate his views on her rejection of his marriage proposal: however difficult it is, he is determined to pursue love and beauty in his heart.
“Cuchulain” is an intellectual symbol in Yeats’s poetry. Cuchulain needs broader and deeper knowledge, popularization of his noble deeds, and a full understanding of his fate and the tendencies, experiences, and needs of different generations to embark on his own road again (Rafroidi, 1983). Yeats’s Cuchulain poems, especially “Cuchulain’s Fight with the Sea” (Yeats, 1997), interweave the “knowledge” discovered by Yeats with “popularization” embodied in the main purpo of writing the poem. This poem depicts Cuchulain’s heroic deeds, which is reminiscent of the poet’s determination to revive ancient Irish heroes, such as Oisin and Fion.
The symbol of “swan” embodies veral meanings and is studied in some rearch. For instance, “The ction of The Vision called ‘Dove or Swan’ links the divine rape of Leda by Zeus in the gui of a swan with the impregnation of the Virgin Mary by the Holy Ghost” (Smith, 1990, p. 61). T. R. Henn considers the swan as a sign of “power, phallic strength, purity, spirit and spirits (as all white birds), fidelity; fire and air (as the dove); the ineffable Godhead” (Henn, 1965, p. 256). Yeats is like a philosopher who tries to reveal the esnce of reality and ek the truth tirelessly. He portrays the swan as a natural symbol of subjectivity, especially when it floats alone in the wind or falls on a pond
or rivers, and the natural symbol of objective people (Rusll, 1966).
Conclusion
Yeats employs the symbols of varied myths to articulate his personal feeling and views, and the symbols are the embodiment of his beloved, and the attitude towards knowledge, reality, and truth. Besides, Yeats draws some subject matter from varied myths as the themes of his poems. Moreover, he widely borrows some imaginative images and symbols from the myths and applies them to his poetry. Furthermore, some political metaphors derive from the myths. Yeats has undergone experiments to incorporate myths into poetry and enhance the themes and techniques in his poems. The myths are woven into his description of the world, integrating past and prent, visible and invisible, material and spiritual unified into his poetic picture.
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