以雷蒙威廉斯之觀點重新審視葉慈戲劇世界中的融合哲學

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(1)國立臺灣師範大學英語學系碩士論文. Master Thesis Graduate Institute of English National Taiwan Normal University. 以雷蒙威廉斯之觀點重新審視葉慈戲劇世界中的融合哲學 A Williamsian Re-Examination of W. B. Yeats’ Philosophy of Unity in His Dramatic World. 指導教授：史文生教授 Thesis Advisor: Professor Frank W. Stevenson 研究生：黃斌峰 Graduate Student: Billy Bin Feng Huang. 中華民國九十八年二月 February 2009 1.

(2) Abstract This thesis proposes a Williamsian re-examination of Yeats’ philosophy of unity in his dramatic world. Chapter I elucidates my research methodology. I demonstrate how drama, in the Williamsian tradition, may correlate with culture, society, literature, language, and ideology. Then, I look into Yeats’ philosophy of unity in his dramatic world, connecting it with culture, society, literature, language, and ideology. Thus, the compatibility of Williams and Yeats is self-evident. Chapter II deals with culture and literature. For Williams, ties between culture and society should never be severed, and culture is a product of the social machinery. Besides, Williams considers culture to be a bourgeois idea of society, listing three cultural categories: dominant, emergent, and residual. Yeats expects his theater to unify the Irish society, and above all, to create the Unity of Culture, which is in fact a cultural product. On the other hand, Yeats upsets his own Unity of Culture by equating it with the Anglo-Irish culture, a bourgeois/residual culture in tactical opposition to the Gaelic culture. This cultural configuration explains why some Yeatsian plays, like The Countess Cathleen, have been controversially received. Likewise, Williams binds literature with society; for him, the former may change or be subject to the latter. In terms of a national literature, Williams believes there is a process of selection. Yeats intends to create a national dramatic literature of unity in order to unify the Irish people, with Anglo-Irishness as the only selective criterion. So he cripples his own unity again! Chapter III treats the interfaces of drama/structure of feeling and language/ideology. By Williams, drama allows people a glimpse at the social totality. Structure of feeling is a tacit agreement generated by dramatic conventions, and it aims at social consciousness and totality. Depicting s total Irish society has always been the intention of Yeats’ drama, and Yeats relies heavily on his theatrical professionalism for facilitating the unification of the Irish people. However, a further analysis of structure of feeling in Yeats’ drama will reveal that Yeats’ main concern is paradoxically the Anglo-Irish supremacy, which can instantiate Yeats’ 2.

(3) compromised unity. As for language, Williams asserts that it is a material product, and that ideology is certainly sheathed within it. Throughout his dramatic career, Yeats is dedicated to producing a dramatic language of unity, or an Irishized English, which causes him to antagonize the Gaelic League. Luckily, this antagonism is toned down by Yeats’ diplomacy. On the other hand, once we have an insight into Yeats’ ideology in language, we will be disillusioned with Yeats’ idea of linguistic unity and see nothing but Anglo-Irishness. Chapter IV targets Yeats’ and Williams’ theorizations of tragedy and revolution. Williams believes tragedy to be a spiritual cause of revolution, for it spiritually encourages people to revolutionize their condition. Yeats dislikes revolution, but he is convinced that tragedy may generate tragic joy, which can be responsible for a spiritual unification of the audience. Here I articulate that both Williams and Yeats make use of the audience’s emotionality for a society-changing purpose. This is also how Yeats implants Anglo-Irishness in his fellow Irish people. Then I attempt to qualify Yeats’ Cathleen ni Houlihan as a tragedy in both a Williamsian and a Yeatsian senses. Here the main problematic is its theme of revolution, which can be rendered explicable if we come to consider Yeats’ chameleon-like identity. Finally, Chapter V sums up my whole research project. I come to the conclusion that in Yeats’ dramatic world, the philosophy of unity comes to reveal and then to shatter itself.. 3.

