본고는 베리어(Nancy Newton Verrier)의 『원초적 상처』(The Primal Wound)를 중심으로 한 입양학적 논의를 분석의 틀로 삼아 드포(Daniel Defoe)의 『록사나』(Roxana)에 나타난 버려진 아이 수잔(Susan)의 유기와 입양, 그리고 죽음에 투영된 개인적 트라우마의 상흔을 읽는다. 트라우마와 입양학적 관점을 통해 살펴보면 수잔은 생모로부터의 분리와 그에 따른 트라우마 기억(traumatic memory)으로 고통받는 희생자이다. 수잔의 죽음과 그의 유령은 입양인의 트라우마와 생모와의 재회가 무산됨으로 인한 재유기(reabandonment)와 이로 인한 상실(loss)을 재현한다. 한편 예이츠의 「1916년 부활절」 (“Easter 1916”)는 부활절 봉기가 가져온 충격이 집단적 트라우마로 형성되는 양상을 잘 보여준다. 예이츠는 과격한 민족주의자 개개인이 죽음을 선택한 것에 대해서는 비판하면서 동시에 국가를 위한 그들의 영웅적인 행동에 대해 동정적 인 반응을 보임으로써 상반된 감정을 두드러지게 나타난다. 그에게 「1916년 부활절」 은 한편의 집단 애가로서 혁명가들의 비극적 죽음 이후 살아남은 자들의 집단적 트라우마를 “끔찍한 아름다움”으로 서술한다.

이 논문은 추모와 기억이 작동하는 방식에 대한 이론적 논의를 바탕으로 예이츠의 “1916년 부활절 봉기”를 분석한다. 기억과 망각, 기념과 반기념이라는 대립적 개념의 긴장을 통해 희생자들에 대한 예이츠의 양가적이고 분열적인 욕망을 읽어낸다.

본 논문은 이른바 예이츠의 정치적 작품의 성격을 규명하고 한다. 통상 정치적이라고 해석되는 예이츠의 시 몇 편과 희곡 한 작품을 읽으면서 정말 그런 지 검토하고자 한다. 그러나 사실 예이츠는 일부 비평가들이 정치시, 정치극이라는 작품을 그렇게 여기지 않은 것 같다. 필자는 이 작품들이 정치적이지도 비정치적이지도 않으며, 그의 사상과 철학체계의 일부분으로 여겨져야 하고 또한 전작품의 구조에 한 부분으로 보아야 한다고 주장한다. 이러한 접근이 받아들여지면, 그의 복잡한 작품세계와 더욱이 많은 평론가들에게 이해하기 어려운 복잡한 작가 예이츠를 보다 온전하게 이해할 수 있게 될 것이다.

예이츠의 시 ｢1916년 부활절｣은 많이 연구되고 논문도 많이 쓰여 졌다. 그러나 사실 내용과 연관된 시의 형식은 충분한 관심을 받지 못하고 있다. 즉, 시의 외적인 것, 즉 정치적인 것들, 사회문제들이라든지, 심리적인 것들까지 주된 관심사였다. “지독한 아름다움”의 역동적 힘으로서의 시는 논외였다. 그러나 예이츠는 형식을 통한 의미 만들기에 많은 관심을 쏟았다. 그렇다면, 의미로서의 시 형식을 읽어내야 할 시기가 되었고, 그렇게 함으로써 우리는 이 시를 보다 깊이 있게 이해하고 보다 충만하게 음미할 수 있게 될 것이다. 필자는 ｢1916년 부활절｣이 역설의 시학에서 나온 것을 본다. 즉, 인간, 언어의 역설적 본성에서 나온 것이다. 필자는 이 시의 “지독한 아름다음”을 느끼고 생각하는데 초점을 맞추었고, 결과적으로 예이츠는 그가 평생 추구한 형식의 완벽한 앱스트랙션을 통해서 자신의 의도를 감춤으로써 자신의 소망처럼 20세기 최고의 다층적 의미의 서정적 엘레지를 만들었다는 것을 증명한다.

