William Butler Yeats’ Gyre System
Yeats’ last twenty years are said to contain his best works that also highlight the importance of gyres in his development (Scott 1616). “The Phases of the Moon” introduces his theories with the Great Wheel, his early idea of twenty-eight phases that evolve into the concept of the gyres (Stanford). “The Second Coming”, one of Yeats’ first attempts to embody these newfound theories, relies on the world turmoil he faces in the 1920s (O’Neil 1710). Finally, Yeats struggles with old age and a glorified imagination in “Sailing to Byzantium” and “The Tower” (Duane).
To grasp the concept of Yeats’ theories and appreciate their growth, it is vital to understand the gyre. A single gyre is a geometric figure, resembling a funnel, which begins at a fixed point. From this point the spiral grows wider and wider until it reaches its maximum growth. At this climax, the single gyre “begins to retrace it path in the opposite direction”. In contrast to this “single vortex” is the double gyre, “where two vortices intersect and the apex of one is at the centre of another”. Yeats related more to the double gyre’s duality; therefore, he chose to apply it to his developing thoughts (Mann).
Many factors led to Yeats’ open interpretations of the world around him, but the most important was his childhood. Born in Sligo, Ireland, in 1865, he thrived in a family that did not force him into one religion and encouraged him to do as he wished. This lead to his interest in the occult, which he molded into his own religion. As many people read his serious preoccupation with mysticism as being disconnected with the real world, they wondered what he could have to offer to the modern mind. Another impact Irish life had on Yeats was its history and mythology, seen throughout his works (Duane).
“The Phases of the Moon”, part of the 1919 collection The Wild Swans at Coole, explores the importance of the moon’s phases in relation to the gyres. The Great Wheel being addressed is actually the cycles of the moon divided into twenty-eight phases that also influence human life and action. The two men who speak in the poem, Robartes and Altherne, were creations of Yeats’ imagination. This represents Yeats’ start as he himself progresses through the gyre (Stanford).
The motif of crossing over as a cognitive endeavor rather than an escape is seen in the 1921 collection Michael Robartes and the Dancer (O’Neil). The most noted of this set is “The Second Coming” in which Yeats predicts the coming of a pagan beast to rectify the evil deeds humans have come to. This work embodies the violent climax of the gyre (Stanford).
To address the consequences of reaching the climax on himself, Yeats published The Tower in 1928. Within this set, “The Tower” and “Sailing to Byzantium” best portray Yeats’ sense of mortality as he grows older. The Tower refers to the tower he purchased in Coole Park, Ireland. This tower, known as Thor Ballylee, became the home of Yeats and his family. It also came to symbolize the only certainty he had (O’Neil).
The parallels of the evolution of Yeats’ theories on gyres and his own poetic expression can be traced through “The Phases of the Moon”, “The Second Coming”, “The Tower”, and “Sailing to Byzantium”. Yeats begins his journey into the realm of the gyres by focusing on the end of Robartes and Altherne’s journey. Standing on a bridge after their “long wandering”, the men watch a poet in an illuminated tower above them. The poet, on an endless quest for insight, strikes Altherne’s pity, and he asks why the all-knowing Robartes does not impart the advice the poet seeks. Robartes replies, “He wrote of me in that extravagant style/âÂ?¦Said I was dead; and dead I choose to be”. With that, Altherne suggests that Robartes sings the moon’s phases as he has done before (Stanford).
Robartes chants the twenty-eight cycles in which the moon progresses from dark to light to dark again, closely resembling the motion of the gyres. The two differ slightly, however, in how the moon has two phases, the first and the fifteenth, that are out of reach of man because of their implied perfection. Known as the full and dark stages, respectively, they represent fixed ideas, certainty, and reality. The moon, a metaphor for the growth of one’s soul, parallels the soul’s journey through the darkness in search for the “Antithetical”, or something more personal and illusory. The soul does so by “happy adventureâÂ?¦ [and then pursues]âÂ?¦whatever whim’s most difficult” among those possible. At the full phase, number fifteen, the “self-canceling state of perfect intellectuality” takes over:
All thought becomes an image and the soul
Becomes a body: that body and that soul
Too perfect at the full to lie in a cradle,
Too lonely for the traffic of the world:
Body and soul cast out and cast away
Beyond the visible world. (“The Phases of the Moon”)
At this point, the only choice is to revert to or enter in on the “crumbling of the moon” in phases sixteen to twenty-eight. The soul, unable to handle its absolute achievement, turns its focus onto worldly affairs. Welcoming “dutyâÂ?¦ [and]âÂ?¦ service”, the soul leads itself down the opposite path into deformity as the “Hunchback and Saint and Fool” (Stanford).
