W. B. Yeats, a major modern poet, penned poems that are marked
with modern human anxieties and crises, many of which contain
romantic elements such as subjectivity, high imagination, escapism,
romantic melancholy, interest in myth and folklore, etc. Influenced by
the romantic poets, Yeats wrote many of his poems, especially his early
poems, following the style that the Romantic poets followed. The poet
felt so much influenced by the romantic poets that he characterized
himself as one of the last romantics. A careful study of his poems will
show that his poems that are written in romantic mode are as perfect in
romantic qualities as those of Keats or Shelley.
“The lake Isle of Innisfree” is one of Yeast’s most famous romantic
poems, containing almost all the romantic elements in it. It is a highly
subjective and imaginative poem since the isle is not a real place
situated anywhere in Ireland, rather an ideal land of romance. The poet
has not only created the isle out of his imagination he has also
imagined the beauties, sounds and comforts of the place. The isle is so
peaceful and comfortable that the poet, tired of the tension and
anxieties of town life, wishes to go there to get rid of the weariness
of city life and to live alone in the close contact of nature. The place
appears so beautiful, comfortable and peaceful to the poet that he
decides to build a cottage there with clay and wattles. He also wishes
to harvest his food from the isle by planting nine bean-rows and keeping
a bee-hive there.
The poet reaches the peak of his romantic imagination when he
visualizes peace dropping slowly in the isle from “the veils of the
morning to where the cricket sings” and where “midnight’s all a glimmer,
and noon a purple glow and evening is full of the linnet’s wings”.
The poet is so fascinated by the charms of the isle that he cannot
keep him away from the place. Even when he is busy with his daily life
or is standing on the roadway or on the pavements grey, he hears the
lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore.
The poem thus contains the essential romantic elements like escapism,
love for nature, imagination, subjectivity, dreaminess, romance of
imaginary sounds and beauties, etc. Because of the presence of these
qualities the poem puts the poet in the direct line of romantics with
Keats, Shelley and Wordsworth.
“The Stolen Child” is another famous poem of Yeats containing
romantic elements. The environment of Sleuth Wood in the lake is so
dreamy that fantastic things happen here. There is a leafy island here
where flapping herons wake and where the water-rats feel drowsy. The
poet along with these herons and water rats walk in the lake all night
dancing and mingling hands with the faeries. They leap to and fro in the
lake water chasing “the frothy bubbles”. But the real world is not so
beautiful and not so free from troubles and anxieties. “While the world
is full of troubles/ And is anxious in its sleep”, the rocky highland of
Sleuth Wood is full of delights and dreams. That is why the poet
invites the peace seeking trouble stricken people to come to this place:
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand
For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.
This poem reminds one of Wordsworth who often, tired of the cruelties
of the harsh realities of time, liked to be lost in the lap of nature.
Like Keats, Yeats in this poem wants to escape to a dreamy land where he
thinks there are no troubles and human anxieties, and the fantasy that
the poet creates in the poem out of his imagination places him next to
S. T. Coleridge.
“The Wilde Swan at Coole” is another romantic poem of Yeats. The poet
appears to be Wordsworthian in delineating the beauty of nature. The
poet gives an impressive description of the lake at Coole Park. The poet
finds fifty-nine swans perching on the stones of the lake in a
beautiful, serene, calm and quiet atmosphere. This bewitching scene of
the swans perched on the stones in the lake leads the poet to think of
the high quality of life that the swans possess. The swans are beyond
the harsh realities of human life while human life here is full of
problems and troubles. The poet says of the swans:
Their hearts have not grown old;
Passion or conquest, wander where they will
Attend upon them still.
This contrast between the swans and the humans reminds one of the
contrast made by Keats between nightingales and humans in his “Ode to
Nightingale” where he says of the nightingale: “Thou are not born to
death, immortal bird”. Like Keats’ nightingales, Yeats’ swans are not
born to death. If an individual swan dies, the race remain and continue.
Their hearts remain ever youthful and they can fly wherever they like.
They are free and moved by the idea of passion and conquest. Unlike
human beings, they are never touched by the onslaught of fever and fret
and they do not have to face defeat and broken dream. In this way they
become the symbol of immortality and fulfillment.
Like these early poems, some of his later poems also contain romantic
elements. One such poem is “Sailing to Byzentium”. Like the lake isle
of Innisfree, Byzentium is an ideal place. The poet completely
frustrated and fed up by the decadence and degeneration of modern life
escapes to the ideal world of Byzentium. This poem also reminds us of
Keats’ “Ode to Nightingale”. Like Yeats, Keats frustrated and fed up by
the harsh realities of life escape to the world of the nightingale.
Like the Romantics, Yeats had an intense interest in ancient myth and
legend. He frequently uses the Greek, Medieval and Irish myths and
legends in his poems which take the poet to the remote past. We also
find in his poems the use of magic and Irish folkloric beliefs. For
example, the use of numbers such as nine, nineteen, fifty-nine, has a
magical overtone. In “The lake Isle of Innisfree” he wants to plant nine
bean-rows; in “The Wilde Swans at the Coole” he sees fifty-nine swans.
In Irish folklore the number nine is a lucky number.
The Romantic poems were subjective poems containing the poets’
personal views and ideas on different things. Many of Yeats’ poems
reflect his own personal views and ideas on different things and many of
his poems directly take the subject matter from his own personal life.
“A Prayer for My Daughter” is one such poem in which the poet prays for
some qualities to be possessed by his daughter. “Among the School
Children” is another personal poem in which the poet becomes nostalgic
wandering in his childhood days. Besides, his personal love with Maude
Gonne and his frustration in love with her have been the themes of many
of his poems. His bitter feelings about Maude Gonne’s attitude towards
him also have romantic overtone.
In the light of the above discussion, we can say that W. B. Yeats is a
poet of the romantic mode. His highly imaginative mind, tendency to
escape to the ideal world to get rid of the cruel realities of time,
love for nature, desire to pass time alone and to find comfort in the
lap of nature, use of myth, legend, magic and Irish folkloric beliefs,
expression of his personal views and ideas, incorporation of his
personal sufferings and frustrated feelings—all these put the poet in
the direct line with the Romantics.
