Sailing to Byzantium (1926) by William Butler Yeats is one of the most notable poems in The Tower, a famous collection of poems published in 1929. The poem is notable in part for because of its highly suggestive and ambiguous language, which lends itself to various interpretations. For example, many critics of the poem offer radically different readings of the poem's conclusion. Carol Morgan, a contemporary critic of Yeats, asserts that the form of the poem offers insight into the speaker's fate. She claims that a comparison of the rhyme scheme in the first and last stanza reveals that the speaker finds salvation within Byzantium. She argues that the last stanza, unlike the first, uses a set of full triple rhymes in order to suggest order and harmony in Byzantium. According to Morgan, the half-rhymes of the first stanza emphasize the "chaotic" or "natural" state of the country and the restless anxiety of the narrator. In contrast, the use of full triple rhymes in the last stanza implies that such anxiety has been replaced by peaceful contentment (Morgan, Yeats: An Annual of Critical and Textual Studies, 141-142). This essay offers a radically different reading from Morgan's and bases its interpretation not only on the form of the poem but also on its language and images. Assessing the fate of the speaker in Byzantium requires analyzing Yeats's use of form, language, and imagery in individual stanzas and also comparing entire stanzas to each other. The poem's rhyming couplets, its use of alliteration, repetition, ambiguity, and its use of contrasting imagery all suggest that Byzantium is a pretentious, static, restrictive world that provokes apprehension in the speaker rather than in bring him salvation. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay A comparison of the rhyming couplets in the first and last stanza of the poem exposes the speaker's feelings of apprehension toward Byzantium. The first two stanzas contain couplets that constitute rhetorical statements in themselves. In the first stanza, the following couplets express the speaker's contempt for young people who neglect the world of art: Young people in each other's arms, birds in the trees / These dying generations – to their song / Caught in this sensual music, all careless / Monuments of unaging intellect In the second stanza, the speaker declares his interest in leaving the sensual world and entering the intellectual paradise of Byzantium: An aged man is but a paltry thing, / A tattered coat on a stick, unless / And that's why I sailed the seas. and come / To the holy city of Byzantium. The last two stanzas of the poem, which deal exclusively with the world of Byzantium, fail to make such statements and are not stand-alone rhetorical statements. Thus, the form of the poem can be seen as a regression from certainty to uncertainty, suggesting that the speaker feels apprehension in Byzantium and still retains his allegiance to his native Ireland. Additionally, the speaker's alienation and apprehension in Byzantium is also conveyed by the third verse. ambiguous language and the fourth's clever inversion of the second verse's rhyme scheme. The third stanza ends with this couplet: He does not know what it is; and gather me / In the artifice of eternity. The ambiguity of this couplet is emphasized by the use of the non-specific pronoun "that" rather than the more concrete word "heart" and evokes the idea of ​​alienation through the statement "He doesn't know whatthat it is.” The word "artifice" in the second line of the couplet echoes the words "art" and "artificial", thus suggesting that the artistic and artificial world of Byzantium provokes in the speaker a feeling of alienation. Furthermore, the final verse of the poem does not leave the reader with a positive impression of the speaker's plight, but instead reinforces the view of Byzantium as an alienating environment. Raymond Cowell, a prominent literary critic, argues that the final verse leaves such an impression by reversing the rhyme scheme of couple two. “As a particular ironic twist, Yeats reverses the final rhymes of the second stanza when he reaches the final rhymes of the last stanza. In the second stanza, the speaker "came" to Byzantium in a state of triumphant expectation; the verse proclaims the positive. In the fourth stanza, the order is reversed and the speaker moves beyond the Byzantine nobility, towards the future “to come” contained in the song of the bird; the couplet is open, with the future left uncertain” (Cowell, Literary Critiques: WB Yeats, 144). The sense of uncertainty echoes the sense of uncertainty and apprehension conveyed by the final lines of couplet three, thus implying that Byzantium can neither relieve the speaker's anxiety nor offer him salvation. Furthermore, the language and imagery of the poem characterize Byzantium not as an ideal representation of utopia but rather as a static world lacking energy and freedom. The linguistic vitality of the first stanza compared to the monotony of the last stanza reveals how Byzantium lacks the energy and freedom of the speaker's homeland. The first stanza contains lyrical alliterations such as "fish, flesh or fowl" which convey the enormous energy and vigor of Ireland while the last stanza is characterized by its repetition of words. Additionally, in the phrase “settled on the golden bough to sing,” the word “set” is a very passive that contrasts sharply with the assertive, action-oriented verbs of the first stanza. The phrase also evokes the image of the speaker's helplessness, as if he did not possess the energy necessary to place himself on the branch of the tree. Byzantium is characterized not only by its lack of vigor but also by its restrictive character. The phrase "to keep a sleepy emperor awake" implies the speaker's lack of freedom in Byzantium, as he constantly has to deal with the lords and ladies of the land. In contrast, the beginning of the poem conjures up numerous images of animals and Irish citizens copulating and pursuing their own hedonistic desires. Yeats also uses contrasting imagery to convey Byzantium's pretentious nature as a speaker, although his transformation into a golden bird is not capable of creating eternal art. Carol Morgan asserts that the speaker's ability to create art in Byzantium, through his singing, is a critical factor that ultimately validates Byzantium as a destination of salvation (Morgan 144). Other critics of the poem, including T. Sturge Moore, refute Morgan's claim and instead view Byzantium as a pretentious place that denies the speaker the ability to create lasting art. Moore bases his analysis on the beginning of the last stanza and the last line of the poem. He asserts that the speaker cannot sing of “what is past, or fleeting, or to come” if it is “outside nature.” In other words, how can the speaker create lasting art if it is completely removed from life? According to Moore, “art depends on life” (Cowell 102). Yeats contrasts this image of the eternal golden bird singing of "that which is past, passing, or to come" with images of birds from the natural world to suggest that only the natural world provides a suitable domain for great art. The birds, in the opening stanza of the poem,.