The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between W.B. Yeats's obsession with mysticism and his nationalism in his early years (1885-1895). My basic argument is that he knocked at the door of mysticism to find a metaphysical symbol with which he could unify politically, religiously, and culturally divided Ireland. In fact, Yeat's turn to mysticism in his early years attracts many scholars's attentions. But a reading of many studies on this topic leads us to believe that Yeats studied mysticism for other purposes. Elizabeth Cullingford and Richard Ellmann argue that Yeats's preoccupation with mysticism was his antipathy to materialism which was prevalent due to the Industrial Revolution. Seamus Dean explains Yeats's interest in mystical and occult traditions as his efforts to establish an Irish cultural identity. Denis Donoghue maintains that Yeats wanted to separate Irishness from Englishness by dedicating himself to the study of mysticism. In addition to these purposes, I believe, one of Yeats's political agenda was to unify various cultural, religious, and political forces of Ireland before the turn of the century. Yeats firmly believed that the identity of the Irish should be based upon intellectual life and spiritual principles which could solve and transcend the cultual, religious, and political discords of Ireland. The spiritual creeds Yeats was looking for should be founded on the common Irish spirit which could appeal to the Irish whether they were Anglo or Gaelic, Protestants or Catholics, or Unionists or Separatists. In other words, spiritual principles should not be confined to one church. In this sense, Yeats’s choice of Indian thought and occultism is suitable because they have universal appeal. Yeats believed that Indian thought would provide Ireland with the common spiritual tradition which predated both Catholicism and Protestantism. Furthermore, the religious concepts of pantheism and mysticism were the very ideas Yeats needed to bring the conflicting religious and political parties into perfect harmony and balance. Namely, Yeats tried to find a metaphysical model for the unity of Catholics and Protestants through the mystical union.

In connection with the world beyond globalization, new theories such as Samuel Huntington's 'The Clash of Civilization', Gilbert Achcar's 'New World Disorder' and 'The Third World War' are emerging. This paper was motivated by the personal thinking that the Republic of Ireland as Celtic Tiger goes beyond globalization toward 'uisneach', as the hidden tradition, and that Yeats is a great guide to illuminate the quest and that Heaney is an inheritor or an achiever of the quest.This paper begins with the hypothesis that the modern Irish poetry is seeking their hidden tradition, 'uisneach'. I think that to understand the modern Irish poetry, we should first understand what is meant by 'uisneach'. 'Uisneach' has the various meanings: in the geographical sense, it means the area of the "territorially elusive" fifth province of Mide, the navel or the center of Ireland; in the religious sense, it means the sacred center of Ireland in pagan times; in the mythological sense, it is related to the Ulster Cycle including "Oidheadh Chloinne Uisneach", the fate of the Sons of Usnech, known as the Deirdri Ballads; and in the aesthetical sense, it means the origin where creative energy is flowing. W.B. Yeats was a knight in charge of the quest of the Irish political independence through the Celtic Revival against Anglo-Saxon's scientific modernity. His search for 'uisneach' reflects the resistance on the regional as well as the European level against Anglo-saxon's culture. Seamus Heaney's poetry is also going toward the fifth spiritual space where the Irish people believe a reconciliation is to be made, by taking some steps. And lastly, he also goes beyond the global space toward their hidden world based upon Celtic belief and the mild liberalist aestheticism. My last conclusion is that 'uisneach', a hidden tradition or vision means the Celtic vision modern Irish writers have sought. I think that Yeats is a poetic predictor or mentor to illuminate another waste land, Ireland, by suggesting the vision while Heaney is an inheritor in that he goes toward the hidden tradition Yeats suggested.

