Reflections on Yeats’ Transitional Phase

I believe that his transitional phase reflects his belief that in order to unite oneself with one’s true self, they must wear the mask of their anti-self. By disregarding his dreamy, magical demeanor and utilize the forms of prose and couplets, he is clearly writing in a style not typical of his self, but ultimately cultivates his true self in doing so. This transitional phase also emulates the fact that his poetry, while not being literal, autobiographical, accounts, they are autobiographical in their subtext. Through his poems on lost love, we see his despair in not only losing the supposed unattainable Maud, but realizing that she was attainable, just not to him. Of course, by not writing his poetry completely autobiographical, recounting his own personal experiences, but by writing with a sort of vague demeanor, the people can identify with the emotions embodied in his work and are unified, by his words, in their thoughts; which he believes is the ultimate goal of art.