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ISSN : 1226-4946(Print)
ISSN : 2288-5412(Online)
The Yeats Journal of Korea Vol.30 pp.45-73
DOI : http://dx.doi.org/10.14354/yjk.2008.30.45

Plosives, Pulling Down, the Sublime: The Nuances of Yeats’s Comic Aspects

Park Jung Pil

Abstract

This article examines Yeats’s laughter which operates as an overtone,undercurrent, or a keynote throughout all his work. We discover that his comicaspects betray various meanings or nuances. First, the comic elements in Yeats areexplosive in that they function as a means of disorienting and transgressing socialregulations, and social categories like class, gender, race within a social system.Moreover, laughing escapes from and discards the established system at a burst asthe disproportionate laughter of King Goll in “The Madness of King Goll.”Furthermore, Tom’s laugh in “Tom O’Roughley” concentrates itself on the aimlessjoy as Derrida says that laughing laughs at itself like a sovereign operation.
Secondly, the laughing in Yeats is conveyed in the degradation of the dignifiedor exalted objects. Freud says that the increased expenditure of the solemn restraintdischarges vacantly when it does not satisfy its higher purpose. Sometimes thelightest thing can acquire superiority over the weightiest by pulling down oraerification which makes the solemnity unable to retain its dignity. In “Crazy JaneReproved,” Jane challenges the omnipotent God with such lighthearted refrain as folde rol. The technique of pulling down applies to the depreciation of nationalmonument or eternal art. Yeats knows well that Maud Gonne will be slighted bythe coming generations and that the great Irish patriots, O’Donell, Emmet, andParnell can also be mocked severely. Likewise the eternal art as the marble ofCallimachus cannot avoid damages from weightless wind.
Yet, for Yeats laughing is not always easy to express; he cannot release anylaughter encountering with the same situation as effortless laughing was possibleonce. In “The Apparitions,” Yeats confesses that he required all his energies to disperse the fright of an apparition which he could easily have laughed at last time.On the other hand, there is an occasion in which the childish and vulgar comicchanges to utter solemnity like a revolution. Yeats examines the transformation ofthe middle class carefully from indulging in silly talks to generating terrible beautyin “Easter 1916.” The trivial levity turns into the sublime inconceivably withoutintention. Lastly Yeats proposes a peculiar and paradoxical laughter which isdifficult to vocalize as in “A Dialogue of Self and Soul.” This sort of laugh cannotsurpass the burden of secular life, but great sweetness like Nietzsche’s tragic joycan break out even if the afflictions of human life make it distorted.

파열, 끌어내리기, 숭고: 예이츠의 희극성의 뉘앙스들

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