The double poetic of W. B. Yeats

Abstract

In the double poetic of W. B. Yeats, a certain relation between poems is initiated; and this relation is not only interpreted by means of various approaches to the theories of intertextuality but rather the theory of deconstruction as well. Yeats makes it so his poems lean on one another, creating in his poetic practice a self-referentiality, owing to the fact that he uses his own poetry as a basis for further verse-creation. Reality is, in fact, art, which is why in the space between poems a narrative pointed toward diverse themes is formed. One of these themes is art and the poet’s experience of creating a work of art which the poet showcases in his own writings through indications such as repeated verses or themes that guide the reader into a multifaceted nexus of meaning and space between poems in which they create and write a new work of art in the form of an interpretation. Writing about their own experience of the poem, the poet writes about the poem itself, making the experience of writing and the poem the themes of the poem. However, by writing about their own experience of how they write, the poet achieves a complex modernist meta-quality. They do not directly talk about the poem and the laws it rests upon nor do they critique previous rules and derive ideologies behind them nor do they personally set foot in the work of art as is in postmodernism, but rather they do so by means of complex poetic images. These images enable the intricate meta-quality that refers us to the space between poems and makes another important characteristic through which Yeats gets close to modernist poetic possible – communication. The poems communicate with one another and in that exchange the question and theme of communication, which is of great importance to modernist poetic both in poetry and narrative, is raised. If it could be said that money is the main topic of realism, then time would be the main topic of the stream-of-consciousness novel, as well as, in a sense, the modernist novel in general. What distinguishes modernist poetic, besides the theme of communication as a form of discourse – a transfer of knowledge – is the creation of both the identity of the work of art itself and the very social function of the poet – a topos theme of world literature – made possible through the self-same communication. Moreover, communication does not only involve the exchange between two or more poems, in which by way of repetition is the différance of the same, in the space between two or more poems shown, but also the change and transposition of meaning from one place to another. In this way, modernist poets directly deal with the issues of the creation of art itself and the fundamental, often indistinguishable question of what artistic is and when the border between the artistic and inartistic is crossed in a work of art. Through the use of paratextual material – the title, subtitle and the comments – the reader is included in the creation of the work of art as an important link. They as the semiotic reader, in Eco’s terms, through their own literary knowledge create a work of art in which they communicate with the author, while simultaneously correcting that selfsame communication by means of their inner semantic reader whom they never forget, since the writer beguiles their readers through intertextual irony and, especially, meta-quality. The doubleness of reading marks the duality of the creation of a work that has double relations: to itself and to the reality that it – through other works – either expresses or denies but always regards again and again with its writing and its relation to it. What does double relation mean? For example, one’s semiotic reader who notices the marks left by the writer must follow multiple paths of one’s semantic reader and pay attention to the basic meanings of words and concepts so as to keep the semiotic reader from straying away and implementing their own laws into the work that had previously not been present in it and, in doing so, giving an impressionistic critique. Duality/Doubleness is at the very core of the work of art itself since it does not rely on something other than it – be it set in a realist, objective reality or in a modernist, inner, subjective reality – but rather turns to itself. Art has bent towards itself, yet since it utilizes traces of various cultures or its own indications, which it spreads throughout the entirety of the work, different poems or a single poem, connecting the piece in question not only with itself, but also with other poems, makes it so that the work of art, having art as its basis, bents from itself and presents its reality through the mirror of other monuments of art, other works of art and their hierarchical values. Thus, in a circumvented, mediated and transmitted way, the work of art conveys reality without really talking about it. In modernist verse poetic, the social role of the poet, which consists of, among other things, the poet writing about the problems of their time, is expressed by way of self-referentiality. Given that after the Great War an instability of meaning and significance ensued, art started relying on itself, its previous forms, and on the individual creator’s own works. In doing so, art critically illuminated the conflicting views on various issues – from the status of art to the changes in societal, hierarchical characteristics. Likewise, when art bent towards itself, making itself its own basis, in addition to the feature of meta-quality, it also led to the visible surfacing of the writer’s experience in the writing, which is reflected in the visual presentation and way of creating the writing. A poem becomes the way it was composed/written in, but also a finished work of art that remains open to many an interpretation that draws from its reservoir of meaning and implications, the meanings and implications necessary for the readers’ new creations of meaning. At the same time, new literary forms are being created. No longer can discourse be made about pure novels or poems, just as T. S. Eliot called Joyce’s Finnegans Wake a narrative poem. New literary forms, especially in poetry, have not only lyrical, monolithic, metaphorical voices, but also multifarious, metonymic, narrative voices. One of the methods by which they are recognized and perceived are precisely the opposing views and expressing of critical thought that was previously not legitimate within literature because of it being more associated with essays. Critical thought in Yeats was shaped in several ways. One of them would be a dialogical, intertextual method in which, as in a narrative agon, the perspectives uttered by personae – figures with clear and univocal opinions – are opposed. Such poetic subjects can either be present in one poem or appear in several of them, which are then connected with one another