Symbolism in Yeats' Poetry | 'The Second Coming' 'Sailing to Byzantium' ' Easter 1916'

  Yeats is a twentieth century modern poet whose poetry is full of symbols and imagery. Symbolism in literature is a device which the writers use to convey deeper meanings of the words beyond their literal meanings. Though Ezra Pound is regarded as the grandfather of symbolist movement and Thomas Hulme is known as the father of imagism yet William Butler Yeats’ use of symbols and imagery has won wide acclaim all over the world. His symbols can easily be divided into two categories e.g., conventional and private.   Conventional symbols can be distinguished from the private ones on the ground that the former are more general and carry common meanings based on shared cultural knowledge whereas the latter are more particular to a poem’s specific context or a peculiar group of people sharing certain knowledge or beliefs. Hence, Yeats’ poetry is replete with both the types of symbols which not only produce a meaningful image in the reader’s mind but also endow depth to ...