Why Our Inner Quarrels Give Birth to Poetry

The Rhetoric of External Conflict vs. the Poetry of Inner Struggles

William Butler Yeats

"We make out of the quarrel with others, rhetoric, but of the quarrel with ourselves, poetry." W. B. Yeats

The quote by W. B. Yeats, "We make out of the quarrel with others rhetoric, but of the quarrel with ourselves poetry," speaks of how we take conflicts in life. The quote compares the differences between dealing with disagreements from others and confronting battles within oneself.

He talks of the "quarrel with others," in which there are always theses and antitheses, by which Yeats means the argument with other people. External arguments almost invariably result in rhetoric, essentially the art of persuading.

Rhetoric is expressing ourselves, defending our stand, and convincing others to see things our way. It is about making a point, making someone agree, or justifying an action. In that light, rhetoric is outward-oriented, dealing with disagreements in our society. It is pragmatic and frequently used to negotiate the complications involved in human relationships and interactions.

"The quarrel with ourselves" refers to inner conflicts in our minds and hearts. We wrestle with doubts, fears, regrets, and desires. Unlike external conflicts, internal fights take time to resolve through logic or argument. They go much deeper into touching the sense of identity, imperfections, and contradictions we all face.

Yeats truly celebrates the unique way we process and express our inner turmoil by stating that we transform our internal conflicts into poetry. Poetry, unlike rhetoric, is not about proving a point to someone else. Its purpose is to trace and capture our feelings and thoughts. Even when the underlying emotion might be ugly or difficult, poetry can capture the paradoxes of our internal lives. It allows us to express what might be hard to articulate in words, find meaning and beauty in our internal struggles, and inspire others.

Yeats says that while our discord with others brings forth rhetoric—all about winning an argument or making a point—our interior battles bring forth poetry, which is all about understanding ourselves better.

Poetry is born from self-reflection, not to prove but to expose and investigate feelings and ideas. In making meaningful poems out of our inner struggle, each can affect others with its universal message of the human experience of struggle and emotions. We are invited to introspect and understand ourselves better.

Yeats refers to a greater idea about how art is made. In a more general sense, art stems from the artist's own experience of an inner conflict. By wrestling with one's thoughts and feelings, the artist creates an image of that inner world to help them understand it.

The arts speak to the universal experience of being human, the struggle with our emotions, and the discovery of beauty and understanding in that struggle. We are reminded that we are not alone in our struggles.

To summarize, outer conflicts result in rhetoric that convinces people, while inner conflicts produce poetry that focuses on finding who we are. In this way, he describes human nature perfectly: to argue with others and make rhetoric but also to argue within ourselves and produce poetry.