본 연구는 안티노미가 내용과 형식 양면에서 ｢초자연의 노래｣전체 작 품을 관류함을 논술한다. 시인은 이 연작시에서 성의 문제를 자연계를 넘어 초자연적 영혼의 세계로 확대하였다. 가시적 대응구조인 남자와 여자의 결합에 천상의 합일을 대척점에 놓아 섹슈얼리티의 안티노미 구도를 갖춘 것이다. 예이츠가 제시한 종교적 안티노미는 이미 넓고 깊이 인식된 기독교 정신과 교리를 전혀 새롭게 사색하게 하는 일종의 도발이다. 그는 남성 위주의 성 삼위일체가 아닌 남녀와 자식으로 구성되는 양 성적 삼위일체를 주장하고, 사랑이 아닌 증오가 천국으로 인도할 것이라고 말한다. 문 명의 대립구도는 서양의 긴 문명사를 동양의 은자가 일갈해서 허무는 데 압축돼 있다. 성산 메루의 은둔자는 종교적, 철학적, 문명사적 혜안으로 모든 서양 문명의 쇠락을 설파한다.

In such poems as “The Dialogue of Self and Soul” and “Vacillation”, the antinomies and oppositions which I have traced in the previous issue of this Journal develop in a very complex manner within the frame of such figures as “the sword” and “the tower”, “brand” and “flaming breath”, “burning leaves” and “green lush foliage moistened with dew.” And they are always posited as implying the antinomies of life and death, remorse and joy, body and soul, earthly life and heaven. In the process of vacillating between “extremities”, Self and Heart which figure not only the body but also the poet’s self declines Soul’s request to “seek out reality, leaving things that seem.” Even though Heart vacillates between antinomies, always looking towards what are opposites to itself, it chooses Homer and his unchristened heart as its example and determines to “live tragically.” By opposing the life of a Swordman to that of a Saint and receiving Homer as the figural example of his art, Yeats puts the foundation that his lyric should be understood as tragedy. “The Gyres” and “Lapis Lazuli”, two tragic lyrics composed in Yeats’s last years, embody his idea of the tragic lyric as well as his tragic world view. In “The Gyres”, the poet, invoking his muse “the old Rocky Face” to look forth and view the world’s overall collapse, “but laugh in tragic joy”. And in “Lapis Lazuli”, the tragic heroes of the Shakespearean tragedy are displayed as the opposing powers or qualities to “the hysterical women” of the modern world. In both of these poems, the poet’s tragic joy or exultation springs from the tragic vision that all things “fall and are built again.” The very eternal recurrence of the battle of antinomies and opposite forces is the source which enacts the poet’s strength and energy to exalt in the midst of despair. Therefore, we may be able to say that the poet’s magical aesthetic which is based on the absolute power of death and the tragic sense of life elevates his lyrics to the height of disruptive tragedy, letting the poet to enact tragic authority at the same time.

Most of Yeats’s works are composed of antitheses which are defined by their rhetoric, form, tone and thematic motifs. If the antitheses are Yeats’s central means of perceiving and interpreting the world, what kinds of experience are posited at the center of his life, and in what way and manner are his conceptions of “unity of being” and “unity of culture” connected with his experience of “tragic joy”? This essay attempts to approach the basic frame of Yeats's mind which perceives and interprets the world as composed of contraries, antinomies and antitheses. In such context, Yeats's idea and experience of tragedy are shown to be constructed ideologically in the situation that is divided by the two classes, namely the declining Anglo-Irish Protestant and the powerfully ascending Catholic middle classes. Yeats’s conception and experience of tragedy are connected with what Michel Foucault calls “the absolute power of death”. Yeats thinks that if the modern poet could enact the poetic authority, he should be able to embody the ancient forms of power. Hence his ideology of tragedy and authority which leads him to enact the oral tradition of ancient magical arts. Yeats thinks that, through the poetic mode of ancient magical arts, modern lyric poet can enact the absolute power of death, breaking the comedic power of modern individualism. Yeats's ideology of tragedy and authority, however, is in constant contradiction with “the life-administering power” of modern world. In spite of his desire to enact the tragic power of ancient bard, the space of his later lyrics remains the complex site of ideological conflicts between the residual forms of traditional Anglo-Irish culture and the dominant cultural forms of modern individualism. (The second part of this essay will be continued in the next issue)

