Rage Turns to Re-vision: A Pattern in Gerontological Concern in W. B. Yeats’s Later Poetry

In the poetry of W. B. Yeats, one comes across the poet's pre-occupation almost with the totality of human concerns in life and it is notable that reality for an artist, as per the poet, lies in the tension between two ideal opposites of experience. A pattern of dialectics thus characterises the whole poetic world of Yeats and what he aspired for as an artist, was a ‘Unity of Being' which would combine the ultimate forms of Realities such as life and art. In the complicated search of the poet, old age with its debilities also receives a due yet problematic treatment in Yeats' later poetry. The present paper seeks to establish how Yeats' initially angry and dismissive reaction to age as something deterrent to his search for an ideal vision of ‘truth,' gradually develops first into a spirit of acceptance and then into a discovery of its sharpening effect on his passion and muse with which he feels to have realised his dream of achieving a unity in the sphere of realisation and artistic creation.