Der Begriff "Synkretismus" kann, quasi wertneutral, rein deskriptiv-phanomenologisch verstanden werden; gewohlich jedoch verbinden sich mit ihm negative Bedeutung - die offenbarte, uberlieferte, gelehrte "reine" Religion wird verletzt und insofern geschwacht, gleichsam "verunreinigt" - es entsteht moglicherweise eine "Bastard-Religion". Synkretismus meint nach der fundamentalistischen Auffassung die unzulassige Vermjschung von religiosen und kulturellen Elementen mit der christ lichen Botschaft. Die Frage nach dem Wert des Synkretismus verweist auf den Standort des Beobachters. Wer an einer Stelle steht, die vom Katholizismus profitiert, wird dazu nei gen, den Synkretismus als eine Bedrohung anzusehen, die es zu meiden gilt. Wer dagegen naher am Boden ist, der wird im Synkretismus einen normal en und naturlichen Prozen sehen. Welche Definition und Bewertung von Synkretismus ist hilfreich? Dieser Artikel handelt sich diese Problematik in verschiedener Kultur.

In my article titled “Nationalism of William B. Yeats and Seamus Heaney in their early poetry: mythic nationalism and realistic national consciousness” which was published in The Journal of English Language & Literature Vol. 45 No. 3, I analyzed three among four factors of nationalism (implicated) in the two poets’ early poetry, that is, ethnicity, language, territory. This article deals with one remaining factor of nationalism, religion, in their middle poetry. Religion is so powerful an influence in Ireland that Irish nationalism can be considered Irish Catholic Nationalism. The political, religious, and economic conflicts between Anglo-Irish Protestants and Catholic Irish made Ireland divided into Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland, after Ireland was liberated from British imperialism in 1922. The native Irish who had lost even their mother tongue, Gaelic during the colonial period of almost 800 years ruled by the British Empire sought their national identity in Catholicism and made the religious oppression of Britain their centripetal force. To Yeats, religion was not a dogmatic faith of institutionalized religion but a field in which his imagination of the supernatural is allowed full play to go beyond the ephemeral real world to the eternal spiritual world. He set the Irish religious identity on Irish countrymen’s native faith in faerie, ghost, eternity of soul, and the world of magic expressed in Irish legends, folklore, myths, and oral traditions. He satisfied his hunger for the ultimate truth of universe with the Irish ancient faith in the mystical world of the everlasting soul and the visionary as well as various kinds of mysticism in the East and the West. The mystical religious identity of the native Irish emphasized by him anticipated the continuous collisions among him, the Catholic pulpit and Irish nationalists. His romantic belief in a heroic spiritual Ireland materialized his Irish Literary Movement and his idealized Anglo-Irish Ascendancy culture was far from the political nationalism of the middle class of Ireland, the political class of the people democracy. Seamus Heaney has also suffered from the conflict between his cultural․ political ideals which are fundamentally Ireland-centered and the political reality of the violent IRA (Irish Republican Army) which kills even civilians at random for the cause of nationalism. To Heaney the religious faith was a recognition of the deep value of the religious ritual and the Catholic ritual has been internalized in his feminine poetic sensibility of patience, humility, duty, discipline, guiltiness, grace, wonder, and the ritual supplication. The Irish religious identity he put an emphasis on was not the visionary mystic one of Yeats but the real one which has been internalized in the minds of the native Catholic Irish as “self-afflicting compulsions” and spiritual paralysis, especially in terms of political martyrdom complex in IRA and historical defeatism of Catholic priests in Northern Ireland. Both Heaney and Yeats opposed violence of nationalism and sought their ideal one. Religion has had a devastating influence on the two tribal struggle in Ireland so that the two poets refused the established Christianity and tried to enhance Irish republican nationalism to the genuine nationalism allowing the peaceful co-existence of the two races living in Ireland. Heaney demythodized Yeats’s myth of the political martyrdom and denied the religious halo of Irish nationalism as well as the mythodized force in the history of the Northern Europe. His quest of democratic co-existence of plural culture in Ulster seems realistic and idealistic solution of the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

This paper is to get away from contemporary literary criticism and discourse concerning Yeats and Eliot. This is not to ignore the features of contemporary culture which are changing rapidly, including modernism to postmodernism. Yet, I want to focus on the poem itself. With the poems of both poets dealing with the same topic coincidently, I concentrate on the different aspects of modern poetry and importance of style from the two poets. Also, I believe that such aspects and difference in style will dedicate to understanding contemporary culture from their different points of view of the world and religion. This view helps us to understand today’s cultural facets from which we can experience a variety of lifestyles. Especially, religious points of view by the two poets help us see the relations of religion with today’s culture, the religion which might not be considered serious today in a general sense. The poem, “The Magi,” is thus delivered in this paper to see such religious significance as suggested from various literary symbols they are using in their poetry. Eliot tries to find the way in which ultimate happiness of human beings comes from the life in religious dimension; whileas Yeats wants to possess a complete life on a different level, that is the world of poetry. Such visions are well suggested in the poem, “The Magi.” Eliot discovers a Christian life from which people can experience a new vision in today’s difficult times. Yet, Yeats explores a new life in arts. The former is dreaming of a Christian kingdom while the latter is dreaming of a visionary kingdom. These differences command the style and form of the two poets. In this respect, Yeats gets over Eliot’s prejudice on him. So, the two poets should not be evaluated on the basis of time. They should be taken into account from a variety of perspectives, not from any fixed ones, with the different values they are suggesting beyond time and place.