Most of Yeats’s works are composed of antitheses which are defined by their rhetoric, form, tone and thematic motifs. If the antitheses are Yeats’s central means of perceiving and interpreting the world, what kinds of experience are posited at the center of his life, and in what way and manner are his conceptions of “unity of being” and “unity of culture” connected with his experience of “tragic joy”? This essay attempts to approach the basic frame of Yeats's mind which perceives and interprets the world as composed of contraries, antinomies and antitheses. In such context, Yeats's idea and experience of tragedy are shown to be constructed ideologically in the situation that is divided by the two classes, namely the declining Anglo-Irish Protestant and the powerfully ascending Catholic middle classes. Yeats’s conception and experience of tragedy are connected with what Michel Foucault calls “the absolute power of death”. Yeats thinks that if the modern poet could enact the poetic authority, he should be able to embody the ancient forms of power. Hence his ideology of tragedy and authority which leads him to enact the oral tradition of ancient magical arts. Yeats thinks that, through the poetic mode of ancient magical arts, modern lyric poet can enact the absolute power of death, breaking the comedic power of modern individualism. Yeats's ideology of tragedy and authority, however, is in constant contradiction with “the life-administering power” of modern world. In spite of his desire to enact the tragic power of ancient bard, the space of his later lyrics remains the complex site of ideological conflicts between the residual forms of traditional Anglo-Irish culture and the dominant cultural forms of modern individualism. (The second part of this essay will be continued in the next issue)

The focus of study in this paper is put on the comparison of symbolism manifested in the world of W. B. Yeats’ poetry and the thoughts of Master Won-hyo.. The comparing works include the identification of their understanding ways of life. The symbols in common to bridge W. B. Yeats and Master Won-hyo are, for instance, circle, cone, cycle, sphere, spiral, wheel, vehicle, etc. Such a sign symbolizes a round thing, in another expression, the world or the cosmos where man belongs to. The phenomenological world or the cosmos by oriental thoughts is represented as the 28 phases of the moon, ranging from the dark moon(objectivity) to the full moon(subjectivity), which according to W. B. Yeats’ theory are identified the same kinds of character of man. Won-hyo(元曉, 617～686), a life-long friend of another Buddhist Master Ui-sang., insisted on the necessity for every living being to return to the foundation of the One Mind(一心), which is the original state of being, in another words, or “Ultimate Reality” to which every living being has to return. The Hwa-yen Sutra(華嚴經), a rare scripture of Mahayana Buddhism(大乘佛敎), emphasizes that the Ultimate Reality is the Source of One Mind of Won-hyo. We can say that Mahayana Buddhism teaches every living being the way to return to the world of the Ultimate Reality by great vehicle of "Mahayana"(大乘) in sanskrit. Another principle of Hwa-yen philosophy may be expressed as "All in one, one in all. One is all, all is one"(一中一切一切中一, 一卽一切一切卽一). "The Six Aspects"(六相) is interpretated by the principle. The mutual relationships are harmonized between the whole and a part, between the unity of the whole and the diversity of the part, and between the completion of the whole and the self-denial of the part. The One Mind is synonymous with the Great Vehicle with great wheels, which return to the Source of One Mind, the original state of being, or the Ultimate Reality( or Nirvana). The meaning of the One Mind may be expanded to the synonym of the existential world or the cosmos, at the center of which the One Mind lies. Accordingly, The One Mind, the Great Vehicle or Great Wheel and the World has a similar analogy, which make a system of symbolism, so called “Yeatsian gyre theory.” Yeats imagined a spiral, which he preferred to call a gyre) or whirling cone. Then two such cones were drawn and considered to pass like the human soul through a cycle from subjectivity to objectivity. These cones were imagined as interpenetrating, whirling around inside one another, one subjective, the other objective. The cones were not restricted to symbolizing objectivity and subjectivity. They were beauty and truth, value and fact, particular and universal, quality and quantity, abstract and concrete, and the living and the dead. Yeats thought that he had discovered in the figure of interpenetrating gyres the archetypal pattern which is mirrored and remirrored by all life, by all movements of civilization or mind or nature. Man or movement is conceived of as moving from left to right and then from right to left. No sooner is the fullest expansion of the objective cone reached than the counter-movement towards the fullest expansion of the subjective cone begins. These movements slide to the 28 phases of the moon. The dark moon, in the course of wane and wax sways to the full moon. The different 28 patterns of the moon is mirrored by all life or mind, ranging from the highest state of subjective mind(the 15th phase: the full moon) to the highest cast of objective mind(the 1st phase; the dark moon). In the long run, the world which Won-hyo and Yeats seek for as an ideal space of mind is a unified one, into which melted are the binominal opposites such as objectivity and subjectivity, the sacred and the profane, the bishop and Jane, fair and foul, the dancer and the dance, beauty and truth, value and fact, particular and universal, quality and quantity, abstract and concrete, and the living and the dead.

