In such poems as “The Dialogue of Self and Soul” and “Vacillation”, the antinomies and oppositions which I have traced in the previous issue of this Journal develop in a very complex manner within the frame of such figures as “the sword” and “the tower”, “brand” and “flaming breath”, “burning leaves” and “green lush foliage moistened with dew.” And they are always posited as implying the antinomies of life and death, remorse and joy, body and soul, earthly life and heaven. In the process of vacillating between “extremities”, Self and Heart which figure not only the body but also the poet’s self declines Soul’s request to “seek out reality, leaving things that seem.” Even though Heart vacillates between antinomies, always looking towards what are opposites to itself, it chooses Homer and his unchristened heart as its example and determines to “live tragically.” By opposing the life of a Swordman to that of a Saint and receiving Homer as the figural example of his art, Yeats puts the foundation that his lyric should be understood as tragedy. “The Gyres” and “Lapis Lazuli”, two tragic lyrics composed in Yeats’s last years, embody his idea of the tragic lyric as well as his tragic world view. In “The Gyres”, the poet, invoking his muse “the old Rocky Face” to look forth and view the world’s overall collapse, “but laugh in tragic joy”. And in “Lapis Lazuli”, the tragic heroes of the Shakespearean tragedy are displayed as the opposing powers or qualities to “the hysterical women” of the modern world. In both of these poems, the poet’s tragic joy or exultation springs from the tragic vision that all things “fall and are built again.” The very eternal recurrence of the battle of antinomies and opposite forces is the source which enacts the poet’s strength and energy to exalt in the midst of despair. Therefore, we may be able to say that the poet’s magical aesthetic which is based on the absolute power of death and the tragic sense of life elevates his lyrics to the height of disruptive tragedy, letting the poet to enact tragic authority at the same time.

G.M. Hopkins had stayed in Ireland for 5 years until he died and spent his hardest time in his livelihood but best time for his literature. He had converted to Catholic in his youth and became a priest at last, in spite of the objection of his family. That is a kind of ideal-searching decision but it also means a spiritual seclusion in England which is ruled by Anglican Church. As a priest he was full of humanity, love of people, especially for low class poor persons, and always felt pity for their miserable lives. And he wanted all the English people choose the real religion, Catholic, and get bettered in their spirit, but he cannot but disappointing in their vulgarity and hypocrisy. Anyhow he had very sensitive and self-conscious personality to cope with all this situation bravely. When he went to Ireland as a teacher of Greek in University College, he might have felt a kind of friendship to Irish people through their religion, Catholic. But Irish people has had deep hostility to English people because of their historical background. And there was booming a mood of nationalism against England in those days when Hopkins stayed in Dublin. Of course, it was very hard to teach Irish young students full of hostility to English people. And his health grew worse and worse. In that miserable situation, he seemed to feel a kind of desperation that God discarded him. We can find his alone and isolated situation in the sonnet “To seem the stranger lies my lot, my life“ and more deep and private sentiment in another sonnet “I wake and feel the fell of dark“. It is ironical that his hard life made him write such good sonnets. His hard life was over with the sonnet “Thou art indeed just, Lord“ where he reconciles with his God at last. In conclusion, his staying in Ireland was a good opportunity for his poetry, his literary achievement.

W. B. Yeats began to write his works when Ireland was struggling for its independence from England. Young Yeats hoped to be a national poet and was naturally concerned about the future of his fatherland. The way Yeats chose for his country was a cultural one, not a military or political one. He believed in the Irish people’s artistic sensibilities and believed that his country could be a healthier and better country than England through the ’Unity of Culture’. Yeats was attracted to drama because of its usefulness as a public art. He wanted to establish a national drama based on Irish folklore and myth. He believed that drama could achieve or revive the ’Unity of Culture’ which he equated with the national unity of Ireland. Yeats’s main idea was that to achieve ’Unity of Culture’, the support of common people for art would be essential. Yeats’s early play, The King’s Threshold shows the unity of the poet and common people well. The story is based on an Irish myth. The king, a man of action, banishes Seanchan the poet, a man of words, from his court (affairs of state) and the poet choose to die on a hunger-strike for his rights in the court, that is, for the value of art in society. The poet works for the common people and expects their support, of which the king is much afraid. The King’s Threshold dramatizes the theme that concerned Yeats so deeply, the role of art in society. And another main point of the play is that poetry transcends politics. Yeats satirizes the defects and deficiencies of a society which no longer recognizes the artist’s role. But the poet dies, and we are not shown any effect that his death may have had on either society or the individual. The modern Irish people were not what the young poet had expected. Though the young poet’s dream for the ’Unity of Culture’ may be naive, the play shows us Yeats’s view of art and his belief in the poet’s role in society.

