W. B. Yeats poetic purpose is to advocate to Sophia who is suffering in the world with mankind as a hidden God and the feminine principle in Christian Gnostic myth. He searched for two of Sophia’s aspects: Mother and Daughter Sophia. Yeats believed that Mother Sophia abodes in heaven. On the other hand, Daughter Sophia is suffering in the world, and he thought himself as a chosen man of the sole priest for Daughter Sophia. Yeats tried to dedicate his life for Daughter Sophia from his early rose poetry. The immortal rose is a symbol of Helen of Troy or Countess Cathleen who sacrificed her life for rescuing her people’s souls. Yeats also waited for the time of the recovery of Sophia’s glory again. The decided time is coming to follow the theory of the Gyres in A Vision. After dominating the masculine gyre for 2000 years, the androcentric society will disappear by returning to the feminine gyre. Yeats thought the new age would be dominated by Sophia who was not only feminine but androgynous. Yeats also called the new age a ‘rosy peace’ which is a symbol of ’Unity of Being’ and the immortal world. Yeats was eager to search for achieving ‘Unity of Being’ by uniting with Sophia. As he got older, he was a passionate old man who still indulged in Sophia. Yeats believed in Sophia as a hidden and defeated god. But when decided time comes, Sophia will be recovered her glory. In “The second coming,” Sophia as an androgynous god, is symbolized by the sphinx. Yeats often used to the sphinx image to explain Sophia. Especially, the sphinx is identified with the Judge of the Last Judgement. It is important to the symbol of Sphinx’s eyes; ‘a blank and pitiless as the sun.’ The sun symbolizes God’s fury of the Last Judgement as well as the unchangeable supernatural world. Sphinx’s eyes of the sun image are compared with the cat’s eyes of the moon. The moon is a symbol of the wheel of reincarnation and mortal world. In A Vision, the moon has 28 aspects as a symbol of the wheel of reincarnation. Sophia has controlled the souls after death by following the rules of the moon’s 28 aspects. Yeats symbolized Sophia as the Judge of all souls by portraying her as a ‘cook.’ On the contrary, when the sphinx comes, there will be no more the moon’s changeable aspects in the world. Therefore, although the sphinx looks like an evil image, it is only a symbol of Sophia. Yeats always wanted to be Sophia’s sole priest. So he was a Christian Gnostic priest just as W. Blake. In fact, he identified with Ribh who was his poetic hero as well as the Christian Gnostic priest. God’s fury and the rough sphinx image are paradoxical symbols of the God’s glory and the age of the rosy peace. The sphinx’s ‘pitiless eye’ is connected with the horseman’s ‘cold eye’ on his epitaph. The ‘cold eye’ is symbolized to achieve Yeats’s final poetic purpose, ‘Unity of Being.’ That is, the symbol suggested that Yeats would be a Daimon after his death.

• 조미나(토론토대) | Mina, Cho