9
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Question 9 • English 12 B

Which lines from “Sailing to Byzantium” support Yeats’s idea that Byzantium symbolizes the world of art? Explain why your answer choice is correct.a. “Whatever is begotten, born, and dies. / Caught in that sensual music all neglect / Monuments of unaging intellect” (lines 6–8).b. “An aged man is but a paltry thing, / A tattered coat upon a stick, unless / Should clap its hands and sing, and louder sing / For every tatter in its mortal dress . . .” (lines 9–12).c. “Consume my heart away; sick with desire / And fastened to a dying animal / It knows not what it is . . .” (lines 21–23).d. “Once out of nature I shall never take / My bodily form from any natural thing, / But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make / Of hammered gold and gold enameling . . .” (lines 25–28).

Answer

Answer:

The best choice is d. These lines show that Byzantium symbolizes the world of art because the speaker wants to leave behind his natural, mortal body and take on a form made by “Grecian goldsmiths.” That image of “hammered gold and gold enameling” represents art that is carefully created and lasting, unlike human life, which ages and dies. Byzantium therefore stands for the eternal, perfect world of artistic creation.

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Which lines from “Sailing to Byzantium” support…