On The Inscape Of W.B.Yeats’ Lyric Poems In The Light Of Twenty-four Styles Of Poetry

W.B.Yeats(1865-1939)is honored as one of the foremost English poets in the twentieth century.His poems pursue the truth of life and the Universe,which constitute the occult elements.Because of its close connections with Indian Buddhism,and Chinese and Japanese culture,the beauty of Yeats’occultism can not be fully interpreted under western literary criticism.Whereas,Chinese poetic Inscape theory(意境论),deeply rooted in the eastern philosophies and aesthetics,can provide a significant approach to interpret the beauty of Yeats’occultism.By employing Sikong Tu’s poetic Inscape treatise Twenty-four Styles of Poetry,this thesis aims to interpret the beauty of Yeats’lyrical poems from the perspectives of aesthetic experience of“imagination following scenes”(思与境偕)and the aesthetic image of the“images beyond images”(象外之象),focusing on Yeats’representative poems,including:“The Song of the Happy Shepherd”,“When You are Old”,“The Lake Isle of Innisfree”,“A Deep-Sworn Vow”,“Sailing to Byzantium”,“The Second Coming”,and“Under Ben Bulben”.Analyzing from the aesthetic experience of“imagination following scenes”and the aesthetic image of the“images beyond images”this thesis indicates that in the close fusion of images,emotion,and dreams some of Yeats’poems present the images of infinite artistic space,potent life fore,and the image of the speaker gathering into the truth.Under the influence of eastern religions and philosophies,some of Yeats’poems not only reveal the Inscape beauty,but also reflect the poet’s adoption of the eastern mentality to explore and experience the truth in poetic creation.