(4) 摘要本論文以雷蒙威廉斯之觀點重新審視葉慈戲劇世界中的融合(unity)哲學。第一章闡述研究方法。首先在威廉斯的學說中，顯示出戲劇能夠與文化，社會，文學，語言，以及意識型態相連。接著探討葉慈的融合哲學，將之與文化，社會，文學，語言，以及意識型態做連結。如此兩者間的相容性便不證自明。第二章處理文化與文學。對威廉斯而言，文化與社會乃是無法切割，而文化可說是社會機器所製造出的產品。此外，威廉斯將文化視為是一種社會上中產階級 (bourgeois) 的概念，並列舉出三種文化分類：優勢 (dominant)文化，新興(emergent)文化，及留存(residual)文化。葉慈冀望戲劇能融合愛爾蘭社會，他尤其希望戲劇能創造出文化的融合，而這其實便是一種文化產品。在另一方面，葉慈將其所謂的文化融合與英裔愛爾蘭(Anglo-Irish)文化劃上等號，因而打亂了其中的融合。而英裔愛爾蘭文化乃是一種留存文化，與蓋爾(Gaelic)文化處於戰略性的對立。這種文化形勢解釋了為何有些葉慈的劇作，像是「凱瑟琳女伯爵」(The Countess Cathleen)，得到了爭議性的評價。同樣地，威廉斯將文學與社會相連一起；對他而言，文學可以改變或是受制於社會。關於民族文學(national literature)的產生，威廉斯相信其中必有一篩選的過程。葉慈企圖創造出一種融合性的民族戲劇文學，目的是融合愛爾蘭民族，然而英裔愛爾蘭性(Anglo-Irishness)，卻是他唯一的篩選標準。也就是說他破壞了自己的融合。第三章處理戲劇與共同情感結構(structure of feeling)，以及語言與意識型態間的介面。根據威廉斯的說法，戲劇讓人窺看社會的全貌。共同情感結構是一種由戲劇法度 (dramatic conventions)所產生的默契，主要針對社會意識與全貌。葉慈戲劇的本意，乃是描繪愛爾蘭社會的全貌，並且葉慈依賴其戲劇專業，達到融合愛爾蘭民族的目的。然而深入分析葉慈戲劇中的共同情感結構，便可顯示十分弔詭的是，葉慈主要著眼於英裔愛爾蘭的優越，此點可作為葉慈遭到破壞之融合的佐證。至於語言，威廉斯強調其乃是一種物質產物，並且必然會將意識型態包裹其中。綜觀葉慈的戲劇生涯，葉慈始終致力於創造出一種融合的戲劇語言，也就是愛爾蘭化的英語(an Irishized English)。這種英語. 4.

(5) 使葉慈和蓋爾語聯盟(the Gaelic League)處於敵對形勢。幸好葉慈的外交手腕沖淡了這份敵意。在另一方面，一旦看清葉慈語言中的意識型態，便會因為只看到英裔愛爾蘭性而對於葉慈的語言融合感到幻滅。第四章處理威廉斯與葉慈對於悲劇與革命的論調。威廉斯相信悲劇在精神上鼓勵人們進行社會革命，因此乃是革命的精神性原因。葉慈不喜革命，不過他深信悲劇能夠產生「悲劇性的喜悅」(tragic joy)，而促成觀眾精神上的融合。這裡所強調的重點，乃是威廉斯與葉慈兩人都利用了觀眾的情感，而達到改變社會的目的。這也是葉慈將英裔愛爾蘭性深稙於愛爾蘭人心中的手段。接著是探討「胡拉洪之女凱絲琳」(Cathleen ni Houlihan) 這部劇作，如何用威廉斯與葉慈的論調，將之視做是一部悲劇。主要的問題在於劇中的革命主題。如果考量葉慈如變色龍般的身份轉換，此點便能加以解釋。最後，第五章總結整個研究，並做出結論：葉慈戲劇世界中的融合哲學，先是出現，然後便破滅。. 5.

(6) Acknowledgement At last, I have managed to complete my thesis by the deadline! Of course, I must ascribe my success to a number of people. First, I am most obliged to Professor Frank W. Stevenson, who agreed to be my thesis advisor on such a short notice, and remained so accommodating and supportive all the times. In addition, I must thank Professor Yi Ping Liang (梁一萍教授) and Professor Hui Rong Peng (彭輝榮教授). The former gave me her unhesitant assistance, including participating in my proposal and oral defenses and proofreading my thesis. The latter was my former university teacher, who, for old times’ sake, never showed the slightest reluctance to come to my aid, offering me plenty of advice on Marxism and Raymond Williams. I must also address my thanks especially to Professor Kun Liang Zhuang (莊坤良教授), for he invited me into the fascinating world of Irish studies, which eventually led me to W. B. Yeats. Last but not least, I am sincerely grateful to all the teachers who have ever taught me, and all the classmates who have ever studied with me throughout my years in this MA program. All of them can be broadly defined as my ‘co-authors’, for each of them has more or less contributed to my research project. Without them, this thesis would have been an arrant impossibility!. 6.

