Though Cormac McCarthy wasn't a widely read author for several decades of his acclaimed literary career, once he did finally achieve fame, his titles have become ubiquitous, turned into major motion pictures, and his style singular and recognizable. Thus it might be easy to imagine that the inspiration for his work sprung out of thin air and pure imagination. However, McCarthy makes ample use of allusion to both classical and modern texts. The title of his novel No Country for Old Men is lifted from the first line of the first stanza of a famous poem by William Butler Yeats called "Sailing to Byzantium." The first stanza reads:
That is no country for old men. The young In one another's arms, birds in the trees, —Those dying generations—at their song, The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas, Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long Whatever is begotten, born, and dies. Caught in that sensual music all neglect Monuments of unageing intellect.
The poem charts an old man's journey away from his country of origin to the city of Byzantium. This first stanza explains why he feels the need to leave his country, which remains unnamed. He describes the environment of his country and the way it champions youth and vitality over all, neglecting the aged, who he describes as "monuments of unageing intellect." He remarks that the wildlife, the songs of birds, and the sight of lovers embracing all serve to commend life; thus the physicality of life and vitality is valued over the contents of an elderly body's mind, which the speaker laments by proposing to the reader that though bodies may age, intellect remains valuable and intact. The speaker in "Sailing to Byzantium" strikes a bitter tone toward his supposed youth-obsessed homeland and looks to Byzantium as a monument of tradition and holiness; in God's eyes, he expects that the old and dying are valued more than the young and physically vital.
Ed Tom Bell in No Country for Old Men invites obvious comparisons to the speaker in "Sailing to Byzantium," a connection that helps to deepen Bell's characterization, which McCarthy otherwise leaves rather thin, due to the spartan prose and unpsychological narrative. In other words, we don't have much to go off of when it comes to identifying Ed Tom Bell's true feelings about youth and youth culture. He would have his audience believe that he's compassionate and open-minded, and he approaches the world with a diplomatic, humble-sounding tone; but that fact that McCarthy lifts his title from this particular poem gives readers a clue as to Ed Tom's true feelings. Perhaps he feels left behind by the rapid change in the world; perhaps he's afraid of getting older. By the end of the novel, we know that so many of Ed Tom's major decisions in his life have been motivated by fear. By retiring from the police force, Ed Tom is taking a similar stance as the speaker in "Sailing to Byzantium"; he's cutting himself off from exposure to the problems of the next generation.