and brought together into a whole by the reader. This form of communication can be presented in a more complex way: the reliance of one poem on another through motifs that express already established opposing/contrasting positions in the form of binary oppositions such as death/life, sensual/eternal, old age/youth, creator/work of art, experience of reading/experience of writing, etc. All oppositions carry with them an ideological division and are as old as civilization itself, yet the ones previously derived are of significance to Yeats’ poetic. Having said that binary opposite is not the path this poet chooses, Yeats wants the perspectives and opinions they carry with them to be not only connected, but rather intertwined: at the core of eternal time is sensual time. A constant intertwining can be found and in that intertwining Yeats sees reality, the world, art, the work of art, and the creator and his experience and potential to create. Similarly, T. S. Eliot in his Four Quartets states through verse-traces that eternal time is unredeemable because there is nothing to be redeemed. Only in sensual time can one make a mistake and for that mistake or misdeed receive forgiveness, which carries with it a cluster of concepts such as confession, repentance, redemption, forgiveness and salvation. The intertwining is reflected in the fact that the world of art is the city of art, Byzantium – at the same time a holy city where many religions meet and an isolated place, yet one that everyone wants to enter – that for Yeats represents a holy city of art: that which is sacred is art, not a religious thinking of any kind. Like the vision of Byzantium, art is a metaphorical image for the status of a poet who, as a rule, is always in some form of exile. The creator of art, as T. S. Eliot states in a letter to his friend, M. Hutchinson, is a metic. They possess the ability/skill (techne) to create, but are concurrently a part of Greek society and outside of it; they possess certain rights akin to free citizens, yet cannot participate in social life and be integrated into the society fully. Therefore, the metic is at the same time in the centre and on the edge of society. Because of their skill, they are respected and praised to a certain extent, yet their dissociation from the non-native society brings upon them disrespect, contempt, and a lack of rights compared to those who can have an impact on the government. The sole reason for their still being part of the society, regardless of their double position of simultaneously having and not having the same rights as other free citizens, is the ability and skill they possess and many others need. It is precisely in this need that the creator of art today can be distinguished from the metic, but also be compared to them, since – if attention is turned towards the social role – they, on the one hand, have a place to fill in the society, and a secured place at that, while on the other hand, they are not deserving of that place if they cannot fulfil the role which they are talented and chosen for. The poet should, however, express the problems of their own society because of that being their social role and no one but them being able to express it better since they are the ones in possession of techne. Contrastingly, the poet is also, as Yeats points out, a visionary: they see better and more and see differently than ordinary people. Thus, this isolation in poetic can only be treated and interpreted as per negationem poetic. The poets of modernism do achieve the aforementioned role of a social/poetic bard but they do so in a different way – by constructing a poetic image. In Yeats’ poetic, this kind of image is achieved in various ways. One of the categories that combines a large number of these ways is the category of repetition. Repetition is accomplished through verse-traces, themes or ways of constructing the poems themselves. Nothing stays the same after having been repeated. Not only do the poems rely on each other, but the reader is given a glimpse of the space between these poems and they are able to gain insight into the self-same space. Yeats leaned the two poems that had been analysed here, Sailing to Byzantium and Byzantium, on one another. In the space between them the context is not something that comes from the outside of these poems, but rather, for the most part, the context is already inside the poems themselves. Drawing such an inference based on the mutual analysis of these two poems, as well as Yeats’ poetic as a whole, it is now questioned whether this Irish poet characterised as bard is also, in fact, a modernist poet. Based on the presented observation and analysis of his poems, it has been shown that Yeats can be interpreted intertextually, meaning that he is, indeed, a modernist poet. This would have another implication: that his poetic creation is interpreted as a system. The difference in translation from English into German has been taken as an example of the other meanings that arose in that space. The German translator was at certain moments more precise during the process of translating and transferring of meaning from one place to another. In doing so, he was able to point out to the reader, by means of translation, which is always based on the conveying and displacing of meaning, new possible meanings. All this would not have been possible had they previously not connected the poems. It has been shown that in the case of double poetic it is impossible to interpret a single poem without the semiotic reader urging us to take into consideration a poem of a similar title. The translation, albeit neglected and set aside, plays a major role in modernist poetic. It has been demonstrated that Yeats is an early modernist, and thus that modernist poetic is a complex system in which indications of the poet themselves are discernible but in which tradition is not abandoned, either. In terms of the complex system, substructures that influence the main structures are also distinguishable in the denotative chain. That which is fashion can very easily become anti-mode. Through substructures that are part of the cluster of concepts of main structures, it is possible to convey and perceive certain changes that not only refer to art and the work of art, but, on the contrary, indicate changes in the entire civilizational course of our culture. That is why it is necessary to compare the cultures of different nations in order to determine or notice changes in the creation of the individual’s identity within the entirety of civilization, as well as to determine how the place and status of a poem, and the poet themselves, have changed. Who speaks to us today, who poetically writes to us today, and why they speak and write poems and poetic texts for us is something we must determine for ourselves while utilizing all of the tools left to us by our cultural heritage.