Yeats’s studies of ancient myths, legends and occult tradition form a part of his artistic enterprise to quest for the occult wisdom and reaffirm the power of occult imagination. His work is so deeply immersed in the supernatural that it intends to regenerate the modern world by reopening ancient spiritual wellsprings and reviving primal religious sensibilities. His interest in occultism did most to create occult images and symbols as signs of imaginative salvation. Yeats’s mystical lore helped him ascertain the spiritual reality within human consciousness and use magical symbols as a means of calling up visions. Art for Yeats is about the “wisdom of the daemonic image” which holds for a moment of illumination the warring opposites of flesh and soul. Yeats created occult images of spiritual intensity to convey the quality of the Unity of Being out of the increasingly scientific and secular culture of the modern age. His occult images create the rich texture of his poetry that examines the spiritual situation of modern humanity.

• Dal-Yong Kim(Chonnam National University)