Trace the romantic elements of Yeats’ poetry

Answer

Trace the romantic elements of Yeats’ poetry.

W. B. Yeats (1865-1939) is the most prominent poet of modern English literature. He has another identification: he is a romantic poet. His poetry is absorbed in the Romantic tradition. The early period of his poetry, known as “The Celtic Twilight,” is characterized by subjectivity, high imagination, romantic melancholy, escapism, and romantic interest in myth and folklore. On one occasion, Yeats described himself as one of “the last Romantics.”

High Imagination and Escapism: According to critic Charles Harold Herford, Romanticism is “an extraordinary development of imaginative sensibility.” Yeats’s poetry blazons the romantic quality of high imagination and escapism. In the poem “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” of the collection of poems “The Countess Kathleen and Various Legends and Lyrics” (1892), Yeats indicates his desire to escape from the hectic town life to the remote island of Innisfree. He would like to build a small cabin of clay, wattles, and his daily necessities with his hands.

The poet also imagines the sweet music of birds and insects. He feels the rhythm of nature will lull him into peaceful sleep. It helps him come in contact with nature so forcefully that he can see the place in his imagination. In his mind’s eye, he imagines the gentle movement of lake water. It is in the poet’s tongue:

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway or the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

The above quotation is evidence of the Romantic longing of the poet to scrap city life in favor of life around nature. Besides, the language of this poem is decorative and musical. It conforms to the notion of romantic poetry.

Subjectivity: Many of Yeats’s poems bring subjective matter from his life. “A Prayer for My Daughter” of the collection of poetry “