The Magnificence of Unageing Intellect in Yeats’s Later Poems

Abstract

Yeats’s The Tower (1928) has important poetic elements that reflect his keen awareness of old age found in both his poetry collections and other volumes. This collection of poems, The Tower, includes several of Yeats’s most famous poems, including “The Tower,” “Sailing to Byzantium,” “Leda and the Swan,” “Among School Children,” and “A Man and Old.” Yeats had preferred symbolic and romantic settings and themes; however, when he was nearly 60, his health began to fail. Moreover, he was faced with real life rather than imaginary life, “bodily decrepitude” and nearness to death. In “The Tower,” he describes the absurdity of becoming old. As he is getting physically weak, however, he develops a more passionated desire than ever. “Sailing to Byzantium” is Yeats’s definitive statement about the agony of old age; moreover, in the expression “sick with desire (ll, 21),” he shows that his heart is sick as the remnants of worldly desires spilt over. Eventually, he has more concern with Byzantium artwork and elevates the intellectual capacity of old age even though his body is decrepit.