Learning the Ideal Strategy of Unification from Two Irish Poets, W.B. Yeats & Seamus Heaney

• 발행기관: 한국예이츠학회
• 저자명: 홍성숙(Sungsook Hong)
• 간행물 정보: 『한국 예이츠 저널』21권, 179~198쪽, 전체 20쪽
• 주제분류: 인문학 > 언어학
• 파일형태: PDF
• 발행일자: 2004.06.30

국문 초록

When it comes to the dream of unification or reintegration, the Korean Peninsula and the Irish Island have been facing similar political circumstances. Although these two countries obtained political independence more than 50 years ago in the form of republican governments, they still wish that their divided territories will be reunited. More often than not, the Republic of Ireland will finish reunification rather easily in some respects: although Northern Ireland has many entangled problems involving different ethnics and religions, the Irish have long been trained by this very cultural hybidity through the colonized history. By contrast, I wonder how the democratic system of South Korea can be harmonized with the despotic system of North Korea, despite little barrier of ethnicity or religion between the two. Moreover, considering the Irish case, the process of impetuous reunification could bring forth another civil war on the Korean peninsula. The Irish independence has been accompanied by the following: the war for deanglocization, the civil war as the momentum of the change in the political hegemony, the decline of the Anglo-Irish as the established class, the enhancement of Gaelic nationalism, and the expansion of the political identity as a member of EU. I think, in solving the problem of the Korean reunification to come, it would be very helpful to investigate how the two representative poets of Ireland, W.B. Yeats and Seamus Heaney, belonging to different classes, reacted to the war of deanglocization and internal turmoil. For this purpose, I will review what they have in common, or how they are different, in the attitude towards the united Ireland. Yeats and Heaney has something in common: they all began their poetic career in a lyrical mode, gradually developing into epic. They all thought themselves as bard trapped into the pit of the political burden. However, first of all, both of them tried to make Ireland a cultural common ground. Meanwhile, they showed some difference especially in the ways of defining the Irishness. However, despite being different in the class and culture identity to which they belonged, they never lost the mind of reconciliation and balancing: they wanted to take themselves off the prejudices, privileges and hatred then existing as the different forms of religion and ethnicity. Moreover, they wanted to decolonize their land in a positive and acceptable way: they wanted to appropriate the colonizer's culture to themselves. I would be happy if we can get a hint from this in connection with our future reunification. My last conclusion is that our reunification to come must not mean retreating to the dynastic despotism or jingoism; it must be achieved in the stream of the globalism and be preceded by some pursuit of the cultural common ground.

키워드

이상적 통일 전략 예이츠 셰무스 히니 신 페인의 신조 호전적국수주의 혼종화의 수용 the ideal strategy of reunification W. B. Yeats Seamus Heaney,the creed of Sein Fein jingoism the acceptance of hybridity