The Two Kings, based on the myths of Edain in the ancient pagan Ireland, is Yeats’s long autobiographical narrative poem. This poem expresses not only the poet’s private love story but also his deep concern in the national affairs with realistic consciousness of responsibility. Therefore, in spite of its mysteriousness it shows that Yeats has traveled far into the actual world since his earlier narrative poems. In this poem Yeats adopted only the main part of the original story and changed its plot and reversed its ending on purpose. He reconstructed the original story and recreated it as a “universal” private mythos through imaginative embellishment and creative modification. Furthermore, by clothing each mythical character with multi-roles and -symbols, he succeeded in making the poem a piece of work with both individuality and universality. Through the symbolical behaviors of the characters, Yeats states his firm conviction that a man’s life should be determined by his own free will, and that the lovers’ happiness should dwell in their earthly life, not in their union after death. And the poet asserts that nothing is more important than the reliance and morality between human beings for our true life and happy love. In addition, the poet contends that a leader of a nation must deliver his subjects from their chronic oppression and poverty.
This paper is an attempt to practice Jungian ways into a great poem of Yeats’s, “Among School Children,” over which home and foreign academic societies concerned have been under much controversy till now. But it is very regrettable that I have no belief if the views issued from some noted scholars in the societies have been plausible or appropriate. In the sense, as suggested by the title, the encounter between Great psychologist C. G. Jung and Great poet W. B. Yeat is very significant in that they both had pursued the same ultimate subject as a supreme state of humanity respectively represented as archetype of ‘Self’ and ‘Unity of Being.’ For Jungian ways applied to the poem, first symbols, images and psychological situations lurking in it can be useful as the interpretative clues. These representations can function as faithful agents helping us to reach the gate of the poetic truth, urging us to mobilize Jungian esoteric terms corresponded to several kinds of psychological situations people must go through. ‘Great Mother,’ maternal archetype, who stands for earth and womb and takes two characteristics, construction and destruction, possessing opposite qualities of Witch Kali and Virgin Mary, exercises serious effect upon a male child as an earthly hero. Some ideal aim or mission that the hero strives to grasp is just equivalent to hurriedly return to the womb as his biological origin, namely secular realization of the principle of ‘entrophy’ meaning the second principle of thermodynamics; does mean the hero’s life whatever else? It can be associated with the biblical situation, Pieta, the holy picture describing Mary’s lamenting in bitter grief with embracing his dead son, Jesus Christ. In fact, the hero is determined to death resulting from energetic emission of burning libido, which can be embellished with either establishment of duty or sacrifice to community. Thus, ‘Great mother’ longing for the runaway baby from her womb, in turn, is expecting his death to suffice emptiness of womb and heal her chronic complex, hysteria. In conclusion, in the poem, we can find that the destiny that after “children” in the “school” go through a initial step of ‘individuation,’ the perfect state which further can be indivisible, they, absurd beings, are cast into the tough world with each secular mission is just to aid the scheme of ‘Great Mother.’ “school” is a temple teaching “dance” and “children” in it dancers learning “dance.” Accordingly, the enigmatic relation of “dancer” and “dance” in the eighth stanza would be unraveled: The former can come under an archetypal pattern and the latter can correspond to its practitioner. Thus, “dance,” playing a role of ‘complex’ as compelling force and driving us to imitate it, tires us, dancers, finally to death, as an erotic dancer Salome’s dance murdered a spiritual dancer John the Baptist. After all, we can never get to the core of “dance” only to hang around its brink, which Yeats should know. As usual, getting captivated by “dance,” we continually shout hoarse to others: Shall we dance?
In terms of the way we perceive the world, the history of human beings might be said to be a history of two incompatible forces -'science' and 'myth.' Until today, both indispensable aspects have made human existence possible and characterized human culture. Nonetheless, an essential definition of myth has never been clearly explained. What is the general philosophical thought about myth? Current well known interpretations are so called Enlightenment and Romanticism of myth, which both has same criticism that they has not generally considered myth in terms of its technical function or specified contents. One who overcomes the limit of two current extreme beliefs on myth and also who concerned more with the ultimate origin of myth and its relation to the structure of poetry than the source of its vital accomplishments is philosopher Hans Blumenberg. For him myth is an artificial means and an answers to overcome the 'absolutism of reality.' On this point, the research concerns basically two issues. One is to investigate the functional and structural characters of myth through philosopher Hans Blumenberg's anthropological reflections. The other is to analyze architect Tadao Ando's works and thinking. The intention of the paper is not only to explore the relationship between philosophical theory of Blumenberg and Ando's architectural works, but also to suggest a new critical understanding on architecture from mythological point of view. I also expect that this research will suggests a concrete theoretical idea for constructing and construing artistic form and cultural space.
