예이츠의 가이어는 유동적이고 변화무쌍하며 움직이는 정체성을 보여주는 완벽한 은유이다. 이 논문은 예이츠 󰡔환상록󰡕의 가이어 은유를 통해 실비아 플라스의 인생과 시인으로서의 명성이 보여주는 반비례 관계를 연구한다. 시인으로서의 실비아 플라스의 여정은 한 사람으로서의 여정과 다르다. 그녀는 고백시 시인으로, 머리와 심장 사이에 있는 고통을 덜어주기 위해 글을 썼는데, 이 논문은 플라스가 겪었던 모든 사건들이 서로 어떻게 연관되는가를 논의한다. 예이츠의 가이어는 플라스의 인생과 명성의 반비례적 패턴을 예시적으로 보여준다. 인물로서의 플라스는 점차적으로 기본 가이어가 줄어드는 반면, 시인으로서의 플라스를 상징하는 대립 가이어는 점점 커지고 넓어진다.

본 논문은, 이미 다른 학자들이 가이어 이론에 대한 연구와 저술을 많이 하였지만, 본 논문의 목적은 실제로 그의 주요한 시에서 가이어의 이미지가 어떻게 사 용되는지를 집중적으로 탐구한다. 연구대상의 시는 가이어 , 비잔티움으로의 항해 , 비잔티움 , 머무산 등이며, 다른 몇 편의 시는 주에서 간략하게 다루었다. 따라서, 본 논문의 목적은 다른 학자들의 이론을 검토하기 보다는, 위의 시들에서 가이어 이미지 가 실제로 어떻게 나타나는지를 탐구하여, 보다 깊이 있는 시 읽기에 도움을 주는데 있다.

예이츠의 춤 이미지는 ｢장미 연금술｣(Rosa Alchemica)에 등장한 화자의 다이몬과의 춤 이미지를 이해하면 보다 더 정확하게 이해할 수 있다. 예이츠의 춤은 1) 환상을 불러일으키는 상징, 2) 꿈을 꾸기, 3) 대립적인 마스크의 발견 4) 자신의 마스크를 착용하고 다이몬과 불멸의 춤을 추기, 5) 꿈에서 깨어나 현실로 되돌아오기와 같은 순환적 과정을 겪는다. 이러한 순환에서 무용수는 춤과 춤사위, 육체와 정신, 자아와 영혼을 하나로 통합하고, 탐욕, 성냄, 어리석음을 완전히 소멸시켜 불교의 열반의 과정과 같은 의식에 도달함으로써 마침내 ‘존재의 통합’을 이룩한다. 그래서 춤 이미지는 ‘존재의 통합’에 이르는 다양한 방법 중의 한 가지 과정이며, 이 과정이 바로 메루산의 산정에 도달하는 길과 유사하다.

본 논문은 역사의 형태를 묘사하는 데 쓰이는 흔한 도해−즉 블레이크는 소용돌이, 예이츠는 가이어−를 점검하여 블레이크와 예이츠의 역사관을 간결하게 비교한다. 본 논점은 두 시인의 2가지 형태가 그들로 하여금 계시와 역사에서의 이탈의 가능성에 대해서 전혀 다른 견해를 견지하게 한다는 것이다.

As Yeats received the Nobel Prize in 1923, he was in the extremity of honor but he was feeling his weakening physical power. He gave up Maud Gonne and married George Hyde Ridge, a wise woman, to find a comfort at his home. His later poems are a record of his meditation and wisdom of life, and in those poems the image of Gyre is very important. He thought the progress of one civilization lasted for only 2,000 years and that is expressed through the image of the Gyre. The period of the early 20th century was a time of a kind of anarchy and a situation of desperation. He thought it was a turning point to a new terrible civilization. His poem "The Second Coming" is very meaningful in that view point and so is "Leda and Swan". Then his self consciousness of his old age and wisdom is well expressed in his "Tower" and Byzantium poems. But his self consciousness is not ended to a desperation but overcome to an immortal wisdom and art. In "Sailing to Byzantium" he sang the immortal art with a exquisite artisan spirit. And he particularly sang the world of soul and art in this poem. This is succeeded in "Byzantium". It is almost a song of spirit. As he grew old, Yeats concentrated his energy on the problem of spirit. As T. S. Eliot escaped to Hinduist meditation to overcome the limit of his early poems, Yeats made his particular view of history and civilization to enhance his poetry. If he had not opened his new poetic world in his later life, he could not have become that great poet we love so much.

