Abstract

Symbol is a figure of speech, through which authors express their thoughts and feelings or realize the goal of their creation. Hence, its significance on the part of literary creation speaks for itself. Furthermore, it is of decisive effect and great consequence to symbolism literature. Symbolism came into being on the basis of symbol.

Throughout the world poetry history, symbolism in English poetry is not so developed as French poetry. English symbolist poets are also relatively less. William Butler Yeats, the forerunner and representative of Modernism poetry and a great master of the late symbolism, was a poet with the basic feature of symbolism. He played a great part in the change of English poetry’s status in the world. Meanwhile, Yeats’ poetry had an effect upon the main trend of English poetry, namely the forming of symbolism school. He was indubitably a splendid representative poet of the late symbolism. His life’s creative course was a complex process of motion and. Yeats’ poetry creation can be divided into three phases. Each phase’s transition and transformation resulted from Yeats’ life experience and the change of his various thoughts. Variation. Previous research into the symbolism in Yeats’ poetry is relatively scattered and not so comprehensive. It is apt to make our understanding of the symbolism in Yeats’ poetry vague and chaotic. Herewith, this article attempts to make an overall and systematic analysis and summary of the features of symbolism in Yeats’ poetry, from the perspective of a global overview, combining with Yeats’ poems, so as to present a panorama of this and help us better understand Yeats’ poetry and its symbolism.

This article involves five parts. The first part introduces Yeats, literature review and significance of the thesis. The second is to analyze the symbolism features in Yeats’ poetry at early stage. The third is about the symbolism features at middle stage. Mysterious color throughout his creation period, with which Yeats’ poetry is endued, will be stated in this part as well. The fourth part is accountable for the symbolism features at later stage. At last, there’s a summary of all these features of symbolism in Yeats’ poetry and the meaning of the whole thesis.

Key words: William Butler Yeats, poetry, symbol, symbolism features