Ode On The Joy Of Youth In Yeats's Sailing To Byzantium

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Recommended: Keats imagery in his odes

Synopsis: Sailing to Byzantium is Yeats’s ode on the hardship of old age in comparison the joy of youth which he claims is the only pride of an old man as it shows his hearts desire that is deceived by the appearance of his aging body. In the poem Yeats tries to move spiritually to Byzantium where he seeks immortality through becoming an artificial piece. Yeats ends the poem saying his wish to become an artificial piece so he is never reincarnated into old age with the memories of his youth. Thus summarizing his ideology that the splendors of youth are not worth the agony of old age.

Theme: The overall theme of the poem is the pain of not being able to do, as your heart desires. Other themes are about the pain of old age versus the joy of youth. The poem also considers the ideology of artificial superiority over natural life.

Form: It comprises four stanzas in ottava rima, each made up of eight ten-syllable lines. It uses a journey to Constantinople (Byzantium) as a metaphor for a spiritual journey. The narrator is in the first person in the story however it is ambiguous to who the narrator is as his background is never spoken of. However considering the context of the poem Yeats is probably speaking of himself.

Context: Sailing to Byzantium” is one of Yeats’s most inspired works, and one of the greatest poems of the twentieth century. Written in 1926 and included in Yeats’s greatest single collection, 1928’s The Tower

Motifs:
Music- “Those dying generations—at their song, Caught in that sensual music all neglect.”Music in this context is as hypnotizing youth, its sweet and joyful but it distracts you from the reality of life and its issues which Yeats it criticizing to show not even youth is worth old age. “Soul clap its...

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...eats 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.

Sensual music is symbolic of youth and human experience as different forms of art.

Allusions
Byzantium Empire stood at the geographical and cultural center of the European and Middle-Eastern world for more than one thousand years. For much of that time, and over several cycles of decline and recovery Byzantium played the role of an economic, political, and cultural superpower
Literary Features
Repetition of Gold- Using gold to metaphorically describe the sages allows our speaker to allude to the precious nature of the sages, as well.

Assonance of "fire" and "gyre." The assonance allows the word to consume the rest of the line showing its power

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