"Sailing to Byzantium”: Prolegomena to a Poetics of the Lyric by Elder Olson

                 Olson’s essay on Yeats is of interest because of its general relevance to Yeats poetry on its particular analysis of “Sailing to Byzantium” and what the analysis provides as a critical exemplum Olson is concerned with the principal part of the poem. He clearly modifies his view on the poem “Sailing to Byzantium”. The modification involves his recognition that the argument is the “activity” of the poem and then consequently. The character of its speaker is determined by action rather that, “its role in a drama, not action but of thought”. This modification is important because of unwarranted distinction between “thought and activity” has been eliminated.

                 Byzantium is a symbol of life after death; the name generally denotes the city of Constantinople. Byzantium is a transcendental country out of time and nature and it is a world of art and philosophy. “Byzantium is not a place upon a map, but a term in the poem, a term signifying a stage of contemplation, wherein the soul studies itself and so learns both what it is and what consists the true and eternal joy”.

                  Olson before proceeding to the “action” of the poem, he paraphrases its content: ” In Sailing to Byzantium an old man faces the problem of the old age, of death and of regeneration and gives his decision. He tells that old age, excludes a man from the sensual joys of youth; the world appears to belong completely to the young, it is no place for the old; indeed an old man is scarcely a man at all- he is an empty artifice and effigy merely, of a man: he tattered coat upon a stick. This would be very bad, except that the young also are excluded from something; rapt in their sensuality, their ignorant at utterly of the world of the spirit. Hence if old age frees a man from sensual passion, he may rejoice in the liberation of the soul; he is admitted into the realm of the spirit; and his rejoicing, will increase according, as he realizes the magnificence of the soul. But the soul can learn its own greatness from the great works of art; hence he turns to those great works, but in turning to them, he finds that these are by no means mere effigies, or moments, but things which have souls also; these live in the noblest element of God’s fire free from all corruption; hence he prays to our death, for release from his mortal body; and since the unsoiled monuments exhibit the possibility of the soul’s existence in some other matter than flesh, he wishes reincarnation, nor now in a mortal body, but in the immortal and changeless embodiment of art”.

                 The terms around which the poem is organized are a series of opposition-youth, sensually active but spiritually passive, the kind of old age lacks both sensually and spiritually. On analyzing the poem, we find in the first two stanzas art is considered as inanimate, as an object of contemplation. In the second two stanzas art is considered as animate, God’s who can consume the last shred of the old man’s sensuality. The first stanza of the poem presents rejection of passion, second presents acceptance and realization that art of insouled, third presents a correction of embodiment an fourth presents the acceptance of the incorruptible. Olson also points out to the additional structural values of the poem which are both organic and geometric. 

                 Olson says that the basic terms of a lyric poem do not reveal their meanings from the chance associations of the reader. They do not conform to the dictionary meanings, but take their significance from the context. Olson says that the poetry takes its association from the context through the juxtaposition to other terms with which they are equated, contrasted, correlated or combined. Olson has also brought in some of the terms from the poem to defend his arguments. The term “Singing” is extended beyond its usual meaning to cover two kinds of jubilation-rejoice of the natural creature and that of the artificial as a consequence similarly “intellect” and all terms associated with it suffer extension. “Byzantium” is not a historical city and no tourist or historian is to contribute with information. It is not a glance upon a map but a term in the poem. Olson also argues that the poet’s uses object to fit in his poetry to convey his thought. Physical thing determinate the nature and is subject to physical laws, such as Newton’s law. Every poem is an independent universe with its law provided by the poet. Olson concludes his argument by stating that the bare argument of “Sailing to Byzantium” is not of the poem but he argues that argument in the principle of the poem.

                The term “lyric” has given an extra-ordinary variety of applications and it varies with the approaches of literary criticism. The Critic analyses the various aspects of the poem “Sailing to Byzantium” and concludes that the poem is a poetics of the lyric form.

                                                                                                   By,
                                                                                                              S.T.Sreenidhi
                                                                                                    I M.A English Literature