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ISSN : 1226-4946(Print)
ISSN : 2288-5412(Online)
The Yeats Journal of Korea Vol.15 pp.7-28
DOI : http://dx.doi.org/10.14354/yjk.2001.15.7

Yeats and Women in Celtic Myth

Hye Sook Suh

Abstract

In reading Yeats’s works rooted in the ancient Irish tradition it will be helpful tounderstand celtic myth. Among extraordinary women from the ancient celtic tradition Istudied three Irish women in W. B. Yeats's works: Queen Maeve in The Old Age inQueen Maeve, Deirdre in Deirdre, and Emer in The Only Jealousy of Emer.
Moyra Caldecott’s Women in Celtic Myth provides much knowledge about Irishwomen characters. For the Irish stories the writer consulted Jeffrey Gantz’s Early IrishMyths and Sagas, Lady Gregory’s Cuchulain of Muirthemne and Gods and FightingMen, and T. W. Roleston’s Myths and Legends of the Celtic Race.
Maeve is the most written about among the Irish heroines: she is beautiful,forceful, strong, proud, devious, clever, lusty, and bloodthirsty. Daughter of Eochaid, theHigh King, she married a relatively minor king, Ailell, son of Ross Ruadh, king ofLeinster. Their castle was on the plain of Magh Ai in the province of Connacht.Although Ailell was no weakling, he was, without a doubt, secondary to Maeve inmany ways. She had property of her own: cattle, treasure and land that couldn’t matchwhat he had. In fact the whole bloodbath of war to steal the Brown Bull of Cuailngewas brought about because there was one possession Ailell had that outshone her own:Ailell had a better bull.
Maeve is the Queen most quoted as showing the privileged position of celticwomen in the Iron Age. They were equal in every respect to men, and in some casesthey were superior. They owned property; they could, as kings did, “divide gifts” and“give counsel”; they could ride chariots, fight battles, and dispose of lives. And with allthis power and freedom went the recognition that women’s sexual needs were aslegitimate as men’s.
In The Old Age of Queen Maeve Yeats rehandling a given myth depends upon acombined knowledge of the myth that he learned and Yeats’s personal vision, sometimeseven his personal affairs. Yeats’s love Maud Gonne is compared to Queen Maeve. A god of love, youth and poetry, Aengus who is crossed in love reminds us of the poethimself.
In celtic myth there is a story of the love between Deirdre and Naoise: love witha lot of risks and sacrifices. This love is contrasted with the possessive and destructivelust of Conchubar. Then there is a theme of honor and dishonor. And finally there isbeauty. Much is made of the extraordinary beauty of Deirdre, and it is a male reactionto her beauty that brings about “the sorrows.”
In Deirdre Yeats selected certain elements which seem to be characteristic of thetale and dramatic in themselves, and introduced three wandering musicians, who are notin the myth. Deirdre was the Irish Helen, and Naisi her Paris, and Concobar herMenelaus. Yeats’s thematic structure provides the clearest link between the Irish mythand heroic romance. He wrote it in praise of the heroic woman, of “wild will”, and ofpassionate love and the powerful and joyous shattering of common codes and lives.
Emer is the admirable wife of a great hero Cuchulain. She is beautiful, healthy,strong, intelligent, and vigorous. Her love for Cuchulain is the best of human love. InThe Only Jealousy of Emer Yeats elevates Emer to the same tragic stature as Deirdre,the heroine of his Deirdre. Told by Bricriu that she must renounce her love forCuchulain as the price for his return to life, Emer decides at the last moment to acceptthis bitter choice and return Cuchulain, ironically, to the arms of his mistress.
These celtic women’s beauty may be representative not only of physical beauty butalso the high aspirations of the soul. They are not virgins but mothers or wives. Theheroic women show us that love makes humans mature. In these Plays Yeats turned toromantic dreaming, the tradition of nobility in the ancient celtic myths.
Keywords :

예이츠와 켈트 신화 속의 여성들*

서혜숙
건국대

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