Sailing to Byzantium Questions

Bring on the tough stuff - there’s not just one right answer.

  1. Does Byzantium sound like a place where you’d want to spend any time?
  2. Is Byzantium an actual place in the poem, or is it a mental state? What reasons do you have for your opinion?
  3. What does our speaker think of nature? Is it a good thing? A bad and scary thing? Why?
  4. What’s so great about art, anyway? What function does it serve for the speaker of the poem?