(7) Content. Chapter I. Introduction My Frame of Williamsian Reference…………………………………………8 W. B. Yeats’ Philosophy of Unity in His Dramatic World…………………..13 Remodulating W. B. Yeats’ Dramatic Voice of Unity in a Williamsian Frequency…………………………………………………………………...21. Chapter II. Culture, Literature, and Society Culture and Society…………………………………………………………24 Literature and Society………………………………………………………41. Chapter III. Drama/Structure of Feeling; Language/Ideology Drama/Structure of Feeling…………………………………………………52 Language/Ideology…………………………………………………….……68. Chapter IV. Tragedy and Revolution Tragedy and Revolution in the Williamsian and Yeatsian Disciplines……...82 Cathleen ni Houlihan as a Tragedy…………………………………………91. Chapter V. Conclusion……………………………………………………102. Works Cited………………………………………………………………108. 7.

(8) Chapter I:. Introduction. My Frame of Williamsian Reference Terry Eagleton thinks of Raymond Williams in such a fashion, “Williams was without doubt the most pervasively influential cultural thinker produced by post-war Britain, a writer who placed the very concept of culture back at the heart of social and political argument…” (O’Connor, Raymond Williams, vii). Apart from his compliment of Williams, Eagleton’s statement has obviously foregrounded two major pivots in the Williamsian discipline: culture and society. In a quintessentially simple sense, Eagleton’s remark could be crystallized into an apparent association of culture and sociality. On the other hand, if we attempt to extend this association to other layers in the Williamsian construct, we may readily observe that this association is literally a penetrating dialectical strand that clusters every main Williamsian concept. It is from this observation that I suppose Eagleton may help to justify my plan to construct a Williamsian framework for W. B. Yeats’ drama. Before I can proceed any further with this Williamsian framework, first I need to single out Williams’ emphasis on drama:. People have often asked me why, trained in literature and expressly in drama, making an ordinary career in writing and teaching dramatic history and analysis…I learned something from analyzing drama which seemed to me effective not only as a way of seeing certain aspects of society but as a way of getting through to some of the fundamental conventions we group as society itself…It was by looking both ways, at a stage and a text, and at a society enacted in them, that I thought I saw the significance of the enclosed room － the room on the stage－with its new metaphor of the fourth wall lifted － as at once a dramatic and social fact. (Williams, Writing in Society, 20). This long excerpt is taken from a 1974 lecture of Williams, “Drama in a Dramatised Society: An Inaugural Lecture.” Later in this lecture, Williams states:. They [Dramatists] created, above all, rooms; enclosed rooms on enclosed stages; rooms in which life was centered…what could come to intersect and to decide their own still intense and immediate lives. There is a direct cultural continuity, it 8.

(9) seems to me…(O’Connor, Raymond Williams, 6, italics mine)1. Roughly speaking, the two parts of this lecture above exhibit Williams’ endeavor to correlate drama with both society and culture. At a personal level, Williams first describes the benefits he reaps from studying drama. As far as Williams is concerned, drama, in an enclosed space, has opened up an effective avenue of perceiving society. Later, Williams proposes to look into life in the enclosed dramatic space, where there is a cultural continuity. What Williams asserts is basically to designate two roles to drama. Williams believes drama, at least partially, epitomizes society. Apart from this epitomic role, drama assumes the function of continuing culture. Hence, in the eyes of Williams, there may be a romanticized re-definition of theater: it is an enclosed space where a text is written to enact social facts and prolong the cultural line on the stage. As far as I am concerned, What Williams proffers is not only a validation of an association of sociality with drama, but also a confirmation of a possibility of superimposing a Williamsian dialectic onto W. B. Yeats’ dramatic world, which I shall elaborate on later in this chapter. First of all, I believe that so far we have managed to achieve a follow-up of the penetrating dialectical strand in the Williamsian fabric；it has been woven through culture, society, and all the way to Williams’ multifarious theorizations of drama. Most important of all, this strand is surely worth more follow-ups. At the same time, drama has become my new starting point. To demonstrate the course of these follow-ups, I temporarily choose to bounce from point to point in Williams’ vast tradition of drama. In other words, tentatively I will simply sketch out. 1. As a matter of fact, this is what Raymond Williams means by a ‘dramatized society,’ ” For the first time a majority of the population has regular and constant access to drama, beyond occasion or season…It is that drama, in quite new ways, is built into the rhythms of everyday life…The slice of life, once a project of naturalist drama, is now a voluntary, habitual, internal rhythm; the flow of action and acting, of representation and performance, raised to a new convention, that of a basic need.” (4-5) That is, for Williams society is dramatized simply because the new, groundbreaking technology of television and cinema has enabled dramatic performances and representations to permeate through our everyday life. Therefore, what used to be the naturalist interpretation of drama, privileged, unintelligible and limited in access, is now a flow of daily, basic experience. What we have hereby is a new, pervasive dramatization of social order. See Alan O’Connor, ed., Raymond Williams on Television (New York: Routledge, 1989) 4-5. 9.