Yeats suffered greatly from the love affair with Maud Gonne but particularly from the contradiction that she manifested. The poet devoted his love and poems to her in vain. But the contradiction is not peculiar or unique problems to Yeats but all men in Western patriarchal tradition. Indeed women for men are figuring simultaneously as madonna and whore, angel and beast. Because the woman has the power to provoke the tumult of desire in man and to gain over him through the desire, the men is afraid of being weaken by her, infected with her feminity and of then showing himself incapable or castrated. The fact that woman from a phallocentric viewpoint appears to be castrated is as reassuring for men as it is alarming. On the one hand, he projects her as lack and sees himself completed in her, thus confirming male hegemony. On the other hand, the so-called castrated woman can reflect back to man a dangerous paradox: if she had been castrated, then his own possession of a penis was in danger by her. In order not to be a paralyzing threat, a woman must have phallic attributes and must become the phallic woman idealized beyond sexuality. The phallic woman is thus fantasized by the man as a defense against castration anxiety. Representation of the phallic woman, he believes, protects him against doubts about his masculinity. Making her like a man conserves the man’s narcissism. The ambiguous nature of the woman is well presented in Yeats’s “Presences.” Here Yeats categorizes the woman as archetypes “harlot,” “child,” and “queen.” And their seductive “rustle of lace or silken stuff” evokes a contradictory femaleness over which he has no rights and which can move rapidly from vulnerable to ruthless, even turning that very vulnerability into a disturbing power over him. In “A Bronze Head,” the woman representative of Maud Gonne remains mysterious and inaccessible, overflowing the ‘images’ and ‘forms’ in which he tries to capture her. In “No Second Troy,” Yeats blames Maud Gonne for her violent political action, perhaps because she cannot be desexualized, idealized, or fetishized fully as he wishes. One of the reasons that Yeats is desperate to prevent the woman from being involved in the politics is that for Yeats the ideal form of a woman would not allow for difference to infiltrate the idealized autonomy. In this sense Yeats prays for his daughter to be the woman with nature of mindless organic spontaneity and for her bridegroom to bring her to a house of custom and ceremony. The idealization of the woman as nature into civilization, however, will not entirely do because it inescapably exposed to the fearful power of death. As Freud argues in Civilization and its Discontents, Eros’s sublimation of the nature into civilization inevitably exhausts its power, which leaves it vulnerable to Thanatos that then threatens to destroy the social order one has so laboriously constructed. The dilemma of sublimation is well explicated in Yeats’s “Mediations in Time of Civil War“ where he perceives the conflict between insistent demands of death drive and the inhibitory requirements of civilization. “Leda and the Swan” shows that the phallic civilization is born together with the brute power of violence and destruction that is to threaten all the social orders. By desexualizing, idealizing, or sublimating the woman, the man may reduce the horror of castration. But his attempt is radically self-defeating and self-undoing, for the more he sublimates her, the more likely she becomes the destroyer of ideal orders. Because of this paradox, the woman remains ontological aphoria to Yeats.

