'Sailing' to 'Byzantium'

A Voyage into Symbolism

Abstract

While William Butler Yeats's "Sailing to Byzantium" is often described as "less complex" than "Byzantium," the differences between the two poems appear to have rarely been considered on levels other than meaning or referents. This essay aims to unearth a basic textual difference which may account for the above judgement with the help of a framework rooted in structuralism and influenced by the theories of Alexander A. Potebnja. The analyses of the two poems allow the conclusion that while "Byzantium" can be regarded as a symbolic text, "Sailing to Byzantium" approximates that mode of writing without being entirely controlled by it.