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ISSN : 1226-4946(Print)
ISSN : 2288-5412(Online)
The Yeats Journal of Korea Vol.26 pp.245-260
DOI : http://dx.doi.org/10.14354/yjk.2006.26.245

Co-existence of eco-feminism and patriarchism in W.B. Yeats’s and Seamus Heaney’s poems

Hong Sung Sook

Abstract

'Eco-feminism' as a combination of two words, 'ecology' and 'feminism', rests onthe basic principle that patriarchical philosophies are harmful to women, children,and other living things. Eco-feminists feel that the patriarchical philosophyemphasizes the need to dominate and control unruly females and the unrulywilderness. What is stressed in eco-feminism is to change the still prevailing ideathat the male-dominated civilization must be justified: eco-feminists think that humanbeings came to recognize that such civilization can't be the source of happiness.
Meanwhile we can find that in Yeats's and Heaney's poems land and landscapeare personified as an oppressed woman, from which I drew a hypothesis that thesetwo poets may offer the prominent examples of literature based upon eco-feminism.By contrast, we can also find that these two poets also reveal patriarchism basedupon Catholicism. Therefore, if anything, we can suppose that many works of thesepoets are reflecting both eco-feminism and patriarchism.
The Irish poems and poets cannot but reflect these two ideas: eco-feminism andpatriarchism. Meanwhile, in Irish poetry, woman is mainly reflected as three typesof human-sovereign, procreator and lover. In Yeats's and Heaney's poems, womanand nature are to be appraised as important materials.
Women in Yeats's poems are faithful to the traditional image as the lover orrarely the sovereign. And also, we can find that the persona wants to use her ashis poetic inspiration by admiring her beauty and seeking sexual energy and wisdomfrom her. By contrast, women in Heaney's poems are mainly described asprocreators who are to survive the oppressed land. The two poets are to beappraised to reflect eco-feminism in that they both show their love for woman and nature. Strictly speaking, however, Heaney's poems are more declined toeco-feminism while Yeats's poems are more declined to patriarchism: in Heaney'spoems land and landscape sometimes appear as the oppressed woman; in Yeats'spoems the persona blames woman for her violence, emphasizing that woman shouldhave courtesy, wisdom and sexual attraction, not the intellectual hatred, whereas inHeaney's poems the persona never blames woman but feels pity for her oppressedsituation.

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