Some Possible Sources for Yeats's 'Sailing to Byzantium': A Reconsideration

Abstract

This article aims to refute Archibald A. Hill, who argued that neither Keats's 'Ode to a Nightingale' nor Andersen's story 'The Nightingale' need be accepted as source material for Yeats's poem. The author argues that both are sources for 'Sailing to Byzantium', concluding that literary sources appear to have affected Yeats profoundly, prompting him not only to imitate, but also to re-fashion, re-imagine, re-create, re-define and re-value the experiences offered by his literary predecessors. That is why it is so important to be aware just who those predecessors were.