However hard a poet may cry out 'art for art's sake', art works are likely to be evaluated by the political surroundings: a poet is very likely to represent the class he belongs to and to react to the political situation through his own works. A poet who suffers from the turmoil of the transitional period can be a victim of the period in the sense that he can be evaluated irrespective of the real value of his works. This paper is motivated by our current social phenomena that the fanatical nationalism to evacuate the past is also applied to the work of reevaluating writers of the past as well as of the present; interestingly, the same situation happened to Yeats. This paper starts with some hypothesis that the primary reason for the lower reevaluation of Yeats since the birth of Free State until its rebirth as a member of E.U. is that he belonged to the Anglo-Irish Ascendancy. And then this paper investigates identity and contribution of the Anglo-Irish to Irish history. And finally this paper tries to find out how Yeats reacted to the radical change of hegemony especially after Responsibilities. The investigation into his poems leads us to the conviction that in his first stage, he wanted to surrender his half-blooded Englishness to his another half-blooded Irishness. This explains why he tried to dig up the ancient Gaelic culture and to advocate the Gaelic Catholic in his first stage. However we can witness his changing attitude after the Easter Rising: some threat from the majority Catholic fanaticism awakened Yeats's self-recognition as an Anglo-Irish, advocating their class and culture in his poems since Responsibilities. It follows that although Yeats wanted to be an artist for art as such, he could not but seek for reconciliation of two aspects of Ireland, -that is, its religion and ethnicity. Yeats's poetry reflects the shift in the political hegemony and the definition of the Irish identity. My conclusion is as follows. The main reason Yeats's evaluation was going down during the period Ireland was being established as a republic country is that he belonged to the Anglo-Irish Ascendancy, the past power group. Through Yeats's poems we can witness the decline and agony of the Anglo-Irish during the birth of Republic of Ireland. Therefore the historical contribution of the Anglo-Irish is to be reevaluated; Yeats's Literary Revival is also referred to as "a cracked mirror of the servant". By reading again Yeats's poems from the new perspective towards Yeats as an Anglo-Irish, we can see that Yeats's advocacy of the Anglo-Irish was made only after he was threatened by the fanatical Catholic nationalism and that he adhered to the reconciliation of the divided Ireland throughout his life. Meanwhile, this study leads to another question: Is it possible that the art is free from the political pressure or turmoil? In my opinion, although art is not free from that situation, it can only survive when it shines in the filthy tide, searching for the independence and freedom. I think W.B. Yeats is an example.

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.