Sailing to Byzantium

William Butler Yeats 1928

First published in the collection The Tower in 1928, “Sailing to Byzantium” explores the dichotomies between age and youth, as well as sensuality and spirituality. The speaker is “an aged man” who comes to the realization that youth and the sensual life are no longer an option for him, and he commences on a spiritual journey to the ideal world of Byzantium. Yeats felt that the civilization of Byzantium represented a zenith in art, spirituality, and philosophy. It seems logical then that in the poem Byzantium symbolizes a place where the spiritless can journey in order to seek out the spiritual. In Byzantium the speaker is able to discard the natural element of his body in favor of the immortal, spiritual element of his soul.

Motifs in the poem include images of birds singing, gold, and fire. All these evoke the theme of immortality. Consider that since the poem examines the dichotomy of youth and age, a way to bridge this conflict is through immortality. Notice that the first stanza of the poem examines the natural or sensual world, while the second stanza explores the world of aging and spirituality. These first two stanzas set up the conflict of the poem. In the third stanza the speaker reaches Byzantium. Here the creation through fire of a golden bird intertwines the two worlds. The body is no longer natural, but is composed of gold, a more beautiful element and one that will not decay.