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A Case study of Mythical and Realistic Configuration of Yeats’ Poetry

Mrs. Bindiya Rahi Singh

Guest Assistant Professor (Dept. of English)

Govt. Degree College Kotabagh

Nainital Uttarakhand

William Butler Yeats was the gifted and the Noble Prize winning Irish poet of the 20th century and he began his career with the crafting of mythical and symbolical works in English Literature by choosing the subject matter of folktales and the fairy through the region of the western part of Ireland. From his early days, he was inspired by above-mentioned concepts by his father and maidservants who used to tell him the tales of the mystic world. So it was the impression of his childhood memory that increases his zeal of characterization of those motifs. The inhabitation of his land is full of the haunted stories of shadows and spirits. Besides it, he belonged to the protestant family that deals with the belief of the substance of Gods and they did not accept the orthodoxy of superstitious. The same appeal has been made into the works of Synge who was the partner of his poetic collection. Synge’ s Riders to the Sea, is a study of the philosophy and mysterious approach of Almighty God in the shape of a stormy sea that swallowed the all-male members of Maurya’s family. She stands alone repenting her tears on the death movements. This work is also used for the existentialism and the concept of life-death doctrine. Nicholas Grene has given his remarks in his article Yeats and remaking of Synge in which he utters the following words; Yeats knew Synge from their meeting in 1896 to Synge’s early death in 1909 and they worked as close colleagues in the theatre movement after 1902. From the beginning, Synge was cast as a Yeatsian hero, an artistic model, and after his death, he continued to recur as a key figure in Yeats’s poetry and prose. This figure of Synge is created and re-created by Yeats, if not in his image, in his imagination. But given that what is being transmuted in the case of Synge is the life and work of a writer whose own very real achievement remain in all its untransmuted actuality, this is a particularly illuminating instance of Yeats’s

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imaginative process. It is worth looking at how Yeats shaped Synge into myth, at the impact Synge’s work, life and death had on Yeats, and the way in which he is re-made within Yeats’s poetry, to try to define the status of the reality of this Yeatsian Synge1 ( Grene, p. 64).

Yeats is the master of myth-making with the perfect amalgamation of realistic ideas and thoughts regarding the social and personal symbol. Love, death, truth, introverts feelings of men and spirituality is the basic components of his works. He rejected by a lady thrice and that impression we can easily catch through his poetic collects. In this reference, Cleanth Brooks pointed out that in his book entitled Yeats: The Poet as Myth-Maker has presented his symbolical poem , The Winding Stair is full of mystic destiny. It’s well expressed in his following poem such as The trees are in their autumn beauty The wounded paths are dry Under the October twilight the water Mirror a still sky2 (Jeffares, pp. 410-411) It may be said that Yeats became a folklorist and a student of legend, myth, and magic because of his exposure to the material while at an impressionable age. These tales of the supernatural were imaginative nourishment to a mind conscious of a need to break with the agnosticism scientific skepticism of his father, John B. Yeats. The Celtic Twilight (1893-1902) is recollective reminisces of his memories about the witchcraft and magic. In this book, he said that all real stories are based on real stories heard among the people of his surroundings or real incident with a little disguise in names and places. As the title suggests it is the detailed version of the folklore of the Irish Peasantry and Irish Fairy Tales. Along with his poems are the gems of the creative power of his intelligence to reveal his concern about an imaginative movement in literature including all heritage of his cultural perspective likewise myth, legends, religion, custom, and thought. He sings the lore like common people through his vision of ‘Revolt of the soul’. His stay with lady Gregory in 1897, has embarked on folk legends and belief and they worked on the series of Essay entitled and Belief in the West of Ireland that has been published in 1920 and contain the theme of distinction between the concept of Self and Anti-

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Self, his knowledge of Vedanta and structural doctrine of myth and mystery were the basic elements of his poetry3 (W. B Yeats writing on Irish Folklore, Legends, and Myth, Contents).

