Yeats constantly sought to express in his poetry the images that he actually felt and experienced in the real world. The images in his poetry are the reflection of his dream and ideal, and they are “realities” of the real world transformed through his own imagination. In his early poetry, the images often tend to be illusory and mystical as they depend on materials of legends and myths. But in his middle period, the tendency to be illusory and mystical has gradually vanished, and his poems begin to become realistic, based on materials of common life. But, to me, this change, from the ideal to the real, is not dichotomous. For Yeats, Real and Ideal seemed to be inseparably related to each other under their mutual influence. That is, he sought the realization of Ideal while he didn’t forget Real in his own Ideal because he knew very well that forgetting his Real meant loosing his identity. Furthermore, his poetry shows a dialectical development that becomes a harmony of Real and Ideal by overcoming the conflict between them and by positively accepting the reality of the world. Finally, Yeats created a sublimated reality through internal conflicts of his Real and Ideal. Thus, this essay tries to show the change of reality in Yeats’ poems, which goes through a dialectical development, focusing on the relation between reality and imagination in his poetry.

The tradition of local landscape poetry in England has appeared since the 18th century, and has been enhanced as one of the main characteristics of the 19th century European poetry and inherited until today. The landscape, in general, plays three roles: first, it is used as the background and a medium with which to express a poet’s emotion and mind; secondly, it can reveal its role as a subject, making dialogue with a poet; and thirdly, it can be used as a reminder of collective mind. Yeats and Heaney, unlike the English poets, show strong aesthetical and collective mind, even in describing the landscape. However, Yeats, belonging to Protestant Ascendancy, used the landscape as a medium to express his individualistic emotion and to stir the Romantic Ireland. On the other hand, Heaney, belonging to the oppressed Ulster Catholic, projects the communities’ lack - as well as the reaction to overcome this lack - the lost land, language and tradition. Heaney’s point of view and technique are very realistic, while Yeats’s point of view and technique are romantic. Yeats’ landscape is painted purple-coloured ; Heaney’s is described as a dark-coloured one, reflecting his own pity for the oppressed people and their adversity.

As a genre of folk song, the ballad is impersonal in that it often depicts something beyond the personal attitude or emotion of a poet. Yeats, to simplify the diction of his poetry, tried to use the metaphor of ballad, which is a material appropriate to human experience and instinct. As an important device of the ballads, the ‘refrain’ of his poetry is especially marked. The refrain (that is, verbal repetitions) may be a word or a line or groups of words or lines, and appears at the end of each stanza. In addition, Yeats’s use of the refrain is remarkable in his later poetry, particularly in The Winding Stair. The refrain may be without meanings, serving for some musical effect, as in some poems of the Elizabethan Age but it may give life to the language as Friedrich Schiller points out. This essay tries to divide the function of refrain into four types, despite the danger of making Yeats’s poetic range look limited. All the poems are not ruled by only one function but, in part, some poems appear to be with mixed functions. First, the refrain emphasizes poet’s theme through ironic meaning, as in the poems of ‘September 1913,’ and ‘‘The Curse of Cromwell’ and ‘The Three Bushes.’ Secondly, the refrain brings about mystery by the images of silent stillness, as in the poem of ‘Long-legged Fly’ and ‘The Apparitions.’ Thirdly, the refrain may give life to the language in conversion of the meaning, as in the poem of ‘What then?’ Fourthly, the refrain shows nonsense or meaningfulness, as in the poem of ‘The Pilgrim.’ This ‘nonsense’ speaks for his view of life in his later period, and reveals his willing acception of tragic nihilism.