The focus of study in this paper is put on the comparison of symbolism manifested in the world of W. B. Yeats’ poetry and the thoughts of Master Won-hyo.. The comparing works include the identification of their understanding ways of life. The symbols in common to bridge W. B. Yeats and Master Won-hyo are, for instance, circle, cone, cycle, sphere, spiral, wheel, vehicle, etc. Such a sign symbolizes a round thing, in another expression, the world or the cosmos where man belongs to. The phenomenological world or the cosmos by oriental thoughts is represented as the 28 phases of the moon, ranging from the dark moon(objectivity) to the full moon(subjectivity), which according to W. B. Yeats’ theory are identified the same kinds of character of man. Won-hyo(元曉, 617～686), a life-long friend of another Buddhist Master Ui-sang., insisted on the necessity for every living being to return to the foundation of the One Mind(一心), which is the original state of being, in another words, or “Ultimate Reality” to which every living being has to return. The Hwa-yen Sutra(華嚴經), a rare scripture of Mahayana Buddhism(大乘佛敎), emphasizes that the Ultimate Reality is the Source of One Mind of Won-hyo. We can say that Mahayana Buddhism teaches every living being the way to return to the world of the Ultimate Reality by great vehicle of "Mahayana"(大乘) in sanskrit. Another principle of Hwa-yen philosophy may be expressed as "All in one, one in all. One is all, all is one"(一中一切一切中一, 一卽一切一切卽一). "The Six Aspects"(六相) is interpretated by the principle. The mutual relationships are harmonized between the whole and a part, between the unity of the whole and the diversity of the part, and between the completion of the whole and the self-denial of the part. The One Mind is synonymous with the Great Vehicle with great wheels, which return to the Source of One Mind, the original state of being, or the Ultimate Reality( or Nirvana). The meaning of the One Mind may be expanded to the synonym of the existential world or the cosmos, at the center of which the One Mind lies. Accordingly, The One Mind, the Great Vehicle or Great Wheel and the World has a similar analogy, which make a system of symbolism, so called “Yeatsian gyre theory.” Yeats imagined a spiral, which he preferred to call a gyre) or whirling cone. Then two such cones were drawn and considered to pass like the human soul through a cycle from subjectivity to objectivity. These cones were imagined as interpenetrating, whirling around inside one another, one subjective, the other objective. The cones were not restricted to symbolizing objectivity and subjectivity. They were beauty and truth, value and fact, particular and universal, quality and quantity, abstract and concrete, and the living and the dead. Yeats thought that he had discovered in the figure of interpenetrating gyres the archetypal pattern which is mirrored and remirrored by all life, by all movements of civilization or mind or nature. Man or movement is conceived of as moving from left to right and then from right to left. No sooner is the fullest expansion of the objective cone reached than the counter-movement towards the fullest expansion of the subjective cone begins. These movements slide to the 28 phases of the moon. The dark moon, in the course of wane and wax sways to the full moon. The different 28 patterns of the moon is mirrored by all life or mind, ranging from the highest state of subjective mind(the 15th phase: the full moon) to the highest cast of objective mind(the 1st phase; the dark moon). In the long run, the world which Won-hyo and Yeats seek for as an ideal space of mind is a unified one, into which melted are the binominal opposites such as objectivity and subjectivity, the sacred and the profane, the bishop and Jane, fair and foul, the dancer and the dance, beauty and truth, value and fact, particular and universal, quality and quantity, abstract and concrete, and the living and the dead.