The poem traces the speaker’s movement from youth to age, and the corresponding geographical move from Ireland, a country just being born as Yeats wrote, to Byzantium. Yeats felt that he no longer belonged in Ireland, as the young or the young in...
The speaker only has a few lines to convey that core emotions like lust and rage need not be pejorative. The speaker still wants passion in his life. He wants to feel flashes of youth that still lay within his spirit.
The speaker prays to be passionate about life in his old age rather than reasonable and predictable. He wants to feel young inside rather that than old.
Poems of W.B. Yeats: The Tower study guide contains a biography of William Butler Yeats, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.
Poems of W.B. Yeats: The Tower literature essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of Poems of W.B. Yeats: The Tower.