(10) an overview of Williams’ complex conceptions of drama:. Literature, in its most general definition, is a means of communication of imaginative experience through certain organizations of words. And drama, since it has existed in written plays, is clearly to be included under this general definition. (Williams, Drama from Ibsen to Eliot, 14). Superficially, this passage posits no more than some literary common knowledge: drama is clearly subcategorized by literature. And both the former and the latter consummate organized verbal communication. On the other hand, reading between the lines, I intend to reveal more vital dialectical importance beyond this commonsensical level. First of all, I’ve noticed that Williams refers to drama as “written plays.” When drama is seen as a bunch of written texts, then Williams’ so-called communication may, at least partially, be tantamount to language, another key word in the Williamsian tradition. Hereby, I must point out that the route of our dialectical strand, at this point, is simply nowhere to hide: it has traveled through culture, society, drama, and currently, literature and language. The legitimacy of juxtaposing drama and language is increased in this respect: Williams detect sociality in drama; on the other hand, in the Williamsian discipline language and society are undoubtedly intertwined:. …a definition of language is always, implicitly or explicitly, a definition of human beings in the world…We then have not a reified ‘language’ and ‘society’ but an active social language…What we have, rather, is a grasping of this reality through language, which…is saturated by and saturates all social activity (Williams, Marxism and Literature, 21-37). For Williams, like drama, sociality of language is inescapably noticeable on every level. To be more accurately metaphorical, sociality is an inbuilt component of language that functions on both the definitional and pragmatic levels. For now, I will simply put forward a general, even sketchy or simplistic statement, only to assert the language-drama connection: needless to say, language is part, or a communicative medium of drama. Interestingly, Williams wishes 10.

(11) to perceive sociality of drama；on a parallel, sociality emanating from language has also come to his attention (,though there is no guarantee that the socialities in the two contexts are identical)! Furthermore, I choose to look into the nature of this communication teleologically. To be more specific, it goes without saying that this communication Williams speaks of is addressed to the audience, or to be more socialistic, the masses (It’s another confirmation of the relationship between drama and society!). However, a critical question must simultaneously be raised: what purpose is this communication meant to achieve? Fortunately, it won’t take too much of our argumentative effort to answer this question, for Williams himself has hinted the answer! In “Crisis in English Studies,” Williams characterizes literature as “a carrier of ideology,” which is “inescapably ideological”（Writing in Society, 208）. For Williams, literature carries ideology. As a branch of it, drama is expected to serve the same purpose. That is, when drama is “inescapably ideological,” then the purpose of drama-generated communication should be self-evident：teleologically this communication is responsible for the transmission of ideology. At the same time, it also attests to the move of the dialectical strand to another stop, ideology. As this dialectic strand has stopped at ideology, I suppose that a further exploration may be required hereby. That is, when we speak of ideology, its definitional pertinence to a big, famous Williamsian word has certainly struck me obvious, the structure of feeling. In the Williamsian construct, numerous efforts of his have been made to define and elucidate this concept in plenty of different ways. The following is one of them:. To relate a work of art to any part of that observed totality may, in varying degrees, be useful, but it is a common experience, in analysis, to realize that when one has measured the work against the separable parts, there yet remains some element for which there is no external counterpart. This element, I believe, is what I have named the structure of feeling of a period and it is only realizable through experience of the work of art itself, as a whole. (Williams, Politics and Letters, 158-9) 11.

