An Analysis Of Questions And Quest For Identity In Yeats' Poetry Of The Middle Period

William Butler Yeats is one of the greatest poets in the 20th century. The scholars at home and abroad have studied systematically on his poetry and drama from many aspects for many years and have gained a series of achievements. His poetry attracts more and more scholars to analyze his creative art from new points continually.Questions are important to construct the whole text. Studying the application of questions and the relation to the theme in poems is a new perspective to appreciate poetry. The theme and form in Yeats'poems are coherent. This thesis begins with the definitions of rhetorical question and lyric question and their functions in discourse considered by Bakhtin. Then it generalizes some features of poetic questions in Yeats'poems. All these provide a theoretical context for the close readings of the poems which follow. Then the thesis analyzes some poems of the middle period written by Yeats through close reading. It is intended to analyze the application of the interrogative sentences and their expressive function in Yeats'poems. It mainly examines the ways in which interrogative patterns function in Yeats'poems and how changes in these patterns are tied to the poet's continual quest for identity. The interrogative analysis of poems is an accessible and valuable way to appreciate Yeats'poems.The questions used in Yeats'poetry of the middle period are representative. Yeats shows his own identity quest by employing different interrogative patterns. This makes the themes of poems outstanding, enhances the tone of poet and links the narrative voices, images and various relations. This thesis chooses Yeats'four poems of the middle period to analyze. They are"At Algeciras—a Meditation upon Death","Leda and the Swan","Among School Children"and"Vacillation"."At Algeciras—a Meditation upon Death"and"Leda and the Swan"both begin with a special setting, use a metaphor to cause the thinking of death and ask for questions at last. This is poet's quest for self. In the poem"Among School Children", the poet uses a multi-layered structure to raise different questions and illustrates the idea: everything is unified. Human beings in complex world find the unity only from contradictories and recognize the different selves from contradictories. This is just the process of self re-recognition and self re-creation."Vacillation"causes the argument between the Heart and the Soul by the question"what is joy?"Even belief cannot bring eternity to man, only the quest for art is eternal, which highs the level of the poet's identity.This thesis aims to analyze the applications of questions in Yeats'poetry of the middle period by means of close reading. It pays attention to poems themselves, especially the analysis of questions and themes. It mainly studies the relations between the functions of questions in Yeats'poems and poet's quest for identity.