Sailing to Byzantium: Poem Analysis

Central Theme and Byzantium

• The central theme of W.B. Yeats' poem, Sailing to Byzantium, is the speaker's desire to escape the decay of the natural world and seek eternal life and spiritual enlightenment in a world of art and intellect.
• Byzantium symbolizes a realm of eternal beauty, spirituality, and artistic perfection, where the speaker hopes to find a more permanent and meaningful existence.

Tone and Attitude

• The tone of the poem's opening stanza is one of disillusionment and frustration with the natural world, which is portrayed as declining and impermanent.
• The speaker's attitude towards the natural world is critical and dismissive, viewing it as a place of change, decay, and mortality, where "whatever is begotten, born, and dies" (emphasizing the transience of life).

Symbolic Imagery

• The 'golden birds' in the poem are a symbol of the artistic and spiritual realm, which the speaker aspires to join, and represent the beauty, harmony, and permanence that Byzantium embodies.
• The golden birds, sitting on a "golden bough" (a symbol of art and intellect), sing of eternal beauty, emphasizing the contrast between the natural world's decay and the eternal perfection of Byzantium.