The purpose of this paper is to cross-culturally analyze the meaning of 'love' in Korean and American pop lyrics of 1980's. Pointing out that the information provided by dictionaries is not sufficient to understand the cultural meaning of 'love', the corpus analytic method of semantic prosody is introduced as it is explicated by Hunston (2002). Using this semantic prosody technique, three different sets of pop lyrics are analyzed with WordSmith Tools software. The three data sets, one Korean and two American, represent 150 pop lyrics. Specifically, these texts are analyzed in terms of distribution patterns of 'love' in the lyrics. First, the modification pattern of 'love' is investigated. It is found that the Korean data is significantly skewed toward negative expressions, producing negative semantic prosody of 'love', while the American data which reflect American culture is overwhelmingly skewed toward positive expressions, producing positive semantic prosody. That is, Koreans experience 'love' in a fairly negative terms in their pop music, while Americans basically treat it positively. Interestingly, the American pop lyrics popular with the Korean public show in-between characteristics. Next, the predication patterns of 'love' are investigated when it plays the role of subject NP. The result again shows that these two cultures define 'love' drastically differently in their pop music. In sum, the semantic prosody technique proved to be useful as an analytic method for cross-cultural studies.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the theme of The Only Jealousy of Emer, one of W. B. Yeats's 'Cuchulain plays'. The central action of the play is the struggle of three women—Emeer, Eithne Inguba and Fand—for possession of Cuchulain. Unlike Eithne Inguba's confused, cowardly action, Emer's behavior is brave as well as insightful. And as the chorus suggests, Fand's allurements are transitory. Fand's metallic allurement contrasts with Emer's passionate suffering. Fand wants to catch him to fulfill herself, not to aid in his salvation. Emer is more courageous than Eithne Inguba, more self-sacrificing than Fand, and more forgiving than Aoife. Emer's love for her husband transfigures her, whereas Aoife's vindictive hatred for Cuchulain costs them their only child. Emer is certainly a Yeatsian heroine who performs as nobly as Deirdre or Cuchulain. Yeats's most immediate source for his Cuchulain plays was Lady Gregory's Cuchulain of Muirthemne, but he significantly altered the source to serve his purposes. Emer's thwarted desire to attack Fand with her knife is one of the few links between Yeats's source and his much changed finished work of art. From this primitive tale of vengeance and jealousy, Yeats created a sophisticated drama of mental suffering and self-sacrifice. A second major change in the source involves Cuchulain's recollection of Fand's attempt to ensnare his soul. Both his fear upon awakening and his later praise of Emer for saving him suggest that he is glad of his deliverance, not despondent over the loss of Fand. Yeats's greatest modification came in his treatment of Emer's temperament. Instead of the jealous wife of seeking vengeance for herself, she is jealous only for her husband's well-being. By renouncing the love of the man she needs to end her loneliness, Emer proves herself superior to the source heroine. In the final version, Yeats dramatized, through Emer's hope for the return of Cuchulain's love for her, through her initial inability to give up her hope of winning back his love, and through her final renunciation of his love, the depth of her love and the extent of her sacrifice.

“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.”

For the study of courtly love poetry, which is one of the oldest literary conventions, I attempt to read both Yeats and Shakespeare. The relationship between time, love, and art has been a motif on which the poets of all ages have speculated. Perfect love between lovers fades with time and deep furrows on the tender face of the young beloved take place because of an inexorable time. Against such an irresistible time, artists make creative efforts to preserve the lover’s beauty in their works. In Sonnets, Shakespeare feeling nervous about the youth’s beauty ending just in his own lifetime, intends to write poems to keep the beauty eternal. As the poet admires the young handsome man, he wants to make his beauty and friendship with him everlasting in his poetry. In his Sonnets the poet neither deals directly with the destructive time nor shows the paradoxical will against it. Simply adapting to the powerful time and accepting the weakness of man, the poet wishes that beauty will live for good. Meanwhile, as modern poet Yeats started with romantic lyrics and wrote many love poems reflecting the traditional conventions. Yeats accepts certain conventions such as the woman as goddess, Muse and aesthetic object (Cullingford 20). As a presence in real life, the woman extolled by the poet throughout his whole life cannot escape the influence of time. Saddened by the fact that his love is forgotten from the memory of people, the poet chooses to remain the last to write poetry for her. And he shows a strong will to overcome the destructive time and portrays time as a positive influence that deepens the beloved’s nobleness. As mentioned above, though two poets’ responses to time are different, there seems to be an agreement in their poetry as to the fact that love and beauty can be made eternal through art and poetry. These great poets confirm the truth that the immortality of art goes beyond time.