“Politics,” the last of W. B. Yeats’s Collected Poems (Richard Finneran’s New Edition), ends with the poet's wish for fulfillment of sexual desire and love: “But O that I were young again / And held her in my arms.” Yeats wrote this poem in May 1938, eight months before his death. In another poem, “A Prayer for Old Age,” written in 1934, the poet prays that he “may seem . . . A foolish, passionate man.” In these and other poems of Yeats’s last years, “lust and rage” really seem to “dance attendance upon [his] old age” and “spur [him] into song” (“The Spur”). This paper is an attempt to understand the last years of Yeats’s life and poetry in terms of sexuality and love. The first part of this paper discusses the Steinach operation which Yeats underwent in 1934, when he was 68 years old. Although it is uncertain that the operation had brought the poet the expected “second puberty,” it seems to have had an psychologically positive effect upon his writing of poetry. During the last five years after the operation, Yeats wrote almost fifty poems, which is surprising number considering his old age and precarious health. In this part of the paper, the present writer reads some poems in which the poet's feeling and thought about sexuality and love in these final years of his life are most clearly expressed: “A Prayer for Old Age,” “The Spur,” “The Wild Old Wicked Man,” and the sequence of “Supernatural Songs.” After the operation Yeats met Margot Ruddock, Dorothy Wellesley, Ethel Mannin, and Edith Shackleton Heald, all of them being young, pretty, and intelligent women. They were poets (Ruddock and Wellesley), a novelist (Mannin), and a journalist (Heald). The second part of this paper deals with the poet’s meetings with these women, and reads the poems which are based upon, and reveal the nature of, their relations: “Margot,” “Sweet Dancer,” “A Crazed Girl,” “To Dorothy Wellesley,” and “The Three Bushes.”

Yeats was interested in imagination as he was familiar with the function and value of imagination. For him, Imagination is a kind of creative principle; it is like an almighty divine god. By using and developing the power of imagination we can do anything. The ultimate aim of imagination is to create a paradise in this world from now to eternity. It is, however, too difficult to make such images, as we wish to. Though difficult, it is not impossible to do so. According to Bergson, the possible and the real are not essentially different qualities; they are originally the same attributes; furthermore, all material things are to be formed by the gathering together of images―the world of imagination consists of numerous images. Thus, we, with the marvellous power of imagination, can have the infinite power and intelligence, which resemble those of God. Nonetheless, we are sad for many human conditions that restrict us. But Yeats praises the human souls that overcome such conditions with full arduous life. As he awakens mentally, he comes to find the concept of taking pains -labor-; he needs to make constant efforts to realize the imagination as he wants it, wholeheartedly. To Yeats, such a hard process of living itself is man's sublimity. He concludes that in struggling against the terrible condition of life man will come closer to the attributes of God.

Baile and Aillinn, based on a pagan myth of ancient Ireland, is a long narrative poem which expresses Yeats’s private love story along with his deep interest in his fatherland and its national literature. Naturally, Yeats enlarged the simple plot of the story which tells about the two lovers’ death and their going to live in Aengus’s land among the dead. He also partly created his own private myth in order to transmit his many-folded intent. By clothing each mythical character with a role and symbol appropriate for his purpose, he succeeded in making his poem overcome the limitation of private utterance and making it a poem with both individuality and universality. The death of Baile and Aillinn has a duplicate symbolic meaning. Firstly, their death is an inevitable ritual process to get an eternal beatitude through the union after death and a sort of sublimation of a tragic love, in which we can glimpse at the poet’s plaintive love for Gonne. Secondly, their death is a kind of ritual murder symbolizing a Messianism of the Irish desiring for liberation from inveterate poverty and oppression over time. In conclusion, Baile and Aillinn is an excellent piece showing Yeats’s seasoned poetic technique of creating a poem with new meaning through mythologizing with great subtlety not only his own autobiographical elements but also the national feelings of the Irish people.