Douglas Hydes in 1993, expresses his view on Yeats’s stories of Fionn and Oisin in this way; The lover in the Irish folk song bids his beloved come with him into the woods, and see the salmon leap in the rivers, and hear the cuckoo sing because death will never find them in the heart of the woods. Oisin new come from his three hundred years of fairyland and of the love that is in fairyland, bids St. Patrick cease his prayers a while…’4 (W. B Yeats writing on Irish Folklore, Legends, and Myth p. 194)

In Yeast’s case, the role of art in recreating the social self as the subject of a social myth can be best analyzed by focusing on his poems on the ‘rose’. In ‘To Ireland in the Coming Times’, first published in 1892 in the countless Kathleen and Various Legends and Lyrics under the Title Apologia Addressed to Ireland in Coming days, Yeats defines his art as means to change social reality through the aesthetic enrichment of the subject of the action. The poet begins by defining himself as a member of an elite group, the charismatic sect of a warrior brotherhood of artists; Know, that I would accounted be True brother of a company That song, to sweeten Ireland’s wrong’ Balled and story, ran and song.

His exploration attitude towards the phase of social self and aesthetic self are the qualities of his fusion of illusion5 (W. B. Yeats Social Myth and Monoglossia, p.117). The very popular definition of myth has given by Joseph Campbell wrote that; Throughout the inhabited world, in all the time under every circumstance, the myths of men have flourished, and they have been the living inspiration of whatever else may have appeared out of the activities of the human body and the mind. It would not be too much to say that myth is the secret opening through which the inexhaustible energies of the cosmos pour into human cultural manifestations. Religions, philosophies, arts, the social forms of primitive and

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historic men, prime discoveries in science and technology, the very dreams that blister sleep, boil up from the basic magic ring of myth6 (Myth and Reality in Irish Literature, p.1)

Similar instincts have been adopted by the efforts of Yeats. He has obtained popularity in the concept of myth-making. His myths are liked with good and evil, a victory of corruption and an indication of the transformation of time and age. Through his works, he presents the entire picture of the emotions of the human world. A deep study of the works of Yeats can present his genius word image of mental conception. And his poetry is blended with symbols and stands him among the chief representatives of symbolic Movement in English Literature to uses innumerable symbols, for example, Rose, Swan, and Helen. His symbols are taken from the genre of Irish folklore, mythology, magic, philosophy, and metaphysical literature. Yeats has defined the concept of the symbol in his words as a symbol is true, the possible expression of some invisible essence. The symbol has been divided into two categories; traditional and personal. Yeast revealed not only denotative ideas but also they relate with connotative and evocative word construction. With it, he succeeds in elucidating the use of complex symbols in his works. To express his word construction image it can be said that he used the icon of Rose in twice methods; traditionally and personally. For traditional Symbol, Rose stands for the eternal truth of time and second it refers to the memories of his past that can rejuvenate his Symbol. Who dreamed that beauty that passes like a dream? For these red lips, with all their mournful pride… Under the passing stars, a foam of the sky Lives on this lonely face. (The Rose of the World) These lines have been taken from his crafting about his deep love for Moud Gonne who never accepts his true love. In the above-mentioned lines, he expresses his feeling towards that is fatalistic power of beauty that can transform into destruction. For the use of his crafting over the impression of traditional symbols it can be compared with his second poem the Rose of Battle that contained the theme of earth love and peace of war. He expresses the vivid picture of war and his love for his country. He presents his description in the following way;

