For the study of courtly love poetry, which is one of the oldest literary conventions, I attempt to read both Yeats and Shakespeare. The relationship between time, love, and art has been a motif on which the poets of all ages have speculated. Perfect love between lovers fades with time and deep furrows on the tender face of the young beloved take place because of an inexorable time. Against such an irresistible time, artists make creative efforts to preserve the lover’s beauty in their works. In Sonnets, Shakespeare feeling nervous about the youth’s beauty ending just in his own lifetime, intends to write poems to keep the beauty eternal. As the poet admires the young handsome man, he wants to make his beauty and friendship with him everlasting in his poetry. In his Sonnets the poet neither deals directly with the destructive time nor shows the paradoxical will against it. Simply adapting to the powerful time and accepting the weakness of man, the poet wishes that beauty will live for good. Meanwhile, as modern poet Yeats started with romantic lyrics and wrote many love poems reflecting the traditional conventions. Yeats accepts certain conventions such as the woman as goddess, Muse and aesthetic object (Cullingford 20). As a presence in real life, the woman extolled by the poet throughout his whole life cannot escape the influence of time. Saddened by the fact that his love is forgotten from the memory of people, the poet chooses to remain the last to write poetry for her. And he shows a strong will to overcome the destructive time and portrays time as a positive influence that deepens the beloved’s nobleness. As mentioned above, though two poets’ responses to time are different, there seems to be an agreement in their poetry as to the fact that love and beauty can be made eternal through art and poetry. These great poets confirm the truth that the immortality of art goes beyond time.

• 정신우(한양대) | Sinu Jeong