In this study, I trace out the influence of woman’s images on Yeats in biographical and feministic point of view. For Yeats, woman was the major poetic motif and source of inspiration; meeting, interacting, and parting with women gave him a motive for poems and deepened philosophy as well as his literary view. As Yeats said in his Essays and Introductions, he "writes of his personal life, in his finest work out of its tragedy, whatever it be, remorse, lost love, or mere loneliness,” and "would die of loneliness but for women.” Indeed, woman for Yeats is the focal point of various themes such as praise of heroic and ideal beauty, despair caused by unrequited love, friendship, maternal love etc. Among many women who influenced Yeats, Maud Gonne was the most important figure. It seems that she was a real feminist who tried to seek a dignified life and ideal as a woman, cultivating her identity and soul rather than being a common woman who is financially and physically subject to man and to cultivate outward appearance to draw man's attention. Even though not accepting Yeats's love, she was not an extreme feminist who denied the entire role and realm of man and supported just woman's opinion and benefits. Instead she seemed to be a moderate feminist who tried to find the real freedom and hope for the Irish women and children who suffered from the dignity and violence of a patriarchal husband as well as chronic poverty. Yeats’s painful but productive relationship with Maud Gonne determined his favor for certain type of women with masculinity rather than with a passive, complaisant, and traditional beauty. As in his fascination of Niam suggested, Yeats liked to praise beautiful women who have masculinity, and he took a courtly love attitude to receive their love. Therefore, he tried to write poems which needed great labour like a woman’s childbirth and praise women of a masculine spirit. Yet Maud Gonne’s constant decline of his suit and radical political inclination, and his depressed Libido made him deeply feel the pain caused by such a mannish woman. Especially, the sudden confession of her past love with Millevoye and her marriage with MacBride gave him a great shock and changed his view of woman. Now he instead dreamed of living a comfortable life with a woman who has traditional feminine nature. At last, Yeats got married to Hyde-Lees with such feminine factors, only to find that her charm and sexual satisfaction didn’t last long. After the conflict with Maud Gonne in 1919, Yeats came to emphasize conservative view of woman, insisting that woman should live in a pure blessing and give up her opinionated mind. He asserted that woman with perfect beauty could be happy only when she made herself beautiful and played a faithful role as man’s supporter. In this period, Maud Gonne’s images was painted dark in his poems; ‘intellectual hatred’, ‘opinionated mind’, and ‘a woman who lost the Horn of Plenty’. But such dark images soon disappeared. Yeats again longed for his lost love, Maud Gonne. However he could not escape from the conflicts between body and soul, ideal and reality. Such a dilemma made him pay attention to Unity of Being, the harmonious union of body and soul, and create his persona, Crazy Jane. Yeats's views of woman suffer many changes through his earlier, middle and later poems. It can be said that his views of woman are expressed according to the increase or decrease in femininity or masculinity inherent within Yeats’s self, the influence of his suppressed libido, and his attitude toward Irish politics. However it can’t be denied that woman was the continuous motif and inspiration of his poems.

