Through his long poetic career from 1885 to 1939 Yeats was preoccupied with the dualistic nature in this world―the ideal against the real, body against soul, and Self against Anti-self. He was aware that these conflicts and contradictions were necessary for the mental growth in man and through the struggles between these opposites he might achieve the state of the whole. In his attitude toward life Yeats embraced with open mind both what he was and what he wanted bo be. The two opposites are co-existent and inseparable so as to be united into the Whole Being. Yeats had applied the symbols of ‘sexual union’ and ‘dance’ to his poetry in order to express ecstatic experience of ‘Unity of Being.’ This paper traces up Yeats’s attitudes toward life, and studies the aspects of conflicts and contradictions, through which he may attain the ‘Unity of Being,’ the ideal that Yeats had searched throughout his poetry and other activities.

• 허현숙(건국대) | Hyun Sook Huh