본 논문은 노년을 주제로 다루는 예이츠의 시 작품 일부를 분석한다. 그 의 시에서 특이한 점은 노년과 나이 들어감의 문제가 그의 초기 시에서 말기 시까지 나타난다는 사실이다. 즉, 예이츠는 나이 들어감은 인생의 일부라는 것을 인지하였다는 사실이다. 이를테면, ｢연금수령자의 탄식｣은 20대에 쓰인 작품인데, 인간은 노쇠한 육 체에서 벗어날 수 없으며 시간의 흐름에 순응해야 한다는 것을 인정한 시이다. 이 논 문은 각 시에서의 미묘한 차이점을 파악하려고 한다. 즉, ｢당신이 나이 들면｣, ｢학동들 속에서｣, ｢탑｣, ｢모든 영혼의 밤｣, ｢비잔티움으로의 항해｣등을 읽을 것이다. 각각의 시 에서 노년에 대한 예이츠의 양가성이 보이는데, 우리는 이 시들을 단순히 노년의 시들 로 부르지 말고 이 각각의 시에서의 미세한 차이점에 주목해야 한다.

두 시인의 시를 하나의 관점에서 비교해 보는 것은 흥미로운 일이다. 이 논문에서는 현대영미시의 한 이정표인 두 시인의 시를 늙음이라는 토픽을 중심으 로 비교해 보았다. 이 늙음은 두 시인의 시에서 다르게 표현되고 있는데 우리는 좀 더 감성적인 노인을 예이츠의 시에서, 이성적인 노인을 엘리엇의 시에서 보게 된다. 예이츠의 늙음은 그가 삶의 과정에서 경험한 것이며 그의 노인들은 끊임없이 지혜를 추구하고 있다. 반면에 엘리엇의 노인은 젊은 엘리엇의 상상의 산물이며 퇴락한 문명 에 대한 상징이다. 즉 우리는 예이츠의 노인에서 감성적인 지혜를 엘리엇의 노인에서 는 절망을 읽게 된다. 그리고 중요한 것은 이 두 시인이 젊어서부터 애늙은이였다는 것이다. 그것은 그들이 살던 시대의 어두웠던 분위기에서 영향 받은 것이다. 그 암울 한 분위기 속에서 그들의 위대한 시는 탄생했으며 거기서 늙음의 이미지는 중요하다. 주제어: 예이츠, 엘리엇, 늙음, 육신, 정신 저자: 신원철은 강원대학교 영어과 교수이다.

This article discusses a consistent blend of autobiographical retrospection, metaphysical speculations, the passion of an old man raging against the approaching night. Many of these are similar to those in his earlier works, but art cannot be enlivened until it is kept in touch with “the foul rag-and-bone shop of the heart” as in “The Circus Animals’ Desertion.” In “High Talk,” Yeats resorts to the determination of the artist in a degenerate world. Using a circus metaphor, he demands the artist put on high stilts so he may catch the eye of the audience. He needs the stilts, now being incapable of the brilliant fantasy of past youth. The poet is Malachi Stilt-Jack, the maker of metaphors in art, but the walker upon stilts, though an eye-catching figure, is an absurd posturing creature in his “timber-toes.” The image of “its rag and bone” in “An Acre of Grass” is connected to the image of “old bones, old rags” in “The Circus Animals’ Desertion.” It is a recurrent theme of old age in Last Poems. Much of what has been noble and great is gone; what remains is raging of the flesh. Only memories of the past remain to the old man, physically exhausted. “An Acre of Grass” looks back on the major poetic themes in Yeats’s later life.

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 purpose of this study is to research the relation between Yeats's imagination and the theme of old age, death, and after-life in Yeat's poetry. According to Heraclitus, cosmology is formed aspects of polarity, assuming 'living each other's death, dying each other's life.' The world is conceived as opposition and contradiction, and the human is dual in nature. this dualistic conflict of consciousness has become a basic starting point of his imagination. Yeats recognized the dualistic conflict was an energy of a creative mind and a characteristic of human nature. It brought about the struggle between inner world and outer world. This struggle begins with assuming an individual's anti-self opposed to his primary self. To him, the conflict or struggle, endowed with the meaning of human being existence, is the seed of being of unity. "An Acre of Grass," dealing with the theme of old age, Yeats saw the tragic reality as positive. In spite of decrepitude and quiescence, Yeats said 'Grant me an old man's frenzy, / myself must I remake.' In Yeats's case, great are art is not merely created out of the conjunction of the artist's mind and external world, but rather out of the artist's denial of his primary self and recreation of his mask, the true image of his antithetical self and a fragment of the Anima Mundi. In recreating this fragment he actually creates a higher order of reality than the visible world possesses. Yeats conceive death and life are not divided but connected in "Tower", and "Mohini Chatterjee" as accepting positively human tragic condition. Yeats said that the wheel or cone of the Faculties may be considered to complete its movement between birth and death, that of the Principles to include the period between lives as well in A Vision. In "Byzantium", Yeats deals with the after-life in the view of Four Principles as seeing the soul after death as living reality. To Yeats, the phenomenon of violence, hatred or passion in this world is prerequisite to reincarnation, a creation of other self or true self. After getting rebirth, Yeats tried to reach profane perfection. Looking out over the whole of human life, and its prevailing desolation, he tried to find the proper response to life and suffering in terms of gaiety. Yeats's final response to the old age and death here is no longer the horror, but he accepts the old age and death as the pain of human being with tragic joy through his unique imagination.