Observational Science

Yeats' scientific background in epistemology, geography and chemistry explains something interesting. The bio on Yeats begins with a characterization of his writing style, which is an 'arrangement of pictures' or images. Yeats is keen on using nature as a means of expression. And much like the Ovid, he reifies his feelings into tangible and natural objects, such as those which are easily imagined like animals and vegetation. Yeats' poetry is very much an illustration or a window into a world of seeing. And so is modern science. Descartes once said that our world is just a big machine, and thus if one part of the machine is present there must be another, behind it, which makes it work. Like the gears of the clock. In other words, through observation, we can understand everything about how the mechanics of the world work because all the parts are there. The hard part is figuring out where to look. Applying this principal of science to Yeats explains something about, not only his style, but about how he thinks. At heart, Yeats is a scientist, and his art, whatever spirituality it might be inspired by, is an observational science. Like Newton, who discovered gravity by witnessing the fall of an apple, the meaning of Yeats' poetry is derived from his world of pictures and images. Like in Red Hanran's Song About Ireland where he starts off with: "The Old brown thorn-trees break in two high over cummen strand,/ under a bitter black wind that blows from the left hand;/ our courage breaks like an old tree in black wind and dies..." Yeats, in describing an abstract concept such as courage or a lack there of, evokes the feeling of a striking fear or a sudden loss of courage with an observation of nature, not an observation of the human condition. In many of Yeats poems it is hard to distinguish between metaphor and plain imagery because of this.