W. B. Yeats began to write his works when Ireland was struggling for its independence from England. Young Yeats hoped to be a national poet and was naturally concerned about the future of his fatherland. The way Yeats chose for his country was a cultural one, not a military or political one. He believed in the Irish people’s artistic sensibilities and believed that his country could be a healthier and better country than England through the ’Unity of Culture’. Yeats was attracted to drama because of its usefulness as a public art. He wanted to establish a national drama based on Irish folklore and myth. He believed that drama could achieve or revive the ’Unity of Culture’ which he equated with the national unity of Ireland. Yeats’s main idea was that to achieve ’Unity of Culture’, the support of common people for art would be essential. Yeats’s early play, The King’s Threshold shows the unity of the poet and common people well. The story is based on an Irish myth. The king, a man of action, banishes Seanchan the poet, a man of words, from his court (affairs of state) and the poet choose to die on a hunger-strike for his rights in the court, that is, for the value of art in society. The poet works for the common people and expects their support, of which the king is much afraid. The King’s Threshold dramatizes the theme that concerned Yeats so deeply, the role of art in society. And another main point of the play is that poetry transcends politics. Yeats satirizes the defects and deficiencies of a society which no longer recognizes the artist’s role. But the poet dies, and we are not shown any effect that his death may have had on either society or the individual. The modern Irish people were not what the young poet had expected. Though the young poet’s dream for the ’Unity of Culture’ may be naive, the play shows us Yeats’s view of art and his belief in the poet’s role in society.

본 논문은 T. S. 엘리엇이 유기적 공동체와 유럽 문화의 통일성에 대 해 어떤 생각을 갖고 있었는지에 대하여 문학적이며 문화적인 의미와 의의를 검토한다. 그의 유기적 공동체에 대한 모델은 17세기 이전의 농 업 또는 기독교 사회에만 기초한다기보다는, 동시대의 산업 사회, 특히 현대 유럽 사회에 기초한다. 1922년부터 1939년까지 발간된 크라이티 어리언을 통해, 엘리엇은 유럽이란 아이디어와 유럽 문화의 통일성을 동시대의 유기적 공동체가 실현될 수 있는 모델이라고 지속적이며 다양 하게 주장하였다. 그는 제1차 세계대전의 원인이었던 민족, 국민, 종교 라는 개념을 넘어서서 공통된 유럽의 전통에 근거한 유럽 문화의 통일 성을 추구해야 한다는 생각을 폴 발레리, 후고 폰 호프만스탈, 오르테가 이 가셋과 같은 당대의 유럽의 지식인들과 공유하였다. 그리고 그는 이 공통된 문화유산으로 통일된 문화를 가진 유럽 공동체를 재건하는데 많 은 노력을 기울였다.