William Butler Yeats was born at Georgeville, Sandymount Avenue, Dublin, in 1865, and died in the South of France, in January 28, 1939. Yeats was fifty in 1915-1916. He provides a poetic rendering of his visionary experience at his fiftieth year in the fourth section of "Vacillation" written in November 1931, when he became absorbed in the philosophical thinking while writing A Vision: "My fiftieth year had come and gone,/ I sat, a solitary man,/ In a crowded London shop,/ An open book and empty cup/ On the marble table-top./ While on the shop and street I gazed/ My body of a sudden blazed;/ And twenty minutes more or less/ It seemed, so great my happiness,/ That I was blessed and could bless."(CPN 251). In May 9, 1917, recalling his fiftieth year, Yeats describes this experience in a prose, entitled "Anima Mundi": "Perhaps I am sitting in some crowded restaurant, the open book beside me, or closed, my excitement having overbrimmed the page. I look at the strangers near as if I had known them all my life, and it seems strange that I cannot speak to them: everything fills me with affection, I have no longer any fears of any needs; I do not even remember that this happy mood must come to an end. It seems as if the vehicle had suddenly grown pure and far extended and so luminous that the images from Anima Mundi, embodied there and drunk with that sweetness, would, like a country drunkard who has thrown a wisp into his own thatch, burn up time." (Myth 364-5) Seamus Heaney was born in April 13, 1939 in Count Derry, Northern Ireland, and has been attacking Yeats since 1980s for the latter's aristocratic mysticism and spiritual matters. Heaney gave a lecture at Oxford University in 1990, entitled "Joy or Night: Last Things in the Poetry of W. B. Yeats and Philip Larkin." This lecture was given at the end of his own fiftieth year and simultaneously commemorated the fiftieth anniversary of Yeats's death. In this lecture, Heaney comes to open up "a sudden comprehension" to Yeats's vacillating visionary experience of the spirit in "The Cold Heaven": "The spirit's vulnerability, the mind's awe at the infinite spaces and its bewilderment at the implacable inquisition which they representall of this is simultaneously present" (The Redress of Poetry 148). In "Fostering," a poem from Seeing Things (1991), Heaney professes his poetic admission of Yeatsian visionary position: "Me waiting until I was nearly fifty/ To credit marvels" (50). In short, Heaney reaches what Yeats did for the spiritual world. The main objective of this paper is to demonstrate how Heaney reacts Yeats's poetry of vision. My focus is on the year fifty, when they erupt their creative energy in terms of "vacillation"which nevertheless shows the provocative and violent dynamism of the Yeatsian "interlocking gyres."
Ireland abounds in narrative stories, including mythologies, sagas, legends and folktales, handed down through many generations from the ancient pagan period. In Ireland, especially in the western country Sligo where W. B. Yeats spent the better part of his early days, one cannot go far without hearing the mystic stories of pagan gods, nymphs and ghosts. The Irish are very proud of their unique and traditional Celtic culture and they still believe that the supernatural beings haunt everywhere and intervene in their human affairs. Yeats was educated in England and greatly influenced by many English writers and poets. Yeats, however, born with Celtic spirit and encouraged by the patriot John O’Leary, determined to be a national poet. Therefore, he began to write his early romantic narratives and dramatic verses based on the ancient Irish myths and legends, following the two brilliant predecessors Samuel Ferguson and William Allingham. Besides, what is more important than anything else, he usually put his own life and his unrequited love for Maud Gonne by modifying their themes and symbols into the ancient stories. Thus he succeeded in creating utterly new myths much familiar not only to the Irish today but also to the modern people abroad. Hence he was a renowned myth-maker and -modifier of the age
Vesely explains, the main source of our confusion and nihilism comes most probably from the ambiguous relationship between modem architecture, technology and aesthetics. Also, to overcome such crucial problems, many theorists recently emphasize to take part in cultural civilization and to preserve creative genes of great culture that is based on our interpretation of 'ethical and mythical nucleus of mankind,' rather than in technical modernization that constitutes a sort of subtle destruction of mytho-ethical nucleus of a society. They for architecture also strongly stress on a mythopoetic imagination and an ontological construction of building, which could make a form symbolic and mythical rather than mathematical and aesthetic representation. On this point, 'myth' becomes a vital idea for constructing and construing architectural form and space. And it is also one of the essential concepts to understand both the motive power of cultural continuation of place and the meaning of architecture. Nevertheless, its meaning and the citation of word in architectural essay are still obscure. It might be because the original concept of myth not only has been lain in the matter of philosophical contemplation. Thus, the intention of the research is focused on lightening the meaning of myth in architectural term. Especially, it is, first, concentrated on interpreting philosopher Ernst Cassirer's reflections which were written in order to emphasize the importance of 'mythical consciousness' for the world's cultural civilization. And, the second, it will continue to interpret the myth as a sign within the semiotic concept of Charles Sanders Peirce, and further to emphasis the significance of mythic signs for the continuance of artistic and cultural idea including architecture. The contents of the paper is not that of architectural planning and design methodology, rather architectural philosophy and epistemology. Nevertheless, in regard to architecture, the research will, against today's un-discriminated use of symbolic motifs and instrumental representation of form, suggest a concrete architectural and aesthetic theory of myth and sign, especially of the relationship between the idea of semiology and the function of cultural continuity.
