본 논문은 예이츠의 다른 희곡작품에 비해 비교적 덜 알려진 􋺷캘버리􋺸 를 주체성과 개인성이라는 주제 아래 집중 분석한다. 􋺷무용수들을 위한 4대극􋺸(1921) 중 하나인 􋺷캘버리􋺸는 오스카 와일드의 산문시 􋺷선의 실천가􋺸(1894)에서 영감을 받았 고 일본 고전극 ‘노’의 형식과 기법을 차용한 극이다. 본 논문에서는 오스카 와일드와 예이츠의 정신적이고 미학적인 연관성과 차이를 조명하고 이를 바탕으로 예이츠의 주 체-객체의 이율배반적 체계와 관련 있는 기독교적인 이미지, 도상, 이야기의 차용에 대해 논의한다. 또한, “환대”의 개념을 둘러싼 레비나스와 데리다의 논쟁을 통해 􋺷캘 버리􋺸에 등장하는 그리스도와 다른 인물들의 주체성 및 그들의 관계를 살펴본다.

In such poems as “The Dialogue of Self and Soul” and “Vacillation”, the antinomies and oppositions which I have traced in the previous issue of this Journal develop in a very complex manner within the frame of such figures as “the sword” and “the tower”, “brand” and “flaming breath”, “burning leaves” and “green lush foliage moistened with dew.” And they are always posited as implying the antinomies of life and death, remorse and joy, body and soul, earthly life and heaven. In the process of vacillating between “extremities”, Self and Heart which figure not only the body but also the poet’s self declines Soul’s request to “seek out reality, leaving things that seem.” Even though Heart vacillates between antinomies, always looking towards what are opposites to itself, it chooses Homer and his unchristened heart as its example and determines to “live tragically.” By opposing the life of a Swordman to that of a Saint and receiving Homer as the figural example of his art, Yeats puts the foundation that his lyric should be understood as tragedy. “The Gyres” and “Lapis Lazuli”, two tragic lyrics composed in Yeats’s last years, embody his idea of the tragic lyric as well as his tragic world view. In “The Gyres”, the poet, invoking his muse “the old Rocky Face” to look forth and view the world’s overall collapse, “but laugh in tragic joy”. And in “Lapis Lazuli”, the tragic heroes of the Shakespearean tragedy are displayed as the opposing powers or qualities to “the hysterical women” of the modern world. In both of these poems, the poet’s tragic joy or exultation springs from the tragic vision that all things “fall and are built again.” The very eternal recurrence of the battle of antinomies and opposite forces is the source which enacts the poet’s strength and energy to exalt in the midst of despair. Therefore, we may be able to say that the poet’s magical aesthetic which is based on the absolute power of death and the tragic sense of life elevates his lyrics to the height of disruptive tragedy, letting the poet to enact tragic authority at the same time.

Most of Yeats’s works are composed of antitheses which are defined by their rhetoric, form, tone and thematic motifs. If the antitheses are Yeats’s central means of perceiving and interpreting the world, what kinds of experience are posited at the center of his life, and in what way and manner are his conceptions of “unity of being” and “unity of culture” connected with his experience of “tragic joy”? This essay attempts to approach the basic frame of Yeats's mind which perceives and interprets the world as composed of contraries, antinomies and antitheses. In such context, Yeats's idea and experience of tragedy are shown to be constructed ideologically in the situation that is divided by the two classes, namely the declining Anglo-Irish Protestant and the powerfully ascending Catholic middle classes. Yeats’s conception and experience of tragedy are connected with what Michel Foucault calls “the absolute power of death”. Yeats thinks that if the modern poet could enact the poetic authority, he should be able to embody the ancient forms of power. Hence his ideology of tragedy and authority which leads him to enact the oral tradition of ancient magical arts. Yeats thinks that, through the poetic mode of ancient magical arts, modern lyric poet can enact the absolute power of death, breaking the comedic power of modern individualism. Yeats's ideology of tragedy and authority, however, is in constant contradiction with “the life-administering power” of modern world. In spite of his desire to enact the tragic power of ancient bard, the space of his later lyrics remains the complex site of ideological conflicts between the residual forms of traditional Anglo-Irish culture and the dominant cultural forms of modern individualism. (The second part of this essay will be continued in the next issue)