(12) Here, in terms of the structure of feeling, Williams makes a point of the textual analysis of the work of art. By analyzing the work textually, the structure of feeling may arise from some unearthed element of it. Of course, this concept may become a lot more of a problematic, especially when discussed in the context of society. However, I prefer to save these discussions for later chapters of this thesis. Here, the potential dialectical complexity will not seem to intimidate me, for at this point all I have to do is answer one simple question: does drama qualify as a work of art? The simple, self-revealing “Yes!” will manage to direct the dialectical strand to structure of feeling. Up to now hardly will any careful reader lose sight of this crucial observation: since the beginning of this thesis I seem to have commenced an ‘indexing’ process. That is, I have indexed several utmost Williamsian concepts, aligning them in a matrix. On the other hand, let’s not forget that in this matrix there is a penetrating dialectical strand, connecting the concepts under my guidance. In other words, what I have done so far seems to be clustering up these Williamsian concepts. Most important of all, there is a crucial positionality operating along this string of Williamsian concepts Taking a closer look at this conceptual string, one should be unlikely to miss the convergent position of drama. As far as I am concerned, it is precisely this convergence that will increase my legitimacy of inserting drama into a dialectical vantage point. To be more specific, while I am aligning these Williamsian concepts, I treat drama as the center of all the connections. In other words, what I propose is also a ‘networking’ endeavor; more specifically, with drama as the dialectical core, from which I will reach for the domains of culture, society, literature, language, ideology, and the structure of feeling. Of course, in the course of my touching on these ideas, I will take meticulous care of their interrelatedness. Hopefully in the end, an elaborate Williamsian network should be constructed to be my frame of reference. Functionally, the operations of this Williamsian framework may be accounted for 12.

(13) from this perspective. First, there is a centralizing process. As I have stated above, drama must have an assured position of centrality within this framework; its compelling thematization should saturate through every layer of this Williamsian framework. Or we may also say that there is a revolving process. In the course of my buildup of this Williamsian framework, I basically assign drama an ‘orbiting’ task. That is, it should gravitate into an orbit around itself culture, society, literature, language, ideology, and the structure of feeling. In a more literarily commonplace language, drama is going to be contextualized by culture, society, literature, language, ideology, and the structure of feeling. In a way, both the processes simply attest to the fitness of Williams’ tradition for dramatic interpretations. W. B. Yeats’ Philosophy of Unity in His Dramatic World For any Yeatsian scholar, the understanding of Yeats’ philosophy of unity should be a basic requirement. In A Reader’s Guide to the Plays of W. B. Yeats, Richard Taylor gives a simple but illuminating explanation of it:. Let it suffice to say that the underlying mechanism of the system [philosophy of unity] is activated by conflict and opposition…Yeats believed that all human or temporal activity is in a constant state movement between the extremes of primary (objective, solar, active, or reasonable) and antithetical (subjective, lunar, creative, or emotional) being (8, italics mine).. Roughly speaking, it seems that the machinery of W. B. Yeats’ philosophy of unity is basically motored by conflict and opposition. Besides, it is featured by a constant movement between extremes. Later, Taylor has even graphically visualized Yeats’ philosophy of unity (Figure 1).2. 2. Figure 1 and 2 are both created by Richard Taylor. See Richard Taylor, A Reader’s Guide to the Plays of W. B. Yeats. (London：the Macmillan Press, 1984) 9, 10. 13.

(14) First, from Figure 1 it’s plain to see that Yeats’ whole philosophy is heavily tainted with his occultism (,whose synthetic origins are certainly what I do not wish to pursue at great length right here!). On the surface, this philosophy is an inspiration from the lunar phenomena. That is, as the lunar demonstration regularly ranges from a full moon to a crescent, people constantly oscillate between extremes. The developments of two extremes are essentially complementary; that is, the peaking of one always indicates the waning of the other. For W. B. Yeats, such an oscillation should never be a mere movement; Yeats believes that it should be more like a mediation, which is precisely his so-called ‘unity.’ Taylor characterizes Yeats’ belief:. Every aspect of human personality and historical epochs has an essential character or identifiable nature which both conflicts with and seeks to reconcile itself with its exact opposite…If, for instance, a near complete and perfect primary state of being could be achieved, then that person or culture would naturally develop towards its opposite, its objectivity diminishing as its new subjectivity increases. Yeats imagined this movement as the progress of a point spiraling from the base of a cone to its top or from the top to its base (8-9).. Here Taylor has foregrounded a key term, a perfect primary state of being, which, in this context, may be equated with Yeats’ so-called unity and serve as the crux of this issue. That is, Taylor sees the movement towards an opposite in a teleological manner. For the purpose of consummating a perfect state of being, one has to progress from the base of a cone to its top or vice versa. In a more commonplace language, what Yeats believes to be unity is an 14.

