For the week and day that was in it, I couldn’t resist taking a journey to a holy city.
I always found Yeats’ Sailing to Byzantium magical; the rich, incantatory language has a genuinely elevating, transporting quality. However, creating such a world is one kind of genius.
Being able to create this universe which may well have nothing to do with the historical city, the shabby port-city the Emperor Constantine happened to chose as his eastern capital, is one thing. But to succeed in channeling such raw, visceral human emotions is entirely another kind of genius.
I think this explains the magic of this poem by Yeats. What the reader encounters is either raw feeling, or a philosophical reflection of time, but somehow both.
If you have any thoughts, reflections or observations of your own, please do not hesitate to share.
Next week, I will be reading Begin by Brendan Kennelly, as requested by the fine artist, photographer and writer Barbara Robinson.
The following week I will read I am Kerry by Seigerson Clifford, as requested by Andrew Haworth.