『천국과 지옥의 결혼』에서 윌리엄 블레이크는 관념주의와 이성에 묶여 변질된 기독교적 이분법을 비판하고 이분법의 한계를 뚫고나갈 돌파구로 상상력 회복을 제안한다. 이분법에 대한 그의 최종적인 해결책은 윤리적 상상력을 통해 타자의 얼굴에서 무한자를 인식하고 차이와 개별성을 존중하는 관계를 형성하여 상반된 가치들이 공존하는 역동적 관계를 형성하는 것이다. 이는 엠마누엘 레비나스의 타자의 윤리학에서 추구하는 바와 동일하다. 타자의 윤리학에서 자아는 타자의 얼굴을 마주하여 도움을 요청하는 그 얼굴에 반응하고 살인하지 말라는 명령에 복종하면서 타자를 환대하는 주체가 된다. 블레이크와 레비나스는 관념주의와 이성에 근거하고 동일자와 전체성을 지향하는 이분법을 해결하는 대안으로 자아에 앞서 타자에게 우선권을 부여함으로써 자아와 타자 모두 평등한 권리를 누리도록 하는 새로운 관계 패러다임을 제시한다.

미래는 다양성과 통합의 시대다. 다양성과 통합이라는 미래교육의 본질을 회복하기 위해서는 교육의 목적, 교육의 주체, 교육의 대상, 교육의 내용, 교육의 방법, 교육의 행정 등 기존의 교육 활동 전반에 대한 새롭고 다양한 관점과 통합적인 패러다임이 요구된다. 왜냐하면 미래사회는 창의성을 갖춘 인재를 필요로 하기 때문이다. 창의성을 강조하는 미래의 인재에게 요구되는 요건이 바로 배움학적 상상력이다. 배움학적 상상력은 단순한 지식의 확보를 넘어선다. 배움학적 상상력은 머릿속 생각이나 마음속 결심(決心)만을 의미하는 것이 아니다. 배움학적 상상력은 생각과 결심에 더해 손과 발의 결단(決斷)과 결행(決行)을 요구한다. 미래교육의 본질로서 다양성과 통합성을 회복하기 위한 배움학적 상상력은 새로운 미래교육의 방법론이다.

예이츠는 신화를 상상과 현실을 이어주고 혼연일체가 되게 해주는 창조적인 매개체로 사용하였다. 그는 신화를 통해 예술과 인생, 자연과 초자연 등을 일체화 시켰다. 예이츠는 그의 시에서 아일랜드 토속 신화, 그리스 로마 신화, 성서 등을 사용하여 문학이 제공할 수 있는 상상력을 극대화하여 현실성을 부여하려 하였다.

An artist, Oh Yun(1946~86)’s theory of people’s art during his final period issummed up in his essay ‘Expansion of Artistic Imagination and World’(1985).Emphasizingthe mystic and traditional characteristics of Oh Yun’s artistic oeuvre during his final period,some critics focus on Oh Yun’s experience of medical treatment and shamanistic custom atJin Do island, and his belief in Jeung San Do, the dao of Jeung-san, the Ruler of theUniverse. However, they forget the practical intention and implication of his theory of artduring his final period, which aimed to overcome the contradiction of revelation itself. Oh Yun’s essay criticized the loss of artistic imagination and the ignorance oftraditional culture that resulted from the elevation of science to a religion, and insisted thatthe stereotyped idealism, scientism and elitism in art should be overcome in order torecover the full reality in realism and to continue traditional cultures. The essay iscomprised of 18 paragraphs. Oh Yun criticized monochromatic art, conceptual art, hyper-realistic art, objet d’art,and neo-dadaist art, saying that they were simply mechanical forms of modern art derivedfrom scientism and a fetishistic lens culture. In addition, he criticized naturalism in art,which had continued as a tendency in the development of western art, for the samereason. He pointed out that even the world of realism had been diminished by elitestereotypes and diagrams. He declared the need to overcome the imitation of shells orstereotyped propaganda, and recover full realism, which seems to have started with areflective examination of current problems in ‘Reality and Utterance’, in which heparticipated. Especially, he thought that universality and the extension of full realism could be achieved by building on the views of traditional cultures, which is meaningful. This logic issame as the theory of epic theatre that Bertolt Brecht(1898~1956)has developed under theancient Greek masque and Pieter Bruegel the Elder(1525~69)’s story-like picture style. Theuniversality of realism and the extension of acquisition to include incantation art,rather thanmove toward incantation art, is what Oh Yun intended to propose in ‘Artistic Imagination’.This attitude is same as Bertolt Brecht’s aesthetic viewpoint in the 1930s. But regrettably,Oh Yun’s style wording, which seems covert and far-sighted, is often misunderstood as‘mysticism’. In the flow of people’s art in the 1980s, Oh Yun was a traditionalist in a narrowsense, and an realist in a broad sense. However, his critical mind, which comprehendstradition and reality, was attempting to expand universality and extend full realism, and thisattempt found many sympathizers and had an influence on the next generation of people’sartists, such as 「Levee」which is field-centered, to which we should pay attention. Thismeans that while their works thought about ‘tradition’, we should be careful not to connectthem with‘aesthetic conservatism’or ‘classical art’. This is the why the meaning of Oh Yun’stheory of art during his final period should be closely examined again.