Robartes has finished his tale, and the old men walk away, satisfied with their knowledge. As they depart, “a bat circles and squeaks”, symbolizing the chaos at the center of the gyre. The light in the poet’s tower disappears and, along with the circling bat, suggests that either the poet is ending his quest or he is starting anew with newborn hope (Stanford).
Influenced by the direct relation between the poet’s achievement of a point of birth or destruction and the current state of destruction in the world, Yeats embellishes “his cyclical theory of history” in his methodical poem, “The Second Coming.” He hypothesizes that each separate generation is the opposing force of other generations.
While one civilization’s people are born, live, and die, they unconsciously move towards their own annihilation. From this civilization’s death, another civilization arises. This new society, like its predecessors, lasts about 2000 years. The point at which one era’s struggle for death coincides with the next era’s struggle for birth proves a violent and critical turn of the gyre (Stanford).
Yeats proves the reoccurrence of the gyres by building on earlier depictions of a metaphorical pagan beast that he believes will soon walk the earth. Yeats alludes that the beast rises from the desert, though it is unclear if the animal represents a sphinx or a manticore. Each half-human figure symbolizes the personal revelation Yeats hoped would come to humanity. His original idea of the sphinx first appears “having ‘woman’s breast and head'”, which derives from another of his 1919 poems, “The Double Vision of Michael Robartes.” Just as Yeats’ use of the hawk transforms into a falcon in “The Second Coming,” the adaptation continues by changing the sphinx to the manticore. Yeats describes his version of the manticore by reprocessing the ideas of Edward Topsell, Edward Hulme, and Flaubert. Though Yeats employs the gyre’s characteristic of recycling history, his modern interpretation of the manticore belongs entirely to himself. He does not refer to many of the traits typically possessed by the manticore or the sphinx, but still conveys the message of each monster’s “reputation as [a] man-eater”. Yeats’ use of history to reinvent the early beasts reveals the cycle of the gyres is not merely a theory, but a principle practiced by man (Bull).
Yeats uses a mix of mythology, history, and his own ideas to support his prediction of the end of the Christian era in 1920. He alludes to his idea that society’s growing disconnection from God in the line, “The falcon cannot hear the falconer.” It seems that a second coming is the only possible step forward (Stanford). Yeats refers to this second coming as a revelation, hinting at the apocalypse predicted by the Christian Bible. However, Yeats’ version of the day of reckoning is not the return of the Savior. He imagines a world of anarchy and destruction greeted by a pagan form, “Spiritus Mundi”, which “recalls the Sphinx of pre-Christian Egypt” (Carvo). This drastic change from Christianity to paganism and the concept of inverting the Christian Holy Land of Bethlehem exemplifies the ability of the gyre to reach into the past, reinterpret it, and completely clash against it. Yeats also incorporates birds to symbolize adequately humans during this time. The birds follow “the path of the widening gyre”, showing how humans grow with time and eventually promote the arrival of the new gyre (Stanford). With “The Second Coming”, Yeats signifies the birth of a new gyre at the cost of moral decay and tragedy (Bull).
After Yeats recognizes what is to come, he begins to focus more on himself in “Sailing to Byzantium” and “The Tower”, both published in 1928’s The Tower. “Sailing to Byzantium” is the more pessimistic of the two because of his uncertainty of aging. As is notable in The Tower, Yeats dwells on old age as he examines the phases: “youth, vitality, reproduction, decay, and death”. With the line, “Whatever is begotten born and dies”, Yeats acknowledges the inevitability that life is fleeting and all must face their mortality. His fear of draining vitality and submitting to the natural order of things leads him to combat this decay by focusing on Byzantium.
