In 1938 Yeats had his New Poems (starting with “The Gyres”and ending with “Are You Content?”) published by Cuala Press. These poems were, however, mixed up with the real last poems written between January 1938 and January 1939 under the heading of Last Poems and Plays published in 1940 to be incorporated in the Collected Poems of W.B.Yeats. This editorial work turned out to be ill-advised and unfortunate: Yeats's intention to make a new beginning with New Poems was, in fact, obscured. It is quite natural that one should consider “The Gyres,” the first poem of New Poems suggestive of what the new start was and what change in his attitude of mind toward life stimulated Yeats to do that. Yeats systematized what he had learned from his long involvement in various mystical activities in his own way in A Vision. He probably wished his statements in the book about man, and history would be proved on the empirical level so that he might make confident poetic statements of them. At this juncture he certainly experienced a kind of epiphany: he probably attained to visionary insight that man, history and things are nothing but phenomena in flux. From this insight he gained two things: one was, as he said, nonchalance, that is, a detached attitude to life and things, the other was confidence in himself when making poetic statements out of anything. These two made his new beginning possible. They are summed up in the expressions, “The Gyres! the Gyres!”, “what matter?”, “tragic joy,” and “Rejoice.”

• 우철환(고려대) | Woo, Cheol Hwan