This book of poems was first published in 1928 and features some of Yeats’ most popular works, including Sailing to Byzantium, Leda and the Swan and Among School Children. The title of the collection refers to the Thoor Ballylee castle which Yeats purchased in 1916 for £35. He and his family lived in the Norman tower from 1921 to 1929. Many of the poems in the collection concern the poet’s confrontation with old age, often represented by the recurring image of the tower.
The poem Sailing to Byzantium comprises four stanzas in ottava rima, each made up of eight ten-syllable lines. The poem portrays a voyage to Constantinople (Byzantium) as a metaphor for a spiritual journey. Yeats explores his thoughts and musings on how immortality, art and the human spirit may converge. Through the use of various poetic techniques, the poet depicts a metaphorical journey of a man pursuing his own vision of eternal life and his conception of paradise.
Written when Yeats was 60 years old, Sailing to Byzantium is one of the most celebrated literary works to explore the agony of old age and the imaginative and spiritual work required to remain a vital individual, even when the heart is “fastened to a dying animal” (the body). Yeats’ solution to old age is to leave the country of the young and travel to Byzantium, where the sages in the city’s famous gold mosaics could become the “singing-masters” of his soul.