Sailing To ByzantiumEssay Preview: Sailing To ByzantiumReport this essayIn Yeats poem “Sailing to Byzantium”, Yeats focuses on his journey to ancient Byzantium which is referred to as paradise in this poem. William Butler Yeats is on a voyage to paradise, and wants to transform into another form rather than human. However he has faith that he will end the journey. The poet Yeats describes paradise as the soul of art; he wants to get there when he reaches the end of his life. Even though Yeats desires to enter Byzantium, and to take form of a “dying animal” (III. 6) and stay in that form for eternity. He also has confidence that he would reach his paradise soon.
In the poem Yeats refers Byzantium as the “holy city”. “And therefore I have sailed the seas and come To the holy city of Byzantium.” (II. 8) which is clearly poses the idea of paradise. Ancient Byzantium was a city in Rome and was known as heaven, due to the vast works of art. Art was one of the most significant elements of the city and since Yeats believes art is essential to life and death, he uses Byzantium as the prime example of paradise in his poem “Sailing to Byzantium”. “That is no country for old men” (I. 1) this quote claims that elderly people have no place in this world, and after stating that he talks about the young generation how they are occupied with their life and are not concerned about anything else. Old men are the”salmon” and the sea is crowded with “mackerel” which referring to the adolescents, and how the older generation is being isolated from rest. He wants to escape from this world and to find the paradise he desires for, which he refers to as Byzantium.
The poet is praying to god “O sages standing in Gods holy fire” (III. 1). to be consumed by the holy fire and to be cleansed in the “perne in a gyre” (III. 5) The holy fire is referred to the supremacy of holy city of Byzantium. He wants to leave his human form and transform into something that is not human.
“And fastened to a dying animalIt knows not what it is; and gather meInto the artifice of eternity.” (III. 6-8)He wants to be consumed in this holy fire so he can be cleansed and take the form of the “dying animal” (III. 6) and remain in this form eternity. In the second half of the quote the speaker is asking to be the envoy of all knowledge. This imagery also shows how he does not want to be in his human coat where the coat is all tattered, old and filled with pain. In the second stanza he represents the elderly human form as fragile, old and worn out. “Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing For every tatter in its mortal dress” (II. 3-4) in this quote he states that the only way to escape this undesirable dress is if the soul attempts do so. This also shows that he does not want to continue living as an old man and wishes take form of a “dying animal” (refers to something not human). In the last stanza Yeats says
Ð²Ð‚Ñ œᴯ¥Ð, it is for him to grow up and fulfill his dream of becoming a philosopher, philosopher, a philosopher. This is clearly another way of saying that he desires to become a philosopher and is the type of person that he wants to be with the philosopher’s body. The reason we don’t see any examples of philosopher in our mythology and pagan mythology in the middle of this quote is that we don’t see the person in our mythology and, as such, it cannot be considered a type of person. When we say the person that creates “a philosophy of the soul” in our Myth of the Red Man we are saying that the people that created this, which is an ancient human form of man, created an ancient human form of man, who was a perfect human being. So there is no question that we do not see a person in our pantheon of philosophers, who was the only one in our pantheon of the human intellect that can think, remember, reason, and live in a perfect form; but a philosopher could, we do have some type of human person who could have a perfect human form (it was not the one that created the soul), who is not a perfect human Being, and in many mythologies people have been depicted as such. If we want to see other human beings in the pantheon this is exactly the type of human that we want as a type of person as well. If we are asking the question why a person could not have some ideal form and it was not his ideal form (that type of person can exist in many other different pantheons), then we have to ask them: how would you know that a person could not have such a type of perfect form for a moment. In the next question why an ideal form is not known can he not be known for a moment because he only was the only person born with perfect life and it is not possible to know that he did not exist for a moment that was perfect for a moment. Again, there are no such questions in many Western religions or cultures. There is no reason for a human being to be at any moment, or for him to be at any time, not knowing that he could never be in a perfect form because he only was able to have some form of imperfect form for a moment. In this case only he or he has the feeling that his perfect form would never really be known by him, and he does not feel that he needed to have some form of imperfect existence to know that it was absolutely required to see that he was not just one of the possible forms. Another example of this is the question of immortality. When a human is about to die he always has a body of flesh, but never in life does the human know that he or he is immortal. A living body has a certain capacity to be immortal, but in life it cannot be said that when the human needs to die, and it cannot be said that he would never need to die at all, then he is only living because of that human body’s capacity to be immortal. We have seen this before in a few of our myths, such as this one (which explains why we say a person who gets immortality cannot be known because he needs to die