Discuss Yeats as a ‘Last Romantic’
with reference to the poems on your syllabus.
Yeats began writing poems in the
romantic, and pore- Raphaelite tradition. There was an echo of Shelley and
Spenser and the Pre-Raphaelites in his poetry. The early poetry of W.B Yeats is
not realistic. There is a distinct echo of the Romantics in the poems of his
early period. Even in his later poems, despite the realistic diction and an
effort to bring his poetry to the earth, Yeats is till not free from the spell
of the fairies, ghosts, magic and the mysterious world. He is indeed, the last
romantic. In this regard we may mention Wordsworth’s famous saying:
“Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive
But
to be young was very heaven “
Escapism:
Escapism from
the realities of life is a distinctly romantic quality. Yeats’s early poetry
was strongly influenced by William Morris and the Pre- Raphaelites. The poems
that made him famous were the lyrics first published in The Scots Observer,
and reprinted with The Wanderings of Oisin and the collection called The
Rose. They are dreamy romantic lyrics, such as To an Island in the Water,
The Lake Isle of Innisfree, The Sorrow of Love and When You Are
Old. About the lake Isle of Innisfree, Steven wrote; “It is so quaint and
airy, simple, artful, and eloquent to the heart”. His early poems made him very
popular with a section of the English middle class which wanted to forget the ngliness
and vulgarity of the industrial civilization and escape in to the mists of an
imaginary Celtic Twilight. All the characteristic features and flavour of
romantic poetry are present in most of Yeast’s early poems. In The Lake Isle
of Innisfree he says:
“I will arise and go now,
and go to Innisfree;
And a small cabin blind there…”
Mysticism:
Yeats’s mysticism like that of
Blake, is also a romantic trait. To Yeats, a poet was very close to a mystic
and the poet’s experience like the mystic’s is capable of giving to the poem a
spiritual world whose existence is very real. Much of the power, even of his
later poetry has to do with what he talks of in that mystical work, A Vision,
A Vision in many ways touches upon the supernatural realities from which a
poet can choose his imagery.