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Rose of all roses, rose of all the world The tall thought woven sail… Beauty got sad with its eternity Made you of us, and the dim gray sea (the Rose of Battle). For the details of his symbolic study, both poems are the parts of his intellectual and brilliance. The other poetic collection including the symbol of the Rose is The Rose of Peace7 (Symbolism in Yeats Poetry, Web). According to the views of Norman Jeffares, Yeats had used the rose as the symbol for Ireland steeped in its glorious past, and for the charming image of , his sweetheart8 (Sharma, p. 47). The next aspect of his poetry is philosophical content. His word structure can cast the impression of his genius image of the mind. The entire piece comes under the doctrine of Vedanta and Christian methodology. He sketches the world of mystery and surrealism genre through the lines of Byzantium; An aged man is but a paltry thing A tattered coat upon a stick unless Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing For every latter in its mortal dress. () The Byzantium is used for the city of soul. Therefore the present expression can give the philosophical detail of old age. He compared it with the tattered coat hanged upon a stick. Through this word image, he alarms to all people that they should pray to God. As the body can be finished one day but it’s our soul that can pave the path of eternity. This can only possible through the yogic Samadhi that can take our soul in the holy city called Byzantium. The same expression has already mentioned in the Bhagavad Gita, chapter two and lyrics 23 in which Lord Krishna consoles Arjun that its power of the soul that can never be destroyed by anything in the following lines; नैनं छिꅍदछꅍि शस्त्राछि नैनं दहछि पावकः । न चैनं 啍लेदयꅍ्यापो न शोषयछि मा셁िः ॥- 2/23 Physical beauty cannot sustain the last but spirituality is eternal. It’s the mystic approach of the soul that can transform into various forms. A human being, according to the Upanishad, is made up of three things; Isthool Sharira (gross body), Suskshma Sharira (Subtle Body), and buddhi (Wisdom). The first section, it relates to the life and death concept. Second, it refers to the

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human hearts that are controlled by the nine guards of the sensual body and they are also called Indriya. The third indicates the self or the atman. It stays in the Buddhi as the first principle of intelligence and Prana. In this way, the human being consists of the above-mentioned origin of existence. Yeats has rightly aware of the knowledge of Rajyoga in his poetic collections. He details the description of old age9 (Sharma, pp. 210-211). His reading on Blake united with other fondness to give confidence his mystical interest, and soon he was seeking truth and order in every kind of untraditional hypothesis, from theosophy to neo-Platonism. He followed the theories of the tradition of heterodox mysticism, neo-Platonism, Cabalism, Rosicrucianism. In this way, the exoticism of Yeast’s earliest poetry gives direction to a quieter handing of folk and fairy themes deriving from his deep sense of a basic dichotomy in the universe. The imagery in these poems is arranged in pairs of theoretical features such as; man and nature, the human world and fairy world, the domestic and the adventures, the transit and the eternal have given the ground of his creative word imagination. Yeats tries to combine a neo-platonic view of eternal ideas; transcendent realm and the manifestation of spirituality are the basic themes of his Irish heroic history and legends10 (A critical history of English Literature, p. 1127). As he has been mentioned in his following poem; With beauty like a tightened bow, a kind That is not natural in an age like this Being high and solitary and most stern …was there another Troy for her to burn? (No Second Troy) Metaphysically, well used the icon of beauty about his sweetheart Maud Gonne that her perfection of beauty is similar to Helen and she will sure burn the region of Yeast’s heart. This expression comes under the doctrine of Phantasmagoria that refers to the description of personal life through his personal experience whether they deal with his own tragic, remorse or rejection and loneliness11 (Sharma, p. 27).

The eminent feature of his poetry is the concept of Druidism that deals with a religious system that prevailed among the ancient Celts of Gaul and Britain. According to Caesar, the Druids were a learned and priestly class. They believed in the immortality and transmigration of the soul. Their rites were conducted in the oak-groves, and the oak and mistletoe were objects of

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veneration to them. So it is the chief doctrine of the opinion that the soul is immortal. Besides it, magicians and soothsayers perform the role of Druids in Irish mythology as A. G. Stock has rightly explained the pattern of Druidism in the following manner; Tradition in Ireland is that the gods were there before the Gaels came, that they fought for their possession of the country and last came to terms and withdrew into the hills, leaving the surface of the land to invaders. And before the gods, there were darker powers, some of still survive. However that may be, the land is alive with spirit who are known and respected. Their deeds in different places are remembered: history trails away into myth and myth is projected forward in history. There are fairy hills, green terraced mounds into which no farmer will drive plowshare. The fairies are seldom talked of and most seldom by that name for fear of drawing their attention to the speaker.

