Modern Religious Views in W. B. Yeats' Poetry

Abstract

William Butler Yeats (1865–1939) stands as one of the most influential poets of the modernist era, whose works reflect a profound engagement with religion, mysticism, and spirituality. This paper examines the modern religious perspectives in Yeats’ poetry, focusing on how he reshaped traditional faith systems into a syncretic spiritual philosophy that merges Christianity, occultism, and Celtic mythology. Through close readings of poems such as 'The Second Coming,' 'Sailing to Byzantium,' and 'The Tower,' this article explores how Yeats reconceptualized religious experience in the modern world—not through orthodoxy, but through the imagination’s power to restore the sacred in an age of disillusionment.

Keywords:
W. B. Yeats; Modernism; Religious Symbolism; Irish Mysticism; Spirituality; The Second Coming; The Tower; Theological Dualism; Occultism; Modern Religious Thought; Symbolist Poetry; Esoteric Tradition; Myth and Faith; Yeats’ Vision; Crisis of Belief