This paper focuses on the problems of poor imagination presented in the later poems of Wallace Stevens and W. B. Yeats. Being older and being barren of ideas, both poets feel the bitter anguish about their poetry writing. In his later poem, “Of Mere Being,” Stevens continues his endeavor to picture the ‘abstract’ or true reality but fails to accomplish “a supreme fiction” that is his own ultimate form of poetry. Yeats also seriously doubts of his own capabilities and laments the lack of theme as well as of subject matter in “The Circus Animals’ Desertion.” Although the imagination is sterile, however, the desire itself does not wither away totally. The elderly Stevens simply was not blessed with creative imagination in his later years. Hence, only the “mere” reality repetitively and gallantly appears in “Of Mere Being” and other later works. Yeats also does not give up but undertakes to write significant poems with integrity.

The Tower, published in 1928, is Yeats's finest single volume of poetry, and it might also be the finest single book of poems published in the twentieth century (O'Donnell 89). Many poems of the volume confront the problems of growing old. This paper attempts to read three poems selected from The Tower--"Sailing to Byzantium," "The Tower," and "Among School Children"--in terms of their representations of old age and its relation to desire and the imagination. In "Sailing to Byzantium," the poet begins by declaring that Ireland is "no country for old men." He complains that here all are "caught in that sensual music" and "neglect monuments of unageing intellect." "The Tower" also begins with the poet's confused question: "What shall I do with this absurdity . . . this caricature, decrepit age?" He complains about his old age because it makes his body "a sort of battered kettle at the heel," and that body can deride his imagination and its work. The poet's complaint or anxiety about old age in these poems comes from the fact that his old age and bodily decrepitude make it hard to satisfy his desire. In "Sailing to Byzantium," lack of satisfaction makes him unhappy in Ireland and wish to leave. Also in "The Tower," unsatisfied desire makes his heart "troubled," and so he is even tempted to give up poetry and choose philosophy. However, ironically enough, unsatisfied desire makes his imagination stronger than ever. Now, in spite of his bodily decrepitude, his imagination enables him to travel to the "holy city" of Byzantium, and there pray to the sages there that he may be changed into a golden bird, "an artifice of eternity." In "The Tower," the poet sends his imagination forth and calls "images and memories" to ask questions of them. In the process of calling images and asking questions, the poet restores his belief in the power of the imagination, and, because of this belief, he can leave his "pride" and "faith" as poet to the "young upstanding men" of Ireland. "Among School Children" confronts the problem of physical ageing a little differently. The poem shows the poet walking through the schoolroom and dreaming of "a Ledaean body" (Maud Gonne). His imagining her as a child and then thinking of "her present image" leads to the meditation not only on the general human fate of ageing but also on the images which "break hearts" because they do not touch the reality of life. Not only the passage of time but also the false images make human life exhausted and unhappy. To solve the problem, the poet's imagination creates two images of unified being: the "blossoming" tree and the "dancing" body. Where life is blossoming or dancing, the poet says, "The body is not bruised to pleasure soul." What he is trying to say is that life is an ongoing process, and so we must accept it as it really is.

Yeats was interested in imagination as he was familiar with the function and value of imagination. For him, Imagination is a kind of creative principle; it is like an almighty divine god. By using and developing the power of imagination we can do anything. The ultimate aim of imagination is to create a paradise in this world from now to eternity. It is, however, too difficult to make such images, as we wish to. Though difficult, it is not impossible to do so. According to Bergson, the possible and the real are not essentially different qualities; they are originally the same attributes; furthermore, all material things are to be formed by the gathering together of images―the world of imagination consists of numerous images. Thus, we, with the marvellous power of imagination, can have the infinite power and intelligence, which resemble those of God. Nonetheless, we are sad for many human conditions that restrict us. But Yeats praises the human souls that overcome such conditions with full arduous life. As he awakens mentally, he comes to find the concept of taking pains -labor-; he needs to make constant efforts to realize the imagination as he wants it, wholeheartedly. To Yeats, such a hard process of living itself is man's sublimity. He concludes that in struggling against the terrible condition of life man will come closer to the attributes of God.

