Blake vs. Yeats

358 Words1 Page
bulb-icon

Recommended: How does religion impact literature

BLAKE VS. YEATS

William Butler Yeats was a great poet from the twentieth century. His ideal world was made up of a spiritual journey and a spiritual transformation. Yeats ideal world was based on art and aesthetics of the natural world. He wanted permanence and something that would last forever. However, William Blake, a romantic poet from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, had ideas that revolved around God and His impact on his life. Blake wanted a place that established balance, understanding, and wisdom. Blake also wanted an idea of where people were going life instead of believing in predestination. Blake and Yeats both have ideas for what they want their lives and their own world to be like. Some of their ideas seem to be similar, while others clash and are completely different.

In "Sailing to Byzantium", Yeats wrote "And therefore I have sailed the seas and come/ to the holy city of Byzantium." (lines 15 and 16). This line suggests that Yeats was on a spiritual journey to find the place that he belongs, a place that will last forever. Yeats also wrote that he wants stability and to get away from the world. Blake also wanted to find a place and rebuild a new society. In "A New Jerusalem" from "Milton", Blake wrote, "Til we have built Jerusalem,In England's green and pleasant Land" (lines 15 and 16) refer to the rebuilding of a better place. Jerusalem refers to the Holy Land, where Blake feels that he can become closer to Jesus Christ.

In "Sailing to Byzantium", Yeats wrote of the animals as "sensual music" (line 7) which helps the audience feel the peacefulness that he yearns for. Yeats uses his thorough descriptions in this poem to make his audience see where his heart wants to be amidst the chaotic world that he had currently lived in. Yeats was also complaining of growing old in this poem and how the world takes away so much of people's innocence and they are left without traditions, intelligence, and consequences of their actions. William Blake's poem also circulates around the theme of the loss of innocence. Blake becomes aggressive in the third stanza of A New Jerusalem, writing, "Bring me my Bow of burning gold:/ Bring me my Arrows of desire:/ Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold! Bring me my Chariot of fire!" (lines 9-12).

Show More
Related

  • How Does William Blake convey his anger in the poem London ?

    1495 Words  | 3 Pages

    angered him and inspired him to convey his ideas and feelings through the poem 'London'. In the poem, Blake travels through London and describes what he sees. And as a result, he sees a severely oppressed society that is caused by the authority, such as royalty, and the church. This is as Blake sees. that even the streets and the thames are 'chartered' and governed.

    Read More

  • Anaysis of William Blake's The Lamb, The Tyger, and Proverbs of Hell

    1165 Words  | 3 Pages

    Blake’s poetry focuses on imagination. When Blake created his work, it gained very little attention. Blake’s artistic and poetic vision is reflected in his creations. Blake was against the Church of England because he thought the doctrines were being misused as a form of social control, it meant the people were taught to be passively obedient and accept oppression, poverty, and inequality. In Blake’s poems “The Lamb,” “The Tyger,” and Proverbs of Hell, he shows that good requires evil in order to exist through imagery of animals and man.

    Read More

  • The Mental Traveller by William Blake

    1708 Words  | 4 Pages

    William Blake is a literature genius. Most of his work speaks volume to the readers. Blake’s poem “The Mental Traveller” features a conflict between a male and female that all readers can relate to because of the lessons learned as you read. The poet William Blake isn’t just known for just writing. He was also a well-known painter and a printmaker. Blake is considered a seminal figure in the history of poetry. His poems are from the Romantic age (The end of the 18th Century). He was born in Soho, London, Great Britain. He was the third of seven children. Even though Blake was such an inspiration as a writer he only went to school just enough to read and write. According to Bloom’s critical views on William Blake; one of Blake’s inspirations was the Bible because he believed and belonged to the Moravian Church.

    Read More

  • William Butler Yeats

    832 Words  | 2 Pages

    Yeats' early work was not especially Irish. Soon, however, he began to look to the ancient rituals and pagan beliefs of the land for his artistic inspiration. He tried to merge this interest with his aristocratic tastes to create an original Irish poetry and to establish his own identity.

    Read More

  • Comparing and Contrasting the Poetry of Lord Byron and William Blake

    1029 Words  | 3 Pages

    William Blake’s works’ were simpler than Lord Byron’s. Blake took a softer approach as he expressed his ideas without saying too much. His works included phrases that had more meaning to its simple message. He took what he had learned in the world and added it into his poetry. He was able to capture all sides of life whether it dealt with a child or the unknown presence of an object. He was bale to take the little and turn it into something big that would be remembered for a long time.

    Read More

  • William Butler Yeats and William Blake

    2712 Words  | 6 Pages

    It has been acknowledged by many scholars that Yeats' study of Blake greatly influenced his poetic expression. This gives rise to the widely held assertion that Yeats is indebted to Blake. While I concur with this assertion, I feel that the perhaps greater debt is Blake's.

    Read More

  • Rebellion As Art By William Blake

    2117 Words  | 5 Pages

    Blake had an uncanny ability to use his work to illustrate the unpleasant and often painful realities around him. His poetry consistently embodies an attitude of revolt against the abuse of class and power that appears guided by a unique brand of spirituality. His spiritual beliefs reached outside the boundaries of religious elites loyal to the monarchy. “He was inspired by dissident religious ideas rooted in the thinking of the most radical opponents of the monarchy during the English Civil War “(E. P. Thompson). Concern with war and the blighting effects of the industrial revolution were displayed in much of his work.