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 reading Yeats’s works rooted in the ancient Irish tradition it will be helpful to understand celtic myth. Among extraordinary women from the ancient celtic tradition I studied three Irish women in W. B. Yeats's works: Queen Maeve in The Old Age in Queen Maeve, Deirdre in Deirdre, and Emer in The Only Jealousy of Emer. Moyra Caldecott’s Women in Celtic Myth provides much knowledge about Irish women characters. For the Irish stories the writer consulted Jeffrey Gantz’s Early Irish Myths and Sagas, Lady Gregory’s Cuchulain of Muirthemne and Gods and Fighting Men, and T. W. Roleston’s Myths and Legends of the Celtic Race. Maeve is the most written about among the Irish heroines: she is beautiful, forceful, strong, proud, devious, clever, lusty, and bloodthirsty. Daughter of Eochaid, the High King, she married a relatively minor king, Ailell, son of Ross Ruadh, king of Leinster. Their castle was on the plain of Magh Ai in the province of Connacht. Although Ailell was no weakling, he was, without a doubt, secondary to Maeve in many ways. She had property of her own: cattle, treasure and land that couldn’t match what he had. In fact the whole bloodbath of war to steal the Brown Bull of Cuailnge was brought about because there was one possession Ailell had that outshone her own: Ailell had a better bull. Maeve is the Queen most quoted as showing the privileged position of celtic women in the Iron Age. They were equal in every respect to men, and in some cases they were superior. They owned property; they could, as kings did, “divide gifts” and “give counsel”; they could ride chariots, fight battles, and dispose of lives. And with all this power and freedom went the recognition that women’s sexual needs were as legitimate as men’s. In The Old Age of Queen Maeve Yeats rehandling a given myth depends upon a combined knowledge of the myth that he learned and Yeats’s personal vision, sometimes even his personal affairs. Yeats’s love Maud Gonne is compared to Queen Maeve. A god of love, youth and poetry, Aengus who is crossed in love reminds us of the poet himself. In celtic myth there is a story of the love between Deirdre and Naoise: love with a lot of risks and sacrifices. This love is contrasted with the possessive and destructive lust of Conchubar. Then there is a theme of honor and dishonor. And finally there is beauty. Much is made of the extraordinary beauty of Deirdre, and it is a male reaction to her beauty that brings about “the sorrows.” In Deirdre Yeats selected certain elements which seem to be characteristic of the tale and dramatic in themselves, and introduced three wandering musicians, who are not in the myth. Deirdre was the Irish Helen, and Naisi her Paris, and Concobar her Menelaus. Yeats’s thematic structure provides the clearest link between the Irish myth and heroic romance. He wrote it in praise of the heroic woman, of “wild will”, and of passionate love and the powerful and joyous shattering of common codes and lives. Emer is the admirable wife of a great hero Cuchulain. She is beautiful, healthy, strong, intelligent, and vigorous. Her love for Cuchulain is the best of human love. In The Only Jealousy of Emer Yeats elevates Emer to the same tragic stature as Deirdre, the heroine of his Deirdre. Told by Bricriu that she must renounce her love for Cuchulain as the price for his return to life, Emer decides at the last moment to accept this bitter choice and return Cuchulain, ironically, to the arms of his mistress. These celtic women’s beauty may be representative not only of physical beauty but also the high aspirations of the soul. They are not virgins but mothers or wives. The heroic women show us that love makes humans mature. In these Plays Yeats turned to romantic dreaming, the tradition of nobility in the ancient celtic myths.
Architecture is a shelter for society whose social pattern requires a specific form to accord with its material and spiritual needs. Providing a truly acceptable architecture requires our deeper understanding of cultural tradition - mythic values - not only because myth is an interpreted and configured form of 'thing' through man's second nature, such as his subjective and objective consciousness -'self-revelation of the absolute'- but also because, in the world of mythical imagination, a fragment of substantial reality -'thing'- becomes an equivalent mode to the signification, and emerges as 'its independent spiritual form' and 'the characteristic force of the logos.' In this sense, myth of place and myth behind tectonic form are the most essential sources for comprehending people's relationship to the world of inner and conscious experience. The recent efforts of modern architects to achieve cultural continuity should begin with re-interpretation and configulation of the myths behind describable material culture, especially artistic imagination inspired by deeper understanding of the myth of place. Myth provide artists with a creative inspiration, as they did in the past.