Yeats’s Redefinition of Poetic Self in Nature Symbolism

Abstract

William Butler Yeats has been always attracted to mythology and its affinities with poetic creation. Besides, nature has played an influential role in his art. Benefiting from archetypal approach, this paper tries to cast light on Yeats’s definition of soul’s eternity and poetic self. Poet’s quest and his creative art are reflected by a set of nature symbols like swan. Through confrontation with nature, examining it as a source of ideas, motifs, and myths, Yeats sheds light on his interior state of self to create art. For him, art is a means of self-realization. It is concluded that his poetic contemplations on the inevitable changes of life, reflected in the macrocosm of nature, offer both the writer and reader a fuller vision of reality.