It is well-known that Yeats had a very deep interest in the Oriental Thoughts throughout his life. In this paper, the focus is laid on his interest in Buddhism. Many of his friends and teachers, such as George Russel, Edward Dowden, Madame Blavatsky, Shri Purohit and Mohini Chatterjee introduced Buddhism to him and their friendship were lifelong. This paper examines the relationship between “Tragic Joy” in his poem “Lapis Lazuli” and Buddhism. In a letter to Dorothy Wellesley, Yeats confessed that as the east has its solution, the westerners must raise the heroic cry. His confession implies his object is oriental solution or the solution in the viewpoint of the union of oriental thoughts and occidental thoughts. The main theme of the poem, “Lapis Lazuli” is tragic joy. The characters created by artists aren’t afraid of death and play their roles to the end. Accomplishing their roles, they feel joy, though they know their roles are not reality and reality itself is empty. This attitude isn’t different from that of Buddhism. Buddhism sees that the Reality itself is empty. Though artists realize nothing can last forever, they create artifacts and feel joy in repeated creation. It is certain that Yeats believes that the source of all the existing things is the mind. All the things in the world are reflection of the mind and emptiness itself. To realize this truth is tragic but to create again is a joy.

One of Yeats’s distinguished later poems, “Lapis Lazuli”, which was inspired by a Chinese lapis lazuli carving he received as a gift from a young man of letters, declares the values of artistic activities as a creator as well as preserver of civilizations. In the poem, the poet as a poetic persona constructs vivid vision beyond the real world, breathes in the invisible fragrance that doesn’t really exist and appreciates the unheard melodies from the still object of art. The old ascetics imagined out of the carved still-life meditate upon the tragic scenes beneath their feet from the mountain they ascend towards. Fictitious creatures in a created world of sculpture stare on the real world with old wisdom transfiguring dread. Yeats had not presented all the significant experiences as successfully as he illustrated in this poem. He made the real fictional and in turns, turned the fanciful ideas into real