| Research Abstract |
This two-year research project explored the visionary theatre of William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) from three different perspectives : the idea of 'Noh', spiritualism and sound symbolism. The research focused upon three poetic dramas : The Only Jealousy of Emer (1919), Calvary (1920), and The Words Upon the Window-Pane (1934), and analyzed symbolic stage representation in each of the plays.
The Only Jealousy of Emer, which combines a 'changeling' motif in Irish folklore with spiritualism, has a structural connection with Japanese Noh, 'Aoi no Uye'. In the Musicians' opening song, the alternate use of the 'f' sound and the 'b' sound suggests the interpenetration of the two conflicting worlds, thus dramatically signifying the revelation of the inner psyche of the 'antithetical' hero. Yeats's sound system works in his plays in the same way that Yeats uses alliterations systematically in his poems - as a poetic counterpart of his philosophical view of the world.
Calvary, which reflects Yeats's spiritualist idea of 'Dreaming-Back', can be regarded as Yeats's 'Noh' play in the sense that it recreates the 'dramatization of the soul'. Yeats's use of sound symbolism is elaborated upon in Calvary. The alliterative use of the 'd' sound comes between the opposition of the 'f' sound and the 'b' sound, and introduces the dance of the dice-throwers, which tragically intensifies the limitations of Christ as the 'primary' hero.
In The Words Upon the Window-Pane Yeats transfigures certain components of Noh into his own visionary acoustic images. The audience hears the hero, Jonathan Swift caught in an intense conflict between mind and body that is represented through the symbolic dominance of the 'b' sound. In the end the climatic dance is never visualized, and the final scene demonstrates the postmodern dramatic moment that completely replaces ordinary realities with the agony of the monstrous spirit of the hero.
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