    Read More

  • Blake Comparison

    916 Words  | 2 Pages

    Interestingly enough, William Blake's poems from Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience usually provide common topics but opposite perspectives; each perspective accomplished my means of unique writing techniques. "The Shepherd" from Songs of Innocence and "The Garden of Love" from Songs of Experience have in common the experiences of a shepherd but "The Shepherd" creates a joyful and friendly mood through the word choice of Blake while "The Garden of Love" creates a sorrowful mood by means of imagery.

    Read More

  • William Butler Yeats

    1678 Words  | 4 Pages

    William Butler Yeats was born on June thirteenth, eighteen sixty-five, at ten-forty pm, in Sandymount, Dublin (Foster, 13). He grew up lanky, untidy, slightly myopic, and extremely thin. He had black hair, high cheek bones, olive skin, and slanting eyes (Foster, 34). It was presumed he was Tubercular. As a child he was ridiculed, mainly because of his Irish heritage (Foster, 16). He accomplished many things in his life time.

    Read More

  • The Theme of Authority in William Blake's Poetry

    720 Words  | 2 Pages

    The theme of authority is possibly the most important theme and the most popular theme concerning William Blake’s poetry. Blake explores authority in a variety of different ways particularly through religion, education and God. Blake was profoundly concerned with the concept of social justice. He was also profoundly a religious man. His dissenting background led him to view the power structures and legalism that surrounded religious establishments with distrust. He saw these as unwarranted controls over the freedom of the individual and contrary to the nature of a God of liberty. Figures such as the school master in the ‘schoolboy’, the parents in the ‘chimney sweeper’ poems, the guardians of the poor in the ‘Holy Thursday’, Ona’s father in ‘A Little girl lost’ and the priestly representatives of organised religion in many of the poems, are for Blake the embodiment of evil restriction.

    Read More

  • Literature and the Industrial Revolution

    349 Words  | 1 Pages

    He led strong beliefs that were occasionally mentioned in his work. One was that everyone is equal and is mentioned in 'All Religions Are One': "As all men are alike (tho' infinitely various)" He based most of his works in the style of Romanticism - Blake wrote from the heart, he let his thoughts and beliefs take over. Some of Blake?s poems include ?

    Read More

  • Comparison of William Butler Yeats Poems The Lake Isle of Innestree, The Wild Swans at Cole, and Sailing to Byzantium

    536 Words  | 2 Pages

    To begin, the poem, The Lake Isle of Innisfree, uses the lake Innisfree to send a symbolic message. Yeats begins by telling us where it is he is leaving to. “I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made…” (Pg. 1141, lines 1-2) Once he tells us of where he is going, he then uses lake as a symbol to describe his place of peace and serenity. “And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow, dropping from the viels of the morning to where the cricket sings; there midnights all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow, and evenin...

    Read More

  • A Literary Analysis of Symbolism in Yeats’s Texts

    710 Words  | 2 Pages

    In Yeats’ Byzantium, there is the symbol of the boat, and or sailing. This poem talks about aging. The opening line, “That is no country for old men” (Pg. 1147 Line 1) even states that the speaker, an old man, is leaving the country because he is too old now. In lines 15-16, the speaker states, “And therefore I have sailed the seas and come to the holy city of Byzantium.” This basically means that the speaker has lived, and now he is old, and he is going to die, and go to a better place. Although we think that Yeats is talking about Heaven, but he believed in reincarnation, so the speaker would be reincarnated into something better.

    Read More

  • Westminster Bridge and London

    1471 Words  | 3 Pages

    The poems ‘lines composed on Westminster Bridge’ and ‘London’ are created by William Wordsworth and William Blake respectively. Wordsworth’s work originated in the eighteenth century and he himself lived in the countryside, and rarely visited large cities such as London. This is reflected in his poem, making it personal to his experience in London, however William Blake on the other hand had a vast knowledge of London and was actually a London poet, which allowed him to express his views of London from a Londoner’s point of view. I therefore will be examining comparisons in both poems, as well as their contrasting views of London and the poetic devices used to express their opinions. Wordsworth believed in pantheism, the religion of nature, meaning he believed that nature depicted religion as well as the atmosphere of a particular place.

    Read More

  • An Analysis of the Symbols in Yeat’s Poems

    920 Words  | 2 Pages

    Throughout our lives, symbols and their meaning have had a great influence in our day to day living. Whether it is our country symbolizing itself with a flag or national seal, or our own faith, being symbolized as a cross, or as an angel; in fact religion has many sorts of symbols to tie it to together and for representation. Along with religion having many symbols, the great poet of William Butler Yeats had many symbols in his works and poetry. Throughout his countless poems, Yeats used different symbols to convey his message to his readers. Although from reading several of his works, many of Yeats’ poems revolve around death. In the texts by William Butler Yeats entitled, “When you are Old” “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” “The Wild Swans at Coole” “The Second Coming” and “Sailing to Byzantium” all have their own sort of symbolism that Yeats uses to convey his message to his readers.

    Read More

More about Blake vs. Yeats

Open Document