On The Rose Image In Yeats’s Poems

Yeats was a famous Irish poet and playwright, enjoying a high position in Irish andworld literature, whose greatest achievements were in terms of poems and theories ofpoetry. In his early stage, he was greatly influenced by the pre–Raphaelite, Romanticismand Aestheticism, and thus the poems composed in his early stage are full of richimagination and tender feelings. He was also deeply fascinated by Occultism and Irish folkculture and literature, drawing heavily on them in his composition, which injectedelements of reason, abstraction and mystery into his early poems. The poems in his earlyphase bound in enchanting symbolic images, among which the rose is an essential one. Itoccurs many times and is complex in meaning. This thesis studies the symbolic meaningsof the rose by grasping his life experiences, by studying his symbolist theories and hismain ideas, and by elaborating the sources of the rose image. Three symbolic meanings areexpounded in this thesis: eternal beauty, Ireland and Maud Gonne. These three symbolicmeanings blend perfectly, showing Yeats‘s spiritual pursuit, his patriotic devotion and hisdeep love for Maud Gonne.