Opposiiton And Unity

The Irish poet W. B. Yeats is one of the representative of symbolist poets. Hereceived the Nobel Prize in Literature for his “inspired poetry, which in a highlyartistic form gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation”. His early poetry ischaracterized by aestheticism, dreamy, vague and romantic qualities, but his laterpoetry became forceful with more direct language. The antithetical images formulatedin close connection with his gyre theory, appear throughout his composition. Hebelieves that everything has its antithetical side, and the two sides conflict, restrainmutually, counter acting to promote the other’s development. This collision becomesthe power of his poetry, making it full of tension. This paper will study the evolutionof the collisive body and mind relationship in Yeats’s poetry, with reference to Yeats’sgyre theory, as well as Descartes’s philosophy on body and mind.In this paper, the evolution of body and mind would be divided into three periods.For each part, the artistic dynamic body and mind relationship in Yeats’s poems,would be analyzed based on gyre theory and Descartes’s philosophy. In the earlyperiod, the style of his poetry is vague, dreamy with the absence of body, so mind hastaken the dominant part over body. In the middle and later period, body comes into hispoems, with the direct depiction of desire, the style of this period makes a sharpcontrast with the previous period. This period emphasizes the connection andinteraction of body and mind, and body is the vessel of mind, reflecting the desire andcarrying the wisdom. With the gradually furthering recognition of body and mindrelationship, and the basis of previous knowledge, in the last period, the poet tried toexplore the unity of body and mind in the later phase. From his exploration, he thinksthat the body-mind relationship is dynamically developing just like the two turninggyres in his gyre theory.