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{{Wikisource|The Tower (Yeats)/Sailing to Byzantium|Sailing to Byzantium}}
 
"'''Sailing to Byzantium'''" is a poem by [[William Butler Yeats]], first published in thehis 1927 reprint ofcollection ''Stories of Red Hanrahan and the SecretOctober RoseBlast'', in 1927<ref>{{cite news |date= |title=DailyEncyclopaedia HeraldBritannica |url=https://www-britishnewspaperarchive-co-uk.lonlibbritannica.idm.oclc.orgcom/viewertopic/bl/0000681/19271207/189/0009 |date=7 December 1927Sailing-to-Byzantium}}</ref> and then in the 1928 collection ''[[The Tower (poetry collection)|The Tower]]''. It comprises four [[stanza]]s in [[ottava rima]], each made up of eight lines of [[iambic pentameter]]. It uses a journey to [[Byzantium]] ([[Constantinople]]) 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, Yeats's "Sailing to Byzantium" describes the metaphorical journey of a man pursuing his own vision of [[Eternal life (Christianity)|eternal life]] as well as his conception of paradise.
 
==Synopsis==
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A second poem written by W. B. Yeats, "[[The Winding Stair and Other Poems|Byzantium]]", extends and complements "Sailing to Byzantium". It blends descriptions of the medieval city in nighttime darkness with spiritual, supernatural and artistic imagery.
 
Canadian author [[Guy Gavriel Kay]]'s historical fantasy duologytwo-part series ''[[The Sarantine Mosaic]]'' was inspired by this poem.<ref>Dena Taylor, On Sailing to Sarantium, TransVersions 10, Toronto: Orchid Press, 1999, republished on Bright Weavings (Kay's authorized website) Archived 15 February 2010 at the Wayback Machine</ref>▼
The short story "No Country for Old Men" by Irish author [[Seán Ó Faoláin]], about two veterans of the [[Irish War of Independence]] struggling to find their place in the Irish Republic of the 1950s, takes its title from the first line of the poem. His daughter, author [[Julia O'Faolain]], added her own twist when she titled her Booker-nominated 1980 novel ''No Country for Young Men''.
 
The poem is referenced extensively in [[Philip Roth]]'s 2001 short novel ''[[The Dying Animal]]'', which also takes its title from the third stanza, and is explicitly referenced in the textpoem.<ref>"Transnational Trauma and "the mockery of Armageddon": "The Dying Animal" in the New Millennium," AIMEE POZORSKI, ''Studies in American Jewish Literature'' Vol. 23 Philip Roth's America: The Later Novels (2004), pp. 122-134. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41206011</ref>▼
An espionage novel by Alan Schwartz, No Country for Old Men (New York: New American Library, 1980) follows three main characters from New York to Washington, Paris, Buenos Aires and Santiago, through a labyrinth of multinational power and international corruption, where rules and stakes shift constantly and adversaries wear many masks. {{ISBN|978-0453003902}}.
 
A phrase in the opening line of the poem, "no country for old men," has been adopted as the title for many literary works, most notably as the novel ''[[No Country for Old Men (novel)|No Country for Old Men]]'' by [[Cormac McCarthy]]''<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Frye |first=S. |year=2006 |title=Yeats' 'Sailing to Byzantium' and McCarthy's ''No Country for Old Men'': Art and Artifice in the New Novel |journal=The Cormac McCarthy Society Journal |volume=5}}</ref>'' and [[No Country for Old Men|its film adaptation]], as well as the short story "No Country for Old Men" by [[Seán Ó Faoláin]], the novel ''No Country for Young Men'' by [[Julia O'Faolain]], and the novel ''No Country for Old Men'' by Alan Schwartz.
A science fiction [[Sailing to Byzantium (novella)|novella by the same name]] by [[Robert Silverberg]] was published in 1985. The story, like the poem, deals with immortality and includes quotations from the poem.
 
[[AcademyThe Award|Oscar]]-winningtitle filmof directorthe [[Michaelpoem Cimino]]itself (whohas wasalso anbeen avidadopted readeras the title of Yeats[[Sailing to Byzantium (novella),|a wrotenovella]] by [[Robert Silverberg]], an unpublished novel namedby afterfilm thedirector poem.[[Michael Cimino]],<ref>{{cite book |last=Elton |first=Charles |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DESPzgEACAAJ|last=Elton|first=Charles |title=Cimino: The Deer Hunter, Heaven's Gate, and the Price of a Vision|year=2022 |publisher=Abrams Press |year=2022 |isbn=9781419747113 |pages=255–256}}</ref><ref>{{cite magazine |last=Archerd |first=Army |date=June 4, 1997 |title=Perry making new friends in rehab|date=June 4, 1997|magazine=[[Variety (magazine)|Variety]]|url=https://variety.com/1997/voices/columns/perry-making-new-friends-in-rehab-1117863081/amp/ |access-date=August 8, 2023 |magazine=[[Variety (magazine)|Variety]]}}</ref> and a song by [[Lisa Gerrard]] and [[Patrick Cassidy (composer)|Patrick Cassidy]] on the album ''[[Immortal Memory]].''
 
▲[[Philip Roth]]'s 2001 short novel ''[[The Dying Animal]]'' takes its title from the third stanza, and is explicitly referenced in the text.<ref>"Transnational Trauma and "the mockery of Armageddon": "The Dying Animal" in the New Millennium," AIMEE POZORSKI, ''Studies in American Jewish Literature'' Vol. 23 Philip Roth's America: The Later Novels (2004), pp. 122-134. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41206011</ref>
 
▲Canadian author [[Guy Gavriel Kay]]'s historical fantasy duology ''[[The Sarantine Mosaic]]'' was inspired by this poem.<ref>Dena Taylor, On Sailing to Sarantium, TransVersions 10, Toronto: Orchid Press, 1999, republished on Bright Weavings (Kay's authorized website) Archived 15 February 2010 at the Wayback Machine</ref>
 
A song on [[Lisa Gerrard]] and [[Patrick Cassidy (composer)|Patrick Cassidy]]'s 2004 album ''[[Immortal Memory]]'' was named after the poem.
 
The title of the 2005 novel ''[[No Country for Old Men (novel)|No Country for Old Men]]'' by [[Cormac McCarthy]] and the 2007 [[Academy Awards|Oscar]]-winning [[No Country For Old Men (film)|film adapted from it]], comes from the first line of this poem.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Frye|first = S.|title=Yeats' 'Sailing to Byzantium' and McCarthy's ''No Country for Old Men'': Art and Artifice in the New Novel|journal=The Cormac McCarthy Society Journal |volume=5 |year=2006 }}</ref>
 
In the 2020 video game ''[[Cyberpunk 2077]]'' by [[CD Projekt Red]], the last verse of “Sailing to Byzantium” is recited by the A.I. Alt Cunningham during the “Changes” quest.
 
==Notes==
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==External links==
* {{StandardEbooks|Standard Ebooks URL=https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/w-b-yeats/poetry|name=The collected public domain poetry of Yeats as an eBook|noitalics=true}}
*[http://www.nli.ie/yeats/ Watch 'Sailing to Byzantium' master class video (National Library of Ireland)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070203220551/http://www.nli.ie/yeats/ |date=3 February 2007 }}
 
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