MA Part 1, Semester II Paper 106: The Twentieth Century Literature: 1900 to World War II

1. W.B.Yeats as a
Symbolist Poet
Prepared by Divya Sheta

2. Name: Divya Sheta
MA Part I, Semester II
Topic : William Butler Yeats as a Symbolist Poet
Paper no.106: The Twentieth Century
Literature:1900 to World War II
Subject Code: 22399
Enrollment Number: 4069206420210033
Contact Info.: divyasheta@gmail.com
Submitted to : S.B.Gardi Department of
English,MK Bhavanagar University.

3. Symbolist
Movement
Eclectic Symbolism in
The Second Coming:
Yeats and
Eliot’s
Symbols
Table of contents
01
03
02

4. Symbolist
Movement
(From Painting
to Music)

5. ● The symbolist movement in literature originated during the 1850s in
France and lasted until about 1900.
● As a conscious movement was born in France as a reaction against
naturalism and the precision and exactitude of the 'naturalist' school
represented by Emile Zola.
● Exerted a profound influence on twentieth-century literature, bridging
the transition from Realism to Modernism.

6. Yeats and his
symbols
● Yeats was born into a barren or
unreligious age, and lived to see it
become a naturalistic or irreligious
one. That was the background against
which he had to exercise his gift of
poetry which, like that of
Shakespeare and Donne and Milton,
was a gift for splendid metaphysical
imagery.

7. ● Eliot attaches the occult symbols like captives to his Christian
chariot, and it gives a fresh and interesting status to is
Christianity.
● Yeats is both more and less orthodox than Mr. Eliot; more
orthodox in his intellectual technique, working with one set of
symbols at a time; less, in that he does not at all feel bound to
take the Christian symbols as his base.

8. “Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the
falconer;”
A boldly new and cosmic image; and there are the images of the centripetal
force of the world turning to centrifugal, of anarchy being loosed upon it (by
evil forces or by destiny), and of the blood-dimmed tide, which may have an
occult meaning or may be a metaphysical image of war.

9. ● “The Rose”, Rose is the key symbol. It symbolizes
intellectual beauty, austerity, the beauty of women
specially that of Mand Gonne and Ireland as well.
● ‘Byzantium’ as a symbol of the dance.
● Yeats generally uses this symbol to intricate either
patterned movement or joyous energy.
“Helen being chosen found life flat and dull and later had
much trouble from a fool.”
“A Prayer for My Daughter” are highly symbolic. Here Helen
symbolizes destructive beauty and is linked with Maud Gonne. In
the same poem, the Horn of Plenty and „the laurel tree‟ are
symbols of place, prosperity and happiness.

10. Symbols made it possible for Yeats to express “the
richness of Man’s deeper reality” which is something
essentially mystical.

11. Work Citation
NIILM University, Kaithal, Haryana, India. (n.d.). NIILM University, Kaithal, Haryana,
India. 1st International Conference on Multidisciplinary Research (ICMR-18).
Retrieved April 11, 2022, from
http://www.conferenceworld.in/Conference/university-conference
Nordquist, Richard. "Yeats and 'The Symbolism of Poetry'." ThoughtCo, Aug. 27, 2020,
thoughtco.com/symbolism-of-poetry-by-wb-yeats-1690312.1 Nordquist, Richard.
"Yeats and 'The Symbolism of Poetry'." ThoughtCo, Aug. 27, 2020,
thoughtco.com/symbolism-of-poetry-by-wb-yeats-1690312.millions
Ransom, John Crowe. “Yeats and His Symbols.” The Kenyon Review, vol. 1, no. 3, 1939,
pp. 309–22, http://www.jstor.org/stable/4332091. Accessed 11 Apr. 2022.

12. Sharma, K.N. "William Butler Yeats as a Symbolist."
BachelorandMaster, 14 June 2017,
bachelorandmaster.com/britishandamericanpoetry/yeats
-as-a-symbolist.html.
Shaw, Jennifer "Symbolism ." New Dictionary of the
History of Ideas. . Encyclopedia.com. 28 Mar. 2022
<https://www.encyclopedia.com>.
Symbolism - important paintings. The Art Story. (n.d.).
Retrieved April 11, 2022, from
https://www.theartstory.org/movement/symbolism/artw
orks/#pnt_4

13. Thank You!