He admires this ancient city for its ability to encompass and gracefully balance the contrasting aspects of life. It also represents the “artistic magnificence and permanence” he seeks. The poem, in true gyre fashion, draws again from the past as he compares Byzantium to Ireland after 1922. He reflects upon his own childhood in Ireland. “Perne in a gyre” hints at the spinning wheel he saw as a boy in Sligo county. The wheel spins thread faster than the human eye can detect, insinuating how many people live unaware of the whirling gyre they are part of. Yeats employs the system of the threads being woven into one fabric to reiterate his theory that each life mirrors “a previous one” to create a “continuance, a permanence”. With that, his search as he sails through the ancient city ends (“Sailing”). If he cannot escape “the order of time”, then he will shed light on the “tragic dignity of aspiration’ and the “hopelessness of hope” (Stanford).
Though Yeats has discovered a new optimism regarding life, he still fears the effects of age on his capabilities. “The Tower” addresses his question of how to balance his new “potent imagination” with his new “impotent body”. He possesses an overwhelming fear of losing the new creative energy he as acquired; unwilling to “retreat into sedentary” thoughts, his reborn imagination also represents his last connection to his youth. Applying the principles of the double gyres once again, Yeats seeks refuge from his fears by delving into the history of the tower and its environment. He believes the only way to establish permanence in the world is to spread his ideas to the locals. In order to understand and reach out to the community, Yeats retells regional legends. These legends involve men in the pursuit of women, suggesting his recurring preoccupation with Maude Gonne. The men of these local tales vie for the love of women, and Yeats links them to yet another of his coinciding theories, known as “the Great Memory” (Allison).
“The Great Memory” consists of “images from the past” that are in reach of “thoseâÂ?¦who seek it” (Allison). The men who choose to “climb that narrow stair”, whether in the pursuit of love or life, unknowingly become part of Yeats’ symbolic tower representing “the gyres of history”. He hopes to pass on his advice and values to the people of the next generation who must “climb the streams” to recreate history, just as their ancestors climbed the stair to its climax (Allison). At the end, he develops the ability to express the faith he wrought from the interconnecting systems. Out of them, he develops the belief that men, as creators, control their “mortality andâÂ?¦immortality.” Even with the proof of his own experience and interpretations of history, it seems as though Yeats cannot accept the inevitability of life. However, he chooses to accept his old age. Though his “mind settles”, he refuses to concede to the weariness and weakness typical of old age. Yeats opts to thrive in the position he cannot escape and “move toward[s] exaltation” (Stanford).
With “The Phases of the Moon”, “The Second Coming”, “Sailing to Byzantium”, and “The Tower”, W. B. Yeats blends his interpretation of history with his theories on gyres to demonstrate the involvement of each with the other’s development. He incorporates his knowledge of the past and the cycles of history to as legitimate proof of the certainty of his system. Yeats takes it a step further by applying these same characteristics to the world’s turmoil, and even to his own struggle against the inevitable. Even though he does settle into the promise of the never-ending gyre, he has contradicted himself largely. Although he proves to himself through his own experience, searching, and expression the reliability and presence of the gyre’s inescapable path, he becomes determined that men create their own lives and control their own fate. Yeats establishes himself as the epitome of his gyre system.
Works Cited
Allison, Johnathan. “W. B. Yeats, Space, and Cultural Nationalism.” ANQ. Vol. 14. Issue 4. Fall 2001.
Bull, Malcolm. “Yeats’ ‘Rough Beast’: Sphinx or Manticore?”. Notes and Queries. Vol. 42. June 1995:209.
Carvo, Nathan A. “Yeats’ The Second Coming.” The Explicator. Winter 2001: 93.
Duane, O. B. Introduction. W. B. Yeats: Romantic Visionary. London: Brockhampton Press, 1996. 6-11.
Mann, Neil. W.B. Yeats and “A Vision: Geometry.” 17 Oct. 2004. 3 Feb. 2005 .
O’Neil, Patrick M., ed. Great World Writers: Twentieth Century. Vol. 12. New York: Marshall Cavendish, 2004.
Sailing to Byzantium. 6 Oct. 1997. 15 Feb. 2005
Scott-Kilvert, Ian, ed. Poets: American and British. Vol. 3. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1998.
Stanford, Donald E., ed. Dictionary of Literary Biography. Vol. 19. Bruccoli Clark Layman. The Gale Group, 1983. 399-452. Louisiana State University. 21 Feb. 2005.
