이 논문은 예이츠의 후기 시를 노자 철학의 관점에서 고찰하는 데 그 목적이 있다. 노자 철학의 핵심은 허심과 무위이다. 이 연구는 먼저, 노자의 철학과 예이츠 시와의 맥락을 찾은 후에 노자의 사상이 가장 잘 드러난 시 ｢쿨 호의 야생 백조｣(“The wild Swans at Coole”), ｢마이클 로버츠의 이중 비전｣(“The Double Vision of Michael Robartes”)과 ｢소금쟁이｣(“Long-legged Fly”)를 중심으로 이들 시에 나타난 노자의 사상을 상세하게 고찰하였다. 마지막으로 예이츠의 비문을 노자의 관점에서 해석해 보았다. 이 연구는 예이츠의 후기 시가 노장, 선, 음양과 같은 동양사상으로부터 영향을 받았지만, 그는 그 사상들을 무비판적으로 수용하지 않고 보다 승화시켜 ‘존재의 통일’이라는 자신의 고유의 철학으로 집대성하였다는 것을 잘 보여준다.

The “infant” plays an important role in the Eastern monastic tradition. There has been a lot of discussions in the works of Buddhism and early Christianity. As a comprehensive theoretic system, however, the theory of “infant” is mainly in the ideological system of Taoists. The “infant” is treated as the highest goal in the monastic practice of Lao Tzu.

There were so many common thoughts in Yeats’s poetry and Lao tzu’s philosophy on the Feminine Principl.” Both Yeats and Lao tzu lived in turbulent times. They thought the cause of anarchy in their world resulted from the True God’s absence as the Feminine Principle. Thus they were eager to support it as the Primary principle in the world. Yeats was a gnostic visionary. He believed in God’s androgynous Trinity; Man, woman and child. A Child is a daughter or a son. Yeats refused to accept the masculine Trinity. Yeats searched for the hidden Goddess who is called Sophia or Binah as the dark Mother in the Cabalah. Binah is identified with Saturn(male). So Sophia is androgynous. Yeats called Sophia by many names. Those included Rose, Countess Cathleen, Nimah, Helen and Jane as the symbol of immortal Beauty. All of his poetry owes much to a symbolism derived from the Rosicrucianism, Cabalism, Christian Gnosticism and Orientalism. Orientalism included the Taoism of Lao tzu. I read that Yeats was deeply impressed by the Chinese book, The Secret of the Golden Flower, which is explained Taoism. Because Taoism is s common with Yeats’s main poetic theme, which is the Feminine Principle and the hidden God. Although Lao tzu lived about 2,500 years ago, he had almost the same idea as Yeats. His main theme is Tao, the way which symbolizes the Feminine Principle, like Sophia in Christian Gnosticism and Cabalism. We can say Tao is intangible and permanent, governing the impermanent became it symbolizes the Mother of all beings. Tao especially symbolizes darkness. Thus I can say that “dark Sophia” in Yeats’s poetry is identical to Tao. Lao-tzu described that Tao stands for the feminine archetypal imagery such as water, darkness, valley, cave, abyss. Especially Lao tzu’s heavenly Virtue, Tao is called “Hyeon-bin” which means a black female. Thus Tao is identified with the dark Mother, Sophia in Yeats’s poetry. Also Lao tuz eulogized the virtue of Tao as water. For example, Lao tzu explained that “water’s virtue is the highest goodness.” This symbol of water symbolizes the Feminine Principle like Sophia’s characteristics in Yeats’s poetry. Thus, they all refused to accept the andro-centric society.

In this thesis I discussed feministic attitudes in the works of three writers: William Blake’s Visions of the Daughters of Albion, William Butler Yeats’ A Woman Young and Old, and Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching(道德經). Blake and Yeats were English visionary poets and Lao Tzu was an Old Master who lived in the 2nd century B.C. in Han Dynasty China. In Visions of the Daughters of Albion Blake is not only concerned with the rights of women but also with the slavery systems and freedom. The heroine is called ‘soft soul of America.’ Blake knew the first radical feminist Mary Wollstonecraft and may be responding to her enthusiasm for the emancipation of women. Moreover, the oppression of Oothoon is bound up with the campaign of the early 1790s against both the slave trade and the nearer cruelties in the exploitation of child labour. The heroine Oothoon is raped by Bromion and abandoned by her lover, Theotormon. Theotormon’s jealousy binds them, back to back in a cave. Bromion’s violence and Theotomon’s jealousy and oppression cause her woe. She is trying to justify the innocence of love, the joy in the making of love and delight in life, the beautiful in every life. Her long outburst against hypocrisy in marriage and restraint in love in the third section of the poem is for women repressed by men in traditional and Christian society. She wants to be a human, not a servant of man. In A Woman Young and Old the woman speaks first in youth, then in age. This series of poems are companion poems to those of A Man Young and Old. These poetic sequences have an identical structure of eleven poems, ending with a section from Yeats’ translation of the Oedipus cycle. The first poem, “Father and Child” opens with an image of a young woman leaving the conventional world and the judgment of other people for an attractive life and her own opinions. In the sixth poem in the central position, “Chosen” the woman takes for her theme the theme of the poem. The young woman compares the peace and feeling of completeness after lovemaking to the perfect moment when the “Zodiac is changed into a sphere,” the Thirteenth Cycle or Thirteenth Cone in A Vision. It is that cycle which may deliver us from the twelve cycles of time and space. In the last poem, “From the ‘Antigone’” the old woman, now a tragic heroine, narrates her descent “into the loveless dust.” The heroine in A Woman Young and Old tries to find her own voice and life. In the first chapter of Tao Te Ching the nameless Tao is the origin of heaven and earth which grows the myriad things. Thus these two are the same. Upon appearing, they are named differently. Their sameness is the mystery, mystery within mystery. Heaven is the symbol of man; earth is the symbol of woman. Man and woman have the same root, and their union makes the myriad things. In the sixth chapter of the book Lao Tzu praises feminity, called ‘the valley spirit,’ the root of heaven and earth. The valley is used metaphorically as a symbol of ‘emptiness’ or ‘vacancy;’ ‘the spirit of the valley’ is something invisible, yet almost personal, belonging to the Tao. ‘The female mystery’ is the name of chapter 1, or the Tao which is ‘the Mother of all things.’ All living beings have a father and a mother. Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching could be translated as The Law (or Canon) of Virtue and its Way. He thought that all straining, all striving is not only vain but counterproductive. One should endeavor to do nothing (wu-wei). It means not to do anything literally, but to discern and follow the natural forces-to flow with events and not to pit oneself against the natural order of things. In this way Taoist philosophy reached out to council rulers and advised them how to govern their domains. Blake and Yeats insist women’s human rights and the union of man and woman can give us the perfect moment in this life. Lao Tzu teaches us feministic Tao and the harmony of man and woman. The three share great wisdom about the order of the nature and can elucidate the way of Feminism.