예이츠는 분열된 아일랜드의 통합을 바랐다. 아일랜드가 종교와 종족, 문화를 아우르는 하나의 공동체가 될 수 있다고 믿었으며, 공동체 내에서 아일랜드의 분열된 계층과 문화를 통합하면서도 고유한 특징을 간직하기를 바랐다. 이러한 바람은 1916년에 발생한 부활절 봉기를 겪으며 확실해지고, 더욱 간절해졌다. 예이츠는 그러한 자기 생각을 ｢1916 부활절｣시에 담았다. 시에 드러난 예이츠의 민족 공동체에 대한 생각은 스피노자의 공동체 개념과 만나 그 의미가 명확해진다.

예이츠는 ｢1913년 9월｣에서 중산층의 물질중시와 현실안주를 비난하면서, “낭만적 아일랜드”가 사라진 상황을 안타까워한다. 영웅적인 투사들은 목숨을 걸고 싸우다가 죽었지만, 그는 새로운 아일랜드 창조에 중산층과 강경한 민족주의자들을 오히려 방해요인으로 생각한다. 하지만 ‘낭만적 영웅심’이 사라지게 한 현 상황에 자신도 자유로울 수 없음을 인식하면서, 화자인 예이츠의 분열된 혼란스러움이 재현된다. ｢1916년 부활절｣에서도 부활절봉기에 대한 화자의 유동적인 마음이 잘 나타는데, 봉기에 수반된 폭력에 대한 찬사라기보다는 폭력에 대한 의구심을 드러낸 양가성을 확인할 수 있다. 이 시들에서 재현된 예이츠의 입장과 태도는 고정되거나 미결정의 상태로 끊임없이 출렁이는 이중성을 드러낸다.

Somewhat comically-described everyday lives before the Rising have no direct connection with the event itself. Behind the images from superficial meetings with sham courtesy of characters follow violent associations of death implying diverse layers of change in the realms of history, politics, Irishness and individual lives. Yeats enumerates personal characteristics of revolutionary leaders in order to hint these characteristics alone can’t transfigure historical realities. He shows us that those acquaintances whom he occasionally came across before the uprising are not directly related to the heroic act. On the other hand, he also reveals that the underlying causes of the upheaval are the very simple everyday relationship. Above all, “Easter 1916” solves well the problem how a piece of poem acquires an impartial public voice out of secular opinions. This work is not embellished with symbolic abstruseness and therefore can be paraphrased into a comparatively easy prose writing. However, even its format change, if at all, doesn't quell its life force. The poet effectively evades a direct interpretation of the Rising that can help change the fate of the nation and so, he reconstructs the symbolic significance and context of the event into a literary masterpiece. In its form, the use of refrain emphasizing change shows directness and simplicity to conclude the verse. Moreover, Yeats frankly confesses that he was wrong in judging the victims’ heroic capability in the political aspect, but he doesn't make them appear pathetic poetic personae. The poem extols the heroic acts of the dead in the compressed verse and at the same time reproaches their decision to cast away their own precious lives. The refrain implies changes in the world caused by the Rising, political shifts in the international relationship closely linked with independence and colonial management, and the severance of lives of people with whom the poet meet routinely everyday. That is to say, it refers to the mythological transformation of the leaders before Irish people’s eyes as well as to the historical fact that British authority made them into corpses. ‘Change’ in the refrain evokes not only the tragic death of leaders in the uprising but the significance obtained through their death as well. In this context, a completeness of change out of the glorious sacrifice is also inferred. Thus, ‘change’ indicates the tragic stasis the leaders gained through the victimization of their own lives and reveals a poetic movement from this world to eternity. The poem sublimates the leaders as national icons permanently nesting in the bosom of their compatriots even though they lost their worldly lives. In this way, Yeats elegizes the victims by blending all the matters of history, politics and the nation together into a commemorative poem. This stream of thoughts triggered by the national tragedy creates a pivotal group elegy connoting deep insight into the universal death.

