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ISSN : 1226-4946(Print)
ISSN : 2288-5412(Online)
The Yeats Journal of Korea Vol.9 pp.201-225
DOI : http://dx.doi.org/10.14354/yjk.1998.9.201

The Relation between Blake and Yeats from the Standpoint of Poetic Influence

Yoon-Deok Hur

Abstract

This paper is not primarily about Blake’s influence upon Yeats, thoughit is concerned about the question of influence and tries to suggest whatinfluence Blake has upon Yeats. Rather, its main concern is about howYeats wages “Mental Fight” with Blake, his “master,” in order to definehimself. Indeed, the figure of Blake stands like a pair of bookends aroundthe literary career of Yeats. But Yeats’s relationship with Blake was aconstant warefare between a poetic odd couple. In fact, Yeats’s wholecareer might be compared to beating on a wall, which Blake managed topass through like a ghost.
According to Yeats, Blake failed to eliminate himself properly from hispoems. Because he was “a man without a mask,” he could not efface hisown presence from his work. In other words, he could not become animpersonal medium for the voices out of the spiritual world. To outwitBlake and, in effect, to stake out his own spiritual territory, Yeats rejectsnot only Blake but also, in a sense, that part of himself which he hascreated in the mythic image of Blake. As the result of it he can subvertBlake. Now for Yeats, a “master” is not someone he emulates. Or he doesnot embody the way one has hoped to embody the voice of the ImmortalBlake; rather, a “master” was his opposite or contrary, someone againstwhom he struggles to define himself. Even after “The Symbolism of Poetry”Yeats was not prepared to look like Blake, “a man without a mask.”
Keywords :

시적 영향의 관점에서 본 블레이크와 예이츠의 관계

허윤덕

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