The body-soul interaction in W. B. Yeatss poetry

Abstract EN

In his early poetry, Yeats adapted the Indian philosophy on the renunciation of body desires, but he also strove to cope with normal life activities, so as not to take on monasticism as a lifestyle.

He was influenced by certain Indian sages, but he never surrendered his poetry to their thinking only.

However, he could not rid himself of all their thinking either, as some of it certainly did infiltrate certain of his poems.

As a solution, he sought out a second Indian mystical philosophy that did deal with both body and soul.

It was called Tantrism.

A body-soul duality then did inhabit Yeats’s poetry and indeed constituted the major part of his esoteric system.

His belief in the doctrine of the Unity of Being reflects this duality, and further still, it opened the door for him to develop his own specific ideas in that dual context.

This paper explores the body-soul duality found in certain of Yeats’s poems, particularly, his Indian poems, ‘‘Adam’s Curse’’, ‘‘Vacillation’’, ‘‘The Phases of the Moon’’, ‘‘Blood and the Moon’’, ‘‘Oil and Blood’’, the Byzantine poems, ‘‘A Dialogue of Self and Soul’’, and ‘‘Among School Children’’.

The discussion also sheds light on how Yeats dealt personally with the body-soul interaction and devised his own reaction to the spiritual life, human behaviour, and the human destiny.

Yeats’s quest for salvation is also discussed in this paper, as much of it related to his spiritual system and his personal philosophy about the body-soul relationship.