Romanticism in Yeats Poetry

"Earth, receive an honoured guest:

William Yeats is laid to rest.
Let the Irish vessel lie
Emptied of its poetry."

W. H. Auden (1907 - 1973)

British poet.

"In Memory of W. B. Yeats"

Introduction:
William Butler Yeats, the winner of Noble Prize for literature (1924) and one of the greatest
modern poets, is regarded as a romantic poet by many critics. His poetry comprises of different
features_ Occultism, symbolism, as love poet and romanticism etc. in all, his occupation of
poetic art is reveals in very flash way. He believed in art for art’s sake in his early age and
became the advocate of this notion_ art for art’s sake in his later period. He defined poetry as:
“The commonsense of the soul: it distinguishes greatness from triviality, mere fancifulness
from beauty that lights up the deeps of thoughts.”

Romanticism:
Regarding to the romanticism in Yeats poetry, he was, like poets of nineteenth century also
inspired by a profound romantic urge. Due his marvelous romantic works_ The Lake Isle of
Innisfree, When you are Old, Among the School Children, The Wild Swans at Coole, having all
the characteristics of romanticism which can be distinctly found in pure romantics_ Wordsworth,
Shelley, Keats and Coleridge, such as subjectivity, imagination, emotion, love for Nature, love
for art and beauty, nostalgia, escapism, idealism, symbolism, mysticism, myth maker art for art’s
sake etc. He is also known is the last romantic poet. He was also a great myth maker which is
evident in all his romantic works.
According to Cleanth Brooks:
“(Yeats was) the most ambitious attempt made by any poet of our time to set up a myth.”
To elucidate the romanticism let us have any eye on different traits of romanticism in Yeats
poetry.
Lake Isle of Innisfree is the greatest and most widely read romantic poem of Yeats. Having
almost all the features of romanticism_ imagination, love for nature, love for beauty and
emotions, it also has been regarded as the pure romantic poem like “Tintern Abbey” by
Wordsworth.
“I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the road way, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.
A sense of melancholy is a common subject in most of the romantic poets. A kind of lamentation
on the disappearance of the good things is found in most of the romantic poets. This sense of
melancholy is also found in Yeats’ poetry. He was in love with Maud Gonne but could not win
her. So, all through his life, he suffered from his sense of melancholy. He says in “The Wild
Swans at Coole” and feels himself defeated;

I have looked upon those brilliant creatures,

And now my heart is sore.
In “Sailing to Byzantium” Yeats tries to escape from the reality of life which is also an important
trait of romantic poetry He says:
Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
Love for nature is one of the major Romantic traits. It is no exception regarding Yeats. His love
for nature can clearly be seen in “The Wild Swans at Coole”. He sees calmness even in winter.

The trees are in their autumn beauty,

The woodland paths are dry,
Another Yeats’ romantic trait is nostalgia for the old Ireland, Maud Gonne and his past. Yeats
feels nostalgic in his poem “Among School Children”. He says:

I dream of a Ledaean body, bent

Above a sinking fire,
Self-revelation is another romantic trait in Yeats’ poetry. Like Romantics, he also wrote deeply
personal poetry revealing his spirit, thoughts, feelings and so on. In “Easter 1916”, he remarks on
various persons who had been close with him in his life. In “The Tower”, he is able to sublimate
his loss of Maud Gonne. He says:

Does the imagination dwell the most

Upon a woman won or woman lost?
Yeats also wrote poetry under the influence of Keats. In his early poems, there are many
references and parallels to the poetry of Keats. Influenced by Keats, he wishes to escape into an
ideal world of Byzantium and to transform into a “golden bird”:
To set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
In the light of the above talk, we can say that W. B. Yeats is a poet of the romantic mode. His
very creative personality, propensity to escape to the perfect world to dispose of the unfeeling
substances of time, affection for nature, craving to relax alone and to discover comfort in the lap
of nature, utilization of myth, legend, enchantment and Irish folkloric convictions, interpretation
of his particular perspectives and plans, joining of his individual sufferings and baffled
sentiments all these put the poet in the immediate line with the Romantics. As he says about his
most perfect romantic poem.
“From sudden remembrance came my poem “Innisfree,” my first lyric with anything in its
rhythm of my own music.”