Spiritual Crisis in Modernism: A Study of W. B. Yeats’s Poetic Vision
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14456/bej.2025.5Keywords:
modernist poetry, spiritual crisis, symbolism, The Second Coming, Sailing to ByzantiumAbstract
This research paper aims to explore the depiction of spiritual crisis in W. B. Yeats's poetry. William Butler Yeats is one of the prominent modernist poets of the English literary canon. Yeats is renowned for his intricate language, vivid imagery, and symbolic richness. He largely used a great deal of symbols to depict the modern man's moral, political, and spiritual crisis of his time. In this study, the author selects two great poems of W. B. Yeats, ‘The Second Coming’ and ‘Sailing to Byzantium.’ The study critically examines these poems from a modernist perspective. Yeats clearly depicts the moral degradation, spiritual sterility, fragmentation, alienation, and disillusionment of early twentieth-century post-war modern Europe. Methodologically, the study is based on a descriptive-analytical approach. In the light of the poems' analysis, the findings of the study show that Yeats’s poetic expression mirrors the modernist spiritual vacuum. This study offers fresh insight into the spiritual crisis of modernism through Yeats’s poetic lens.
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