Flowers & Seasons
as Symbols
The Poppy as "Spring"
The poppy is symbolic of sleep, illusion, self-delusion, and naivety—yet also peace of mind. Deriving from the flower's narcotic qualities as a source of opium, authors have been known to use this as symbolism in their works (e.g., the sleep-inducing poppy field in The Wizard of Oz). For our purposes, the poppy as "spring" alludes to W.B. Yeats's early theosophical works where Romanticism, naivety, and a dreamlike aura dominated the tone of his lyrical poetry. In the context of this digital collection of In the Seven Woods, spring starts off the journey, picking up from where Yeats left off in his preceding volume, The Wind Among the Reeds (1899), when Romantic ideals and young love still held promise.
The rose is symbolic of love, hope, beauty, and overall excess. In his earlier volumes, Yeats used the flower as a major thematic symbol around which he based much of his Romantic poetry. In the context of this digital collection of In the Seven Woods, summer is the second season visited along one's journey through the volume. Here, the summer rose is symbolic of decadence, over-indulgence, and a blossoming climax of Romanticism that Yeats carried over from his preceding volumes.
The Rose as "Summer"
The Dying Rose as "Autumn"
The dying rose is symbolic of lost love and disillusion. Many scholars consider In the Seven Woods to be a transitional volume marking the end of Yeats's "early phase" (roughly synonymous with Romanticism) and a budding of Yeats's "middle phase" (roughly synonymous with Modernism). With this volume, Yeats rarely revisits his past symbolic use of "the rose." Having become disillusioned both with Ireland's civil warfare and with his own rejection by long-time love interest Maud Gonne, Yeats's tone shifts toward realism as he grapples with loss and the impending onset of old age through the use of autumnal imagery in his poems.
The blue flower, like winter, is symbolic of unattainability, world-weariness, and a subsequent cathartic rebirth. As blue flowers rarely occur in nature, they thus signify the concept of "the unattainable" that runs throughout Yeats's later works. In the context of Yeats and In the Seven Woods, this represents a full-cycle maturation of his works as he shifts to a less Romantic or theosophical worldview. Having healed (albeit bitterly, and with scars) from his rejection by Maud Gonne, Yeats can be seen moving on to more realistic themes which directly contrast his earlier "spring" and "summer" -like imagery. Accordingly, In the Seven Woods is considered by many scholars as the first of Yeats's volumes to shift toward Modernism, as its speakers adopts a harsher, cold, world-weary perspective on life, death, and love.