Innisfree to Byzantium: Yeats''s Spiritual Journey

• Main Authors: Meng-Chiao Chuang, 莊孟樵
• Other Authors: Ya-Feng Wu
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2008
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/30433488367110323180

碩士 === 國立臺灣大學 === 外國語文學研究所 === 96 === Inspired by R. K. R. Thornton’s essay, “How Far is it from Innisfree to Byzantium?,” this thesis intends to supplement what Thornton has overlooked in his paper by including a more detailed comparison between the two imaginary locales and the difference or / and the similarity between the early Yeats and the late Yeats. By closely comparing poems from The Rose and The Tower, this thesis argues that the distance between Innisfree and Byzantium is “no distance at all” as Thornton maintains, that Yeats’s change of style is intentional rather than coincidental. Yeats’s change of style, therefore, is his sleight of hand, a way of presenting his multi-faceted self with imagined gestures and poses. And even though Yeats seems to have found the solution for haunting sensual music, the problem of death is actually insolvable. To sum up, Yeats had been fumbling upon the similar themes within different language and styles. Even if he touched upon many different issues along his literary career, the issue of the soul had always been what he concerned most.