일본을 대표하는 고전연극 노(能)가 서양에 소개되기 시작한 것은 일본이 서양문물을 적극적으로 받아들이기 시작한 19세기말부터였다. 일본과 서양과의 교류가 활발해지면서 노는 번역을 통해 서양에 알려지게 되었는데, 이 때 소개된 많은 번역 가운데 특히 유명한 것이 페놀로사․파운드의 번역이다. 여기에 수록된 작품들은 학문적 성과를 토대로 한 정확한 번역과는 거리가 멀지만, 시극(詩劇)으로서의 노의 문학성을 알리는데 그 어느 번역집 보다 기여한 바가 크다. 노는 지금으로부터 약 600년 전, 간아미(觀阿彌 1333-1384), 제아미(世阿彌 1363-1443) 부자(父子)에 의해 대성되었다. 이들에 의해 노는 종래의 민간예능의 제요소들을 흡수하면서 당시 지배계급의 미의식을 만족시킬 수 있는 상징적이며 귀족적인 극예술로 비약적으로 성장했다. 그러한 과정에서 제아미는 무겐노(夢幻能)라고 하는 노 특유의 극형식을 창출하였는데, 그 후 많은 작품들이 이 형식을 빌어 쓰여지게 되었다. 무겐노의 극구성을 보면, 정처 없이 떠도는 승려가 긴 여행 끝에 어느 마을에 도착하는 것으로 극은 시작된다. 이 승려 앞에 정체를 알 수 없는 여자 또는 남자가 나타나 마을에 전해 내려오는 이야기를 들려준다. 이야기가 진행됨에 따라 화자(話者)가 바로 이야기 속의 주인공임이 밝혀지고, 자신의 정체를 밝히고 일단 모습을 감춘 주인공은 극의 후반에서는 생전의 모습으로 나타나 과거를 재현하고 춤을 춘다. 현세에 대한 미련, 추억들이 이들의 이른바 성불(成佛)을 막고 이승에서 떠돌게 하는 것이다. 승려는 이 영혼이 이승과의 인연을 끊을 수 있도록 염불을 드리고 이에 유령은 성불하게 된다. 작품에 따라서는 유령이 끝내 성불하지 못하고 영원히 이승을 방황하는 채로 끝나는 경우도 있다. 파운드의 소개에 의해 서양에 널리 알려지게 된 노는 많은 예술가들의 주목을 받게 되는데, 그 중에서도 예이츠는 노에 남다른 관심을 가지고 그의 작품 속에 노의 주제나 기법 등을 수용한 것으로 유명하다. 예이츠가 말년에 이르기까지 깊은 관심을 보인 것은 다름아닌 무겐노였다. 과거와 현재를 자유로이 넘나들며 자연계와 초자연계의 교류를 그리는 무겐노는 예이츠의 예술적 상상력을 자극하여 그가 오랜 기간 모색해왔던 아일랜드의 전승․신화의 세계를 극화하는 방법에 새로운 단서를 제공해 주었던 것이다. 본고는 파운드와 예이츠가 무겐노 형식으로 쓴 작품 ｢트리스탄｣(1916)과 ｢연옥｣(1939)을 중심으로 노가 이들의 작품에 끼친 영향에 대해 살펴보았다.

예이츠(W. B. Yeats)는 화가를 아버지로, 화가 수업을 받은 시인이었다. 시인으로 성장하면서 문인 못지 않게 여러 화가들과 예술가적 환경에서 생활하였는데, 그의 저술 여기저기에 회화에 대한 언급이 많다. 따라서 그의 시의 형성에는 화가적 시학이 깊이 뿌리내리고 있다고 보아도 틀리지 않다는 전제가 이 논문의 바탕이 된다. 그리고 그의 시작 초기에 결정적 영향을 준 사람이 시인이며 화가인 영국의 대표적 낭만주의 시인인 블래이크(William Blake)이다. 예이츠는 이 시인을 두 번에 걸쳐 편집하고, 곧 이어서 두 편의 글 “회화의 상징성” (1898년)과 “시의 상징성” (1900년)을 발표한다. 이 작업을 통해 예이츠시의 골격이 형성되었다고 해도 과언이 아니다. 이 시기의 시들은 회화의 상징주의와 잘 비교 대조된다. 이 시기 이전의 예이츠는 힘이 부족한 것처럼 보인다. 예이츠시는 본질적으로 고전적인 회화적 형상성을 처음부터 보이나 상징적 특정이 가미되면서 시는 더욱 깊어진다. 예이츠 시의 또 다른 특성은 추상성이다. 이 특성은 예이츠가 의도적으로 시도했다기보다 선구적인 그의 기질이 이런 시를 만들게 했다고 보인다. 추상주의 미술은 아직 등장하지 않았으나, 예이츠는 “추상”이라는 용어를 종종 사용한다. 이러한 회화와 시 읽기에서 다루어지는 작품과 작가는 들라크루와(Delacroix)와 예이츠, 예이츠와 셰익스피어, 「레다와 백조」(Leda and the Swan)와 「비너스와 아도니스」(Venus and Adonis), 블래이크와 예이츠 및 「방울 달린 모자」(The Cap and Bells,) 귀스타브 모로(Gustave Moreau)와 예이츠, 모로의 회화작품들, 「쿨 장원의 야생 백조」(The Wild Swans at Coole)와 후기인상파 화가들 및 모로, 예이츠와 화가 시인 컴밍스(e e cummings) 등이다.