Abstract
Though it is not generally considered one of Yeats’s main symbols, the mountain occurs frequently in his poetry, particularly in the last poems. By focusing on “Under Ben Bulben”, Yeats’s concluding poem, and by comparing various mountains in Yeats’s work – Oriental and Western, Italian and Irish – this article analyses the mountain as the place where the ego encounters a wider psychological dimension, the (Jungian) Self. Minimalist and conceptual, the Yeatsian mountain is reduced to archetypal forms related to the geometry described in A Vision, Yeats’s metaphysical treatise. Rooted in Irish mythology, and rising into a spiritualist ethereal world, the mountain conjoins different symbolic strata, allowing an intellectual and spiritual ascent. The article shows how, by drawing on multiple traditions and unifying them aesthetically into a complex symbol, the poet strives to embody the universal voice of the Self
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