Sailing to Byzantium Analysis

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Sailing to Byzantium The use of the setting ‘Byzantium’, formerly known as Istanbul, hints at a metaphorical search for artistic perfection, it is clear it is a search from the use of the verb ‘sailing’, which suggests the poem is about some sort of journey, and this is of more significance than the actual destination. Yeats’ poem is about spiritual and bodily regeneration and Byzantium represents a mental state where he can find a way to deal with his body and thoughts. It is suggested by the line ‘That is no country for old men’ that Yeats has already mentally left Ireland, and that he cannot achieve peace there, perhaps due to the political frictions going on at the time, it would not have been somewhere where it is easy to gather your thoughts. He does not feel like he belongs in Ireland anymore because they are caught up in the cycle of life and death; living according to the ‘sensual music’ and dying in war. This makes Yeats scornful of Ireland and of the naive youth; this is suggested from the line ‘the young in one another’s arms, birds in the trees’ where Yeats stresses the irrelevance of their obsession with the sensualness. These images of youth contrast with the poet’s state of age and decay, perhaps this is why he comes across so bitter. It is possible his frustration towards the fact he was never able to win over Maud is channelled into his negative opinion of Ireland’s youth. ‘An aged man is but a paltry thing’ expresses Yeats’ feeling of a lack of accomplishment, he feels he has accomplished a disappointingly little amount and is regrets not doing much more when he had the chance. He is reflecting on his life and knows that by now it is too late to change or do anything else, he questions the achievements in his life and feels a sense of pity for himself. This contributes to how he decided to learn from the mistakes of others and himself, which
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