things. The old glittering eyes of those Chinamen in the last stanza are more authentic than the hysterical women who complain with wrong, shrill and cracking voices in the first stanza. The roles of the poet also become mythic as the Chinese do who are distant, old, wise and gay in the hard stone. The poet penetrates into the domain of art work silently and looks back on a poor play of life from the gaiety of his own art. The description of the last stanza in a form of sonnet is much like the controlled carving of a sculptor. And it eternalizes artistic performances by transforming a visual art into a linguistic imagination, and thus by re-creating the scene depicted in the stone in a pleasant manner. As the artist imagines scent and music and movements in the given poetic object, the sculpture attains values stimulating observers’ perception permanently. The Chinese art work with two ascetics and one pupil carrying a musical instrument will continue to mutate in the mind of readers as it receives multiple senses through the poem.

예이츠는 일생에 걸쳐 그의 문학과 그의 신비주의적 관심을 함께 연결시키려고 노력해왔으며 이는 사후의 세계와 우주의 섭리, 천국과 지옥의 실체 등 인간이 인식하지 못하는 것들에 대한 지적 호기심이며 창조적 탐구의 과정이었다. 이런 신비한 것에 대한 관심의 직접적인 접촉은 물론 블레이크적인 접근이었지만 그 뿌리를 거슬러 올라가면 크게 몇 가지로 분류되는데 이는 철학적 접근, 밀교적 접근, 아일랜드의 신화전설, 낭만주의적 접근, 신학적 접근, 그리고 이 논문에서 언급된 고대 기독교적 접근 등이 그것이다. 기독교적 접근이라고 분류되는 것은 성경에 기초한 교조적인 해석이 아니라 어느 정도 신비주의적으로 기독교의 전통에 따라 보이지 않는 것들, 즉 사후의 영적 경험과 천국과 지옥의 존재의 증명 시도를 의미한다. 예이츠의 기독교 신비주의에 영향을 끼친 두 신학자는 스웨덴보리와 보엠이 있다. 예이츠는 스웨덴보리로부터 주로 사후의 세계에 대해 영향을 받고 있다. 비록 스웨덴보리가 기독교의 교리에서 벗어나지 못했다는 약점에도 불구하고 사후세계의 존재인식과 인간과 신, 혹은 우주가 통신한다는 개념들은 예이츠의 인간영혼의 불멸성과 거대기억의 이론에 직접적인 근거가 된다. 그의 중심사상은 자연계와 영계의 통신이며 이는 우주와 개인, 신과 인간, 사후의 세계와 현세, 귀신과 사람간의 연결이며 합일이다. 영적인 세계는 천당이나 지옥이 아니라 그 중간의 세계이며 죽은 영혼들이 윤회로 다시 태어나거나, 혹은 최종의 목적지에 도달하기 전 잠시 머무는 임시영역이다. 예이츠는 이 영역에서 아니마 문디가 정화되고 거대기억이 형성된다고 보았다. 따라서 이 영적인 세계에서는 우주와 인간의 영혼이 서로 통신하며 실제로 교류할 수 있다는 것이다. 보엠은 좀 더 인간에 관심을 가지고 있다. 그의 인간과 신의 합일사상이 블레이크의 신성인간이며 예이츠의 황금새벽의 이상형이다. 우주의 질서와 조화를 강조한 보엠은 예이츠에게 시적 상상력이 신성과 같은 단계이며 시인은 마치 영매처럼 우주와 영혼, 즉 인간의 세계와 신의 세계를 볼 수 있는 능력을 가진 견자(seer)이며 연결할 수 있는 통신자(correspondences)라는 것을 말해주고 있다.