In consequence, Yeats means the stream of the concept of soul and anti soul is the part of the stage of immortality and death and life circle12 (Sharma, pp. 61-62). To explain his vision towards philosophy and doctrine of Vedanta have in scripted in his elaborated work A Vision (1925) and Magic (1901) configuring the mystical and mysterious perspective of English literature. Along with, he followed the same appeal in his poetry that has been used by the famous mystic poet William Blake in the following ways; (1) the borders of our minds are ever- shifting, and that many minds can flow into one another, as it were, and create or reveal a single mind, a single energy. (2) That the borders of our memories are as shifting, and that our memories are a part of one great memory, the memory of Nature herself. (3) That this great mind and great memory can be evoked by symbols13 (Mystic Celtic Myth, and the Occult, web p. 29).

Conclusion: in the respect of above description it can be said that Yeats is a famous poet of the twentieth century by his great contribution to the literary genres of symbolism, existentialism, absurdism, the anxiety of influence, surrealism, naturalism, and eco-criticism. He is not only achieved popularity in the field of personal expression but also got mastery in the traditional motifs. In one hand, he gives the detail of legendary of Greek Epics through his well- known poems The Wild Among the Reeds, The Rose, A full Moon in the March and on the other

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hand his motivating speeches are concerning in the following poems; The Tower(1928), The Celtic Twilight, a Vision(1937). Yeats as an Irish poet has formatted the various elements of poetic construction of availing motifs such as superstitious, belief in Gods and Magic, the poet of magic, Irish nationalism, the influence of Vedanta and Raja Yoga, Influence of occultism and very popular theme of phantasmagoria (personal description). These salient features have proved him the great Avant-Garde of his age.

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References:

1. Grene N. Yeats and the Re-making of Synge. In: Brown T., Grene N. (eds) Tradition and Influence in Anglo-Irish Poetry. Palgrave Macmillan, London. P.64. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-09470-7_4

2. Jeffares, Norman. W. B. Yeats: The critical heritage. 1997, Psychology Press. Pp. 410-411.

3. Welch, Robert. WB Yeats: Writings on Irish Folklore, Legend and Myth. (1993). UK: Penguin. Contents.

4. Ibid,. p.194..

5. Balinisteanu, Tudor. WB Yeats, Social Myth, and Monoglossia. Violence, Narrative and Myth in Joyce and Yeats.

Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2013. 117

6. Ronsley, Joseph, ed. Myth and Reality in Irish Literature. Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press, 2006. P.1.

7. C. C. S Forum. Symbolism in Yeats Poetry. 2000. Web 15 Jan, 2020.

http://www.cssforum.com.pk/css-optional-subjects/group-v/english-literature/86728-symbolism-yeats-poetry.html

8. Sharma, R. B. W. B. Yeats: Select poems. 12th ed. Meerut: Sahitya Bhandar, 2003. P. 47.

9. Ibid, pp.210-211.

10. Daiches, David. A Critical History of English Literature: the Restoration to the Present-day, Vol. 3. Supernova

Publishers, 1960.p. 1127

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11. Sharma, R. B. W. B. Yeats: Select poems. 12th ed. Meerut: Sahitya Bhandar, 2003. P. 27.

12. Ibid, pp. 61-62.

13. Omeka. Mystic Celtic Myth and the Occult. Digital Exhibits UWM Libraries Special Collection, web. 13 Jan. 2020. P.29. http://liblamp.uwm.edu/omeka/SPC2/exhibits/show/yeats/mysticism

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