Unlike his early symbolic mode that is based on the natural representation of organic universe, Yeats’s later works are constructed in the allegorical mode which is based on the antinomies and oppositions that can be defined by rhetoric, form, tone and thematic motifs. If the antinomies are Yeats's central means of perceiving and interpreting the world, what kinds of experience are posited in the center of his life, and in what manner are those experiences represented? The aim of this essay is to approach, through his poetic sequence “Meditations in Time of Civil War”, Yeats’s frame of mind which perceives the world as a series of fixed set of antinomies. Yeats’s later lyric mode is connected, in a very complex manner, with the contradictions and conflicts which arise from what Michel Foucault calls “the absolute power of life and death” and “the life-administering power”. He believed that if the political power and the family authority were to be maintained in modern Ireland, he as poet should embody the ancient forms of power in the aesthetic domain. Such idea leads him to enact in his own works the oral tradition of ancient poetry. He thinks that, leaning on the model of ancient magical arts, modern lyric poet could embody the absolute power of death in his poetry. The literary mode which enacts such power and authority can function as one of the main agents that break the comedic power of modern individualism. Yeats’s idea of absolute power and authority is, however, in constant contradiction with the life-administering power of modern society. Therefore, despite the poet’s strong desire to enact the tragic authority of ancient bard, the poetic space of “Meditations in Time of Civil War” remains the complex site of contradictions and conflicts between the residual forms of Anglo-Irish traditional culture and the dominant cultural forms of modern individualism. It is a disruptive space in which what Fredric Jameson calls the “reversibility” and “disjunction” of modern literary text are embodied in thematic, figural and formal levels.

Yeats는 노년의 질고와 생사문제를 명상하는 Last Poems에서 자아의 이원적 존재를 표상한다. 육체적으로 죽어가는 노인으로서의 시인과 내적자아가 희구하는 시인상의 이원성이 기존 주제와 상충되는 새로운 주제를 암시해준다. 종래의 지성적, 철학적, 신비학적, 음유시인적, 마스크 중심적인 주제를 넘어서는 새로운 주제는 생사의 문턱에서 죽음관, 도취하여 즐거워하는 육체성, 무도성, 성적표현성을 매개로 한다. 이 두 주제는 인간의 운명에 대한 내적 각성, 민족성과 정신의 본질로의 침잠/축소/회귀, 지적 심사(心事) 등과 대비되는 죽음의 공포로부터 탈출하여 최고 비전, 최고영성, 최고열반(희열) 등으로 상승하는 주제가 된다. 제1주제가 지성주의, 철학, 고담준론, 신비주의 이론, 마스크 이론, 젊은 시절의 바빌로니아 주제라고 한다면, 제2주제는 경험중심, 촉각과 현실 인식주의, 현실쾌락의 참여성, 정열적 희열감, 생의 기쁨 속에 잠겨서 긍정적으로 술 마시고 춤추는 모습, 성적 회춘기 성향 등이 된다. 그런데 Last Poems에서는 제 2 주제가 보다 강하게 표출되는데, 마치 블레이크, 로렌스적인 성감과 생의 자유성을 피력해준다. 이 성향은 시적 감수성 면에서 바빌론적인 시성에서 인도 및 중국적인 현실성과 성적 감각을 제시한다. 또한 기독교적, 그리스적 정신성, 또는 극동 아시아적 특성보다는 근동이나 인도적 정신성을 암시 받는다.