W. B. Yeats’ “Among School Children” was the result of the poet’s visit to an elementary school. Apparently, it seems to be the record of his visit and his imagining Maud Gonne’s life and his life. When it is closely examined, it is proved to contain his philosophical thoughts regarding the reality and actuality. As is well known, Yeats lost his interest in Christianity early in his childhood and studied the mysticism, the esotericism, the occultism, and the Orientalism including the old Indian philosophy and Buddhism from childhood to adulthood. Sometimes he studied the various pagan philosophy systematically and sometimes unsystematically. It is natural that his poetry shows the reflection of his philosophy as his poetic aim was to put himself into the poetry. This paper proves the influence of Buddhism on his poem, “Among School Children”. The first chapter deals with the background of this poem’s making and surveys the contents of this poem. The second chapter summarizes his study of Mysticism and the Indic philosophy focussing on Buddhism. This chapter also explicate the main ideas of Buddhism; the Great Wheel, the emptiness, non-self-being, metempsychosis, the Law of Karma, etc. The third chapter examines the poem “Among School Children” in the light of Buddhism. First the poem is proved to be based on the idea of the Great Wheel. The speaker and the persons who are imagined by the poet are chained to the Wheel and cannot escape from it. They have to be reincarnated according to the law of Karma, that is they are suffering the metempsychosis. The law of Karma emphasizes relativity/relatedness among objects. The people named and/or appeared in this poem are related to each other, and have no self-being. The fourth chapter discusses the poem’s development from dualism to monism. Western philosophy is basically based on dualism but Buddhism is monism. We can conclude that Yeats’ thoughts on the actuality and the reality are based on monism in this poem. But his acceptance of Buddhism was not literally, but he adopted and changed it to his purpose. His “Unity of Being” is originated from Buddhism but is not the same as that of Buddhism. He insists that the real life should be valued when the spirit and the body come to be united. In Buddhism, all the actuality is emptiness itself, but Yeats affirms the actuality. In Buddhism, reincarnation and/or re-living is taking different body from the former body, but Yeats thinks we are reincarnated or re-live by feeling and accepting other people’s selves. These are main points of difference between Buddhism and Yeats.

• 최희섭(전주대학교) | Hie Sup Choi