The Gyroscopic Transformation of Self Quest in W. B. Yeats’s Poetry

Carrying a story to tell is the ancient burden of craftsmen, and it is one of the characteristics of the quest to find oneself, since a journey requires recognition of the aspects of self and anti-self. Like the speaker of his poems, W.B. Yeats has something to tell. His poetry draws nourishment from the battle between the dichotomies of self and anti-self, human and divine, mind and intellect, past and present, and body and soul.This book covers a selection of Yeats’s poems from 1889 to 1939, discussing them within the frame of the quest to find oneself and its gyroscopic transformation. The book illustrates that self is not a single entity, but has multiple layers, and it can be found within the quest in which it experiences a simultaneous transformation with every phase of the antithetical structure of gyroscopic movements. In addition, the way of the quest is cyclical; however, it is not a vicious cycle, since, in life, every end is a phase of a beginning and every beginning is a phase of an end.