However hard a poet may cry out 'art for art's sake', art works are likely to be evaluated by the political surroundings: a poet is very likely to represent the class he belongs to and to react to the political situation through his own works. A poet who suffers from the turmoil of the transitional period can be a victim of the period in the sense that he can be evaluated irrespective of the real value of his works. This paper is motivated by our current social phenomena that the fanatical nationalism to evacuate the past is also applied to the work of reevaluating writers of the past as well as of the present; interestingly, the same situation happened to Yeats. This paper starts with some hypothesis that the primary reason for the lower reevaluation of Yeats since the birth of Free State until its rebirth as a member of E.U. is that he belonged to the Anglo-Irish Ascendancy. And then this paper investigates identity and contribution of the Anglo-Irish to Irish history. And finally this paper tries to find out how Yeats reacted to the radical change of hegemony especially after Responsibilities. The investigation into his poems leads us to the conviction that in his first stage, he wanted to surrender his half-blooded Englishness to his another half-blooded Irishness. This explains why he tried to dig up the ancient Gaelic culture and to advocate the Gaelic Catholic in his first stage. However we can witness his changing attitude after the Easter Rising: some threat from the majority Catholic fanaticism awakened Yeats's self-recognition as an Anglo-Irish, advocating their class and culture in his poems since Responsibilities. It follows that although Yeats wanted to be an artist for art as such, he could not but seek for reconciliation of two aspects of Ireland, -that is, its religion and ethnicity. Yeats's poetry reflects the shift in the political hegemony and the definition of the Irish identity. My conclusion is as follows. The main reason Yeats's evaluation was going down during the period Ireland was being established as a republic country is that he belonged to the Anglo-Irish Ascendancy, the past power group. Through Yeats's poems we can witness the decline and agony of the Anglo-Irish during the birth of Republic of Ireland. Therefore the historical contribution of the Anglo-Irish is to be reevaluated; Yeats's Literary Revival is also referred to as "a cracked mirror of the servant". By reading again Yeats's poems from the new perspective towards Yeats as an Anglo-Irish, we can see that Yeats's advocacy of the Anglo-Irish was made only after he was threatened by the fanatical Catholic nationalism and that he adhered to the reconciliation of the divided Ireland throughout his life. Meanwhile, this study leads to another question: Is it possible that the art is free from the political pressure or turmoil? In my opinion, although art is not free from that situation, it can only survive when it shines in the filthy tide, searching for the independence and freedom. I think W.B. Yeats is an example.

This paper focuses on the similarities and differences between Robert Browning's dramatic monologue and W. B. Yeats's mask theory. Even though two poets were not contemporaries, it is very interesting that they show some similarities in poetic skills and subjects. Unlike Romantics revealing a poet's subjective feeling directly in their poems, Robert Browning created the dramatic monologue to develop the field of the objective expression. In his “dramatic monologue,” a character instead of the poet utters the speech that makes up the whole of the poem, in a specific situation at a critical moment. This person addresses and interacts with other people and we know of his presence, as well as what they say and do, only from the clues in the discourse of the single speaker. In his “My Last Duchess” the Duke is negotiating with an emissary for a second marriage, and the reader can know the speaker's cruel character and intentions. In his “Andrea Del Sarto,” though Andrea was one of the greatest painters in the Renaissance period, he was a failure as an artist because of his artistic passion and indomitable spirit. Excusing his artistic frustration, he once more tries to believe his wife's lies. When Yeats entered art school in Dublin in 1884, he was an enthusiastic reader of English poetry, especially Browning. Yeats was an admiring reader of Browning's poetry, and Browning was one of the nineteenth-century forefather poets of Yeats. He explored, as Browning did, the themes of creative men divided within themselves and struggling to unify their inspirations toward love and intellect, aesthetic contemplation and heroic action. In this process, Yeats developed the concept of masks from the other self in contrast to the natural self perceiving a man as the conflicting existence between subjectivity and objectivity. In his doctrine of mask, Yeats provided a formal aesthetic for the poet's need to speak dramatically through the masks of other personalities; Browning had long practised dramatic poetry in principle in which he donned the masks of personalities totally unlike his own. Browning tended to hide his interests behind the masks of his characters, whereas Yeats more openly voiced a variety of mystical and antithetical thoughts. Yeats happened to find an occasional, almost incidental similarity of language and a shared attitude toward the sources of poetic inspiration with Browning's. By 1929, when he was sixty-four years old, rewriting and revising his poetry with an eye to a collected edition, he announced that he would be turned from Browning. Yeats was an appreciative reader of the older poet, but the great achievement of Yeats's poetry transformed and transcended the influence of Browning.