W. B. Yeats in his whole life suffers from his introvert or passive self that hesitates to take action. In his agony, he creates his anti-self that boldly expresses his instinctive rage, and the anti-self is concretely established as a “fiery mask” in his poems. However, not oppressing the introvert and passive self completely, the fiery mask frequently conflicts and clashes with the passive self. Therefore, this paper explores how the fiery mask conflicts with the passive self in his “September 1913” and “Easter 1916,” and how in “Crazy Jane Talks with the Bishop,” the fiery mask overcomes such a discord represented in the two previous poems. In the first poem, the poet is indignant at political Irish nationalists who are unable to appreciate the true valuable arts. Attacking the political nationalists through the fiery mask, however the poet reveals his hidden self that hangs back from taking action. In the second poem, such hidden self under the fiery mask becomes undisguised, and the conflict between the fiery mask and the passive self is exacerbated and maximized. Such conflict is dissolved through a female mask, crazy Jane in the third poem. Usually, mad woman’s angry voice makes a strong impact on society even though she does not take a proper act from asocial responsibility of her rage such as revenge. Therefore, the fiery mask of crazy Jane makes the poet escape from his duty to take action resulting in the solution of the conflict between the fiery mask and the passive self. Ironically, Yeats’s ideal anti-self is completed in the mad female mask, crazy Jane, not in the courageous male mask.

This paper is an attempt to read “Easter 1916,” one of W. B. Yeats's best-known political poems, in terms of its representation of women and the related politics of sexuality. In the second stanza of the poem where the poet describes four rebels of the Easter Rising, he shows Countess Constance Markievicz. the woman whom Yeats knew so well from his childhood in Sligo. Besides her, the writer of this paper proposes the possibility of reading other two woman images in the poem: Maud Gonne and Cathleen ni Houlihan. By discussing these described or suggested images of women, this paper tries to show that they represent the "terrible beauty" which the poet says the rebels of the Easter Rising have generated.The first woman this paper chooses for discussion is Countess Markievicz. The poet describes her mainly as a woman whose "voice grew shrill" because of her spending "nights in argument," and then compares her present shrill voice with the "sweet" voice she had when she was "young and beautiful." In order to understand the intent of the poet's emphasis on Countess Markievicz's "shrill" voice, the present writer reads one passage from Yeats's journal, where he regards "the shrillness" of voices of "the political class in Ireland" as the result of "the cultivation of hatred as one energy of their movement." In another similar passage, Yeats relates this hatred to "the sexual abstinence, so common among young men and women in Ireland." Based on this reading of Yeats's prose passages, this paper concludes that Countess Markievicz's shrill voice reveals her hatred and her negative attitude to sexual matters. The next part of the paper deals with two women characters, Maud Gonne and Cathleen ni Houlihan. Although she does not appear in the poem, Maud Gonne is suggested in the poem by her similarity to Countess Markievicz and by the poet's mentioning of her husband John MacBride. To support the presence and importance of Maud Gonne in the poem, the writer of this paper briefly reads two poems of Yeats--"A Prayer for My Daughter" and "Among School Children"--where he describes her in a very similar way to the description of Countess Markievicz in "Easter 1916." Another woman, Cathleen ni Houlihan, is also suggested in the poem, because, in terms of symbolic images, she seems to have led the rebels to the battlefield of the rising. This paper reads Yeats's play Cathleen ni Houlihan to show that she also can be understood in this poem in a negative way: she symbolizes the hatred and its resultant sexual abstinence of the rebels. In this way, like Countess Markievicz and Maud Gonne, she can represent the "terrible beauty" of the Easter Rising. Lastly, this paper considers another image of woman which appears in the last and fourth stanza, where the poet ends the poem by naming the rebels "As a mother names her child / Where sleep at last has come / On limbs that had run wild." The writer of the paper thinks that the poet needs this image of mother to mitigate his critique of the rebels which he has done in the third stanza, especially by using the image of stone. By becoming a real mother himself, unlike another "terrible" mother of Ireland, Cathleen ni Houlihan, the poet can arrive at a reconciled and balanced position, and accept the rebels in their contradictory and tragic state.