William Butler Yeats uses objective logos and subjective lego to transvalue conventional philosophy and religion for poetic truth and reality throughout his poems. Because of the transumptive power of the poetry, Yeats highly poeticizes apocalyptic vision which makes his poetry unite reality with imagination, nature with human beings, life with art, logic with mystery, humanity with divinity, and history with literature. In this sense, the poet explores the apocalyptic possibilities of poetry through the poetic revitalization of logos and lego in the spiritual world. Since logos and lego are used variously in classic literature, a coherent conception of logos and lego should be defined clearly for this study. In its popular view, logos denotes objective words which have factual basis. However, lego means subjective and personally interpretative words based upon logos. This sense of logos and lego suggest no judgment on the truth of the things. The notion of logos is alluded to frequently in poetic passages, particularly in prophetic texts of Yeats’s poetry. In this sense, the ancients view a poet as a prophet who realizes supernatural will, reveals new truth, foretells the coming age, and charges a possible preparation through the words of apocalyptic poetry. Thus, Yeatsian lego presents a legitimate expression of the human mind, and opens the door to self-justficaton. This conception of logos and lego includes a priori intuition in our beliefs and consciousness. Therefore, Yeats conceptualizes this sense of logos and lego throughout his apocalyptic poetry.

• 이한묵(명지 대학교) | Lee, Han-Mook