Yeats constantly sought to express in his poetry the images that he actually felt and experienced in the real world. The images in his poetry are the reflection of his dream and ideal, and they are “realities” of the real world transformed through his own imagination. In his early poetry, the images often tend to be illusory and mystical as they depend on materials of legends and myths. But in his middle period, the tendency to be illusory and mystical has gradually vanished, and his poems begin to become realistic, based on materials of common life. But, to me, this change, from the ideal to the real, is not dichotomous. For Yeats, Real and Ideal seemed to be inseparably related to each other under their mutual influence. That is, he sought the realization of Ideal while he didn’t forget Real in his own Ideal because he knew very well that forgetting his Real meant loosing his identity. Furthermore, his poetry shows a dialectical development that becomes a harmony of Real and Ideal by overcoming the conflict between them and by positively accepting the reality of the world. Finally, Yeats created a sublimated reality through internal conflicts of his Real and Ideal. Thus, this essay tries to show the change of reality in Yeats’ poems, which goes through a dialectical development, focusing on the relation between reality and imagination in his poetry.

The tradition of local landscape poetry in England has appeared since the 18th century, and has been enhanced as one of the main characteristics of the 19th century European poetry and inherited until today. The landscape, in general, plays three roles: first, it is used as the background and a medium with which to express a poet’s emotion and mind; secondly, it can reveal its role as a subject, making dialogue with a poet; and thirdly, it can be used as a reminder of collective mind. Yeats and Heaney, unlike the English poets, show strong aesthetical and collective mind, even in describing the landscape. However, Yeats, belonging to Protestant Ascendancy, used the landscape as a medium to express his individualistic emotion and to stir the Romantic Ireland. On the other hand, Heaney, belonging to the oppressed Ulster Catholic, projects the communities’ lack - as well as the reaction to overcome this lack - the lost land, language and tradition. Heaney’s point of view and technique are very realistic, while Yeats’s point of view and technique are romantic. Yeats’ landscape is painted purple-coloured ; Heaney’s is described as a dark-coloured one, reflecting his own pity for the oppressed people and their adversity.

As a genre of folk song, the ballad is impersonal in that it often depicts something beyond the personal attitude or emotion of a poet. Yeats, to simplify the diction of his poetry, tried to use the metaphor of ballad, which is a material appropriate to human experience and instinct. As an important device of the ballads, the ‘refrain’ of his poetry is especially marked. The refrain (that is, verbal repetitions) may be a word or a line or groups of words or lines, and appears at the end of each stanza. In addition, Yeats’s use of the refrain is remarkable in his later poetry, particularly in The Winding Stair. The refrain may be without meanings, serving for some musical effect, as in some poems of the Elizabethan Age but it may give life to the language as Friedrich Schiller points out. This essay tries to divide the function of refrain into four types, despite the danger of making Yeats’s poetic range look limited. All the poems are not ruled by only one function but, in part, some poems appear to be with mixed functions. First, the refrain emphasizes poet’s theme through ironic meaning, as in the poems of ‘September 1913,’ and ‘‘The Curse of Cromwell’ and ‘The Three Bushes.’ Secondly, the refrain brings about mystery by the images of silent stillness, as in the poem of ‘Long-legged Fly’ and ‘The Apparitions.’ Thirdly, the refrain may give life to the language in conversion of the meaning, as in the poem of ‘What then?’ Fourthly, the refrain shows nonsense or meaningfulness, as in the poem of ‘The Pilgrim.’ This ‘nonsense’ speaks for his view of life in his later period, and reveals his willing acception of tragic nihilism.