Yeats’s imagination is filled with the deliberate efforts and will to transform the given reality and self. Influenced by William Blake’s visionary or symbolic imagination who had pursued the eternal essence of life, Yeats sought for the perfect and beautiful as the goal which human beings should try to reach. In ‘Adam’s Curse,’ he asserts, since the Fall, there are nothing perfect and beautiful without one’s deliberate labour to reach them. A good poem necessarily needs lots of repeated correction, “stitching and unstitching,” but finally if it doesn’t seem natural like “a moment’s thought,” all the efforts and labour which have been made comes to be futile. In that the naturalness in poems through laborious process is emphasized, it can be said that his poetics would seek to the perfect and the refined, in content and expression, but most of all his great concern is on one’s passion and the laborious process to transform the reality as it is through imagination. This paper aims to explore the achievement of Yeats’s transformative imagination acted on the idealization of Anglo-Irish aristocratic tradition and nationality in terms of the discourse of nationalism. He projects onto Anglo-Irish aristocratic class the intellectual leadership over the crowd and the organic continuity and tradition which Irish middle class, that he hates, is regarded to lack. Under the threat and violence of Irish Catholics who began to make claims to their rights on dispossessed land, the Anglo-Irish, who had enjoyed the power and wealth since the 17th century, were forced to feel crisis. The Anglo-Irish were destined to play no more active roles in the following Irish history and would be in danger of isolation. Thus his idealization of the Anglo-Irish was constituted where his desire and fear meet. Here Yeats’s idealization of Anglo-Irish aristocrat was made retrospectively in the crisis. The Gregorys’ Coole House and Yeats’s tower, Thoor Ballylee are representative symbols in which he idealized the Anglo-Irish culture and its heroic tradition. The sense of form which Yeats found in the architectural form of Coole House as well as “courtesy” and “ceremony” in aristocrat’s life is one of the heroic ideals Yeats pursued throughout all his life. In poems dealing with this theme, we can see that he idealizes the Anglo-Irish culture and tradition by giving them the idealized heroic values such as the recklessness, intellect and courtesy, criticizing the rigid mind and snobbism of native middle class people who is indifferent to one’s spiritual value and imagination. This is the discourse of nationalism which insists on one’s nation’s innocent, continuous and self-sufficient attributes and proves its superiority to other nations. They would hide the fact that it is invented or constituted by purpose, assuming naturalness and making national myth a self-evident fact through various cultural discourses. But Yeats’s transformative imagination, as seen in ‘Adam’s Curse,’ puts great emphasis on one’s labour made behind to reach the ideal and the opposite to the reality, he lays bare his deliberate efforts of idealizing, not making natural by hiding and mystifying it. Here his poetry comes out of the typical discourse of nation. Like the Anglo-Irish ancestors who founded the magnificent house dreaming the ideal, Yeats himself who wrote a poem in the crisis of breakdown of the Anglo-Irish nationality by historical change and violence wanted to be memorized to his heir as a founder, “befitting the emblem of adversity.” In ‘Meditations in Time of Civil War,’ and ‘Coole Park and Ballylee, 1931,’ we can see that he makes the myth of Anglo-Irish nationality and at the same time demystifies or deconstructs it by showing that it is invented.

Imagination is an important instrument in a poet’s creation. Imagination is sometimes said to be derived from the longing and desire for the absent objects. Therefore the dynamic imagination, necessary for creating good poems, can be sustained by the opposition and conflict between dualistic worlds such as the ideal and the realistic, eternity and time. But sometimes poets are tempted to be absorbed into abstract imagination with which they can escape into supernatural world while ignoring the real world. This abstract imagination can be called the limits of imagination. This paper is aimed at studying how abstract imagination worked in W. B. Yeats’s early poems and what kind of poetic world he reached after overcoming the limits of his imagination. In his early poems, unrealistic and ideal perfection was sought as a result of his self which was too weak and feeble to accept the painful world. As a reflection of his weak self, unrealistic images distant from here and now, such as legendary heroes, fairies and the eternal rose, were used in his early poems and created an eternal world into which he could escape from the real. But as his self developed and changed into a more mature and harder state, he was able to accept and overcome the despair and tragedy caused in his actual world. In his later period his self developed and intensified enough to accept even death as his natural destiny, and to remake himself and the world with his creative mind, with which he could overcome the limits of imagination. Finally after overcoming the limits of his imagination, he attained a state of wisdom called ‘tragic gaiety’. Tragic gaiety is a kind of vision in which Yeats was able to embody eternity in the temporal world.

This paper is to get away from contemporary literary criticism and discourse concerning Yeats and Eliot. This is not to ignore the features of contemporary culture which are changing rapidly, including modernism to postmodernism. Yet, I want to focus on the poem itself. With the poems of both poets dealing with the same topic coincidently, I concentrate on the different aspects of modern poetry and importance of style from the two poets. Also, I believe that such aspects and difference in style will dedicate to understanding contemporary culture from their different points of view of the world and religion. This view helps us to understand today’s cultural facets from which we can experience a variety of lifestyles. Especially, religious points of view by the two poets help us see the relations of religion with today’s culture, the religion which might not be considered serious today in a general sense. The poem, “The Magi,” is thus delivered in this paper to see such religious significance as suggested from various literary symbols they are using in their poetry. Eliot tries to find the way in which ultimate happiness of human beings comes from the life in religious dimension; whileas Yeats wants to possess a complete life on a different level, that is the world of poetry. Such visions are well suggested in the poem, “The Magi.” Eliot discovers a Christian life from which people can experience a new vision in today’s difficult times. Yet, Yeats explores a new life in arts. The former is dreaming of a Christian kingdom while the latter is dreaming of a visionary kingdom. These differences command the style and form of the two poets. In this respect, Yeats gets over Eliot’s prejudice on him. So, the two poets should not be evaluated on the basis of time. They should be taken into account from a variety of perspectives, not from any fixed ones, with the different values they are suggesting beyond time and place.