Poetics of Violence in W. B. Yeats and S. Heaney

서지정보

ㆍ발행기관 : 한국예이츠학회 ㆍ수록지정보 : The Yeats Journal of Korea / 12권
ㆍ저자명 : Sungsook Hong

영어 초록

Irish literature since Free State has shown Anglo-Irish predicament, reflecting the hope of Gaelic Revival armed with catholicism and strong nationalism. However ultimately Irish literature is to recover the conflicts of the colonized hybridity, and to make a common-ground for the interest of all Irish people. In the connection with this, it is very interesting that we should frequently meet with the word ‘violence’ in Irish literary history. Aesthetical transformation of the historical violence is featured in most of modern Irish poets in the sense that a poet as a subject shows some response to the violence as a part of his own poetic experiences. The violence in Heaney’s and Yeats’s poetry is concerned with the problem who holds the hegemony in the independent Irish society. Yeats and Heaney stand on the opposite social position and represent the race they respectively belong to.-Yeats represents Anglo-Irish and Heaney the Gaelic. I think Yeats mainly depends on satire to express his disgust against the newly emerging catholic middle class. whereas Heaney seems to express his resistance rather secretly by combining lyricism and violence. The combination of the two heterogeneous elements in Heaney’s poetry not only expresses the poet’s resistance to violence effectively but brings forth the sense of beauty which is made by applying the aesthetic theory of ‘discordia concors’ and ‘defamiliarisation’ etc. Besides creating beauty, the combination of lyricism and violence suggests fixing the temporary time of violence to the permanent space. In addition, it suggests an Irish realistic attitude in front of the oppressed situation as well as their pride in Irish landscape. At the same time, it reflects the poet’s spirit for transcending two binary concepts and accepting coexistence in difference. Yeats attacks the philistine by using the tone of satire. Narrator, imaging the ideal world, alienated from the materialized mass, evokes the romantic heroism, and inspires the mood of tragic joy. Meanwhile the beauty Yeats evokes involves the praise of harmonious individuality full of life energy without digressing from the European aristocratic spirit. In conclusion, poetry can be a strategic weapon especially in a destitute time. Yeats, by evoking the mood of ‘tragic rapture’ and by poignantly satirizing the catholic middle class as philistines, tries to save Anglo-Irish from their declining fate. Meanwhile Heaney, combining lyricism and violence as one way of aestheticization, shows his resistance against the historical violence without losing the sense of beauty. These poetics as two main streams still coexist in modern Irish literary history. And yet they all contribute to establishing Irish literature on one common-ground and making Irish literature merge into the international literature. Although they represent the different interests of two classes, they illuminate the new possibility of coexistence in difference.

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