아일랜드와 우리 대한민국은 거의 같은 시기인 20세기 초반에 독립운동이 있었고 또한 20세기 중반이라는 거의 같은 시기에 공화국의 형태로 재탄생했지만, 아직까지 국토의 완전한 회복이 이루어지지 못하고 서로 다른 국가나 체제로 분리되어 있으면서 통합된 한 국가가 되려는 꿈을 버리지 못하고 있다. 아일랜드의 통합은 종교, 인종, 정치 문화적 색채의 차이점 때문에 우리의 통합보다 더 어려울 수도 있겠지만, 다른 한편으로는 800년 이상의 혼종화 현상과 이민 그리고 유럽연합으로의 정체성을 확장시킨 점 때문에 다양성을 수용함에 잘 훈련됨으로써 지역화와 세계화의 조화 속에서 그 갈등이 더 쉽게 풀릴 수도 있다고 생각한다. 대한민국의 경우는 단일 민족, 단일 문화 때문에 더 쉽게 통합될 가능성이 있으나 아일랜드의 경우와 달리 자유와 전제라는 극단적인 이질적 정치체제와 지역적 색채화만을 수용하려는 민족주의가 정치적 봉건화를 지탱시켜 세계화로부터 고립될 수 있는 위험성을 안고 있다. 또 다른 위험요소로는 통합의 과정에서 이루어지는 필수적인 사항으로 탈식민화을 위한 저항과 곧 이어 헤게모니 싸움으로의 내전이 수반될 수 있다. 이 논문을 쓴 동기와 목적은 요사이 회자되나 그 정의가 정립되지 않은 ‘통일’이라는 용어 등을 미래에 바람직하게 정의내릴 필요성을 느꼈기 때문이고 이것을 위해 거의 같은 상황 속에서 바람직하게 발전해가는 아일랜드를 연구해 우리의 문제점을 해결해 보려함에 있다. 아일랜드의 현대 역사는 영국과의 탈 식민전쟁, 그리고 내란으로 이루어지는 시기에 있어 다수인 게일 카톨릭이 과거 지배층인 소수 앵글로 아이리시를 패배시키는 과정, 그 과정에서 수반된 정치와 문화적 측면에서의 민족주의 강화, 그 후에 유럽연합의 일원으로 지역화와 세계화의 조화등으로 정의내릴 수 있겠다. 특히 이 논문에서는 앵글로 아이리시 계급에 속한 예이츠와 회복되지 못한 땅, 북아일랜드의 소수파였던 히니라는 두 시인이 탈식민과 내전에 어떻게 반응했으며 그들이 어떤 식으로 해결을 원했는가를 알아보기 위해 그들의 시를 다시 읽어보고, 한 국가 안에 존재하는 서로 다른 계급의 두 시인이 통합 아일랜드에 대해 지녔던 의견의 차이와 공통점을 찾아내어 우리의 가장 바람직한 통일론을 모색하려 했다. 그런데 두 시인의 가장 큰 공통점은, 종교와 인종면에서 지배, 피지배의 차이가 있을지라도 그 둘 모두 정치, 종교, 인종에 있어 자신들이 속한 공동체의 편견을 극복하고 문화적 공동기반을 다지려 했고 또 시인과 예술의 자유를 추구한 점일 것이다. 한편 그 둘 사이의 차이점은 그 방법론에 있었다. 예를 들면, 그 둘 다 종교와 인종의 편견을 뛰어넘으려는 의도로 조상의 뿌리를 켈트에서 찾을 지라도 아일랜드 자치국의 성립과 더불어 기울어가는 앵글로 아이리시에 속한 예이츠는 처음에는 카톨릭 민족주의 색채를 수용하지만 후기에는 기우는 신교 앵글로-아이리시의 문화를 옹호하려는 균형감각을 고취시키려 했다. 한편 히니는 처음에는 억압받는 북아일랜드의 소수파로서 영국에 저항하는 민족주의 색채로 출발할 지라도 민족주의의 과격성과 카톨릭 공동체가 갖는 편견과 폭력을 배격하고 양심공화국으로의 통합아일랜드를 역설한다. 결론적으로 두 시인은 정치와 종교, 인종의 차이가 강화시킨 배타성보다는 문화적 유대감을 강화시키려는 화해와 상생의 의도를 갖고 있다. 이 둘 모두 지배 문화인 영국을 완전히 배제하지 않으면서 자신들의 정체성을 미국, 유럽으로 확장시켜 그 국수성을 지양해 갔음도 알 수 있었다. 즉, 이 두 시인에게서 민족주의는 문화적 정체성을 확립하는 일에 역점을 둔 것으로 그 과정에서 호전성과 배타성보다는 화해를 통해 식민화에서 파생된 이질성과 혼종을 받아들였기 때문에 지역성과 세계화를 조화시킬 수 있었다. 마지막 결론은 우리의 통합에도 국수적 민족주의와 맞물려 있는 정치적 봉건성으로의 퇴보보다는 지역과 세계화의 기류 속에서 문화의 정체성을 추구함이 선행되어져야 할 것이다.

예이츠(W. B. Yeats)는 평생 프랑스, 파리를 10여 차례나 방문하여, 길게는 46일간 체류하면서, 많은 문인들과 신비주의자들과 교류하고, 공연을 보고, 작품을 쓰거나 구상하며, 대마초 -당시는 불법이 아니었지만- 를 피우기도 한다. 그러나, 흥미롭게도, 그가 장기간 머물고 있던 때는, 자신의 평생의 연인인 모드 곤이 파리에, 혹은 노르망디에 거주하고 있었다. 물론, 최초로 파리에 머물 때는 메이더스의 집에 머물었고, 그 다음에는 호텔 꼬르네이유라는 문인들이 모이는 곳에서 작품을 쓴다는 목적이었다. 그러나, 모드 곤과의 첫 키스가 있은 직후는, 파리의 그녀의 집에서, 또 마지막 청혼을 할 때는 노르망디의 그녀의 집에서 머문다. 그리고, 예이츠가 조지와 결혼한 후에는 9년간 파리를 방문하지 않는다. 훨씬 후 병이 나자 치료하려 프랑스 남쪽을 찾고, 나중에는 그곳에서 사망하고 묻힌다. 그러나, 모드 곤에 이끌려, 파리를 방문하지만, 예이츠는 이곳에서 많은 것을 얻어간다. 파리에 머물면서 쓴 그의 편지는, 당시의 그의 심경, 상황, 문학관, 예술관, 등등 많은 것을 엿볼 수 있게 해준다. 이 논문은 이미 많이 다루어진 인물 보다는, 덜 다루어진 사람들과의 교류를 보여주는 편지의 소개에 중점을 둔다.