"Make A Vineyard Of The Curse":An Analysis Of The Tensions In The Binary Symbols Of W.B. Yeats's Poetry

William Butler Yeats was considered by his contemporaries and later generations as one of the greatest Irish poets,who served as a pillar of both the Irish and the British literary establishments.Since its introduction to China in the 1920 s,Yeats' s poetry has been translated and studied by a growing number of scholars.However,the previous researches mainly focused on the Irishness,the Romantic elements as well as the Modernity in Yeats' s poems.Grounded on the New Criticism Theory,particularly Allan Tate's “Tension Theory,” this thesis tries to analyze the tensions existed in the binary symbols of Yeats' s poems,such as “East and West,” “Terror and Beauty,” and “Youth and Age.” Through the analysis of the intensions and extensions in these binary symbols,this thesis aims at combing out how these tensions help in developing the themes of Yeats' s poetry and how these tensions serve as clues to the interpretations of Yeats' s poetry.