(15) embrace of, or at least a gesture towards the opposite. Based on this observation, an Yeatsian equation of unity may be formulated: as two antitheses or extremes are met with each other, we expect there to be intensions and conflicts. In the end, the antitheses or extremes are melted into each other, and a unity is thus generated. Basically, this simple equation can be said to be an underlying principle of Yeats’ philosophy of unity. Later, Taylor demonstrates how Yeats has expanded this philosophy by positing Figure 2:. Along Figure 2, Taylor also adds:. The scheme is obviously based on astrological principles but rather than the twelve signs of the zodiac…Like the image of interlocking gyres, the great wheel (Figure 2) is relevant to human experience on several different planes. It can be taken to represent the basic phases in the life of a single individual or of a society, as well as the dominant characteristics of successive incarnations and historical ages which make up the larger cycles of human existence. (9-10, italics mine). Taylor’s visualizations have mainly contributed to demonstrating the evolution of Yeats’ philosophy of unity. From a single, inchoate conception, Yeats has cultivated a whole. 15.

(16) intricate, zodiacally-based system, which supposedly qualifies as a philosophy and above all, has a capacity for mundane phenomena, ranging from an individual to a society. More explicitly, in Yeats’ eyes the lunar rotation should be taken to represent universal human experience at every level, which are dominantly characterized by successive incarnations. It is true that Yeats’ whole scheme is shaped like a giant metaphor; on the other hand, first I would rather stress the fundamental workings of antithesis in it. That is, the waxing and waning of the moon metaphorically corresponds to a person’s life and death, or a civilization’s prosperity and effeteness. Again as I have stated above, this fundamentalism signifies not only a circularity but above all, a merge of all these antitheses, which, by and large, constitutes Yeats’ philosophy of unity. More explicitly, what Yeats has valorized is the progress from objectivity to subjectivity. And in Figure 2, such a movement may be re-traced to be the route from the total eclipse (passivity) to the full moon (unity of being). Most important of all, in the course of this route a series of reconciliations of opposites have to be undergone. Of course, W. B. Yeats’ philosophy of unity is a lot more than this mere gyre. In fact, it is labyrinthine, esoteric, and controversial, and above all, definitely worthy of more philosophizations. 3 However, Taylor has also admitted that “complete and detailed knowledge of the system is not absolutely necessary to an understanding of the plays” (10). Hence, instead of getting locked in a never-ending metaphysical discussion of this philosophy, I think it is high time that I took the whole argumentation to a pragmatic level. That is, it is the real-life application of this philosophy that has struck me as most problematic. First, as I. 3. For instance, Taylor has managed to point out the current academic scruples about Yeats’ philosophy of unity, “ Scholars and critics have never been altogether comfortable with such strange and unorthodox ideas. Attempts have actually been made to argue that Yeats was basically a Christian and did not really believe in all the esoteric doctrines” Then he later attempts to re-characterize the backdrop against which Yeats has created this philosophy, “ In both folklore and mystical-occult disciplines such as Platonism, cabalistic studies, oriental philosophy and theurgic magic, he encountered an active spirituality which existed both outside of and within man, linking him by an unbroken chain of being to an ultimate spiritual reality. Out of these ideas Yeats constructed a system, not itself reality, but the pattern of reality.” As I have stated, the complicated formative background of this philosophy should not be in my dialectic scope. See Taylor, 10. 16.

(17) have observed, functionally Yeats’ philosophy of unity is a play of extremes and antitheses. On a mundane level, it includes any blending of any heterogeneous elements. Above all, I believe that this philosophy of W. B. Yeats’ has immanently pervaded his poetic and dramatic career. And it is precisely this pervasion that will lay a crucially underlying foundation of my whole dialectic. In “”Intellectual Hatred” and “Intellectual Nationalism”: The Paradox of Passionate Politics,” George Mills Harper lauds Yeats in this way:. We ought to be grateful, I suppose, that Yeats was a divided man－most great artists are. He was a man of paradoxes and tensions and uncertainties, not the least of which is the ambivalent stance he took on Irish politics. He had learned from William Blake, if he needed a teacher, that “Without Contraries is no progression” (152).. Essentially, what Harper has lauded is an immanence of antithesis, which essentially exemplifies the pervasion of Yeats’ philosophy of unity. Yeats has even quoted William Blake to attest to this idiosyncrasy of his own. On the surface, Harper’s praise is given on a slightly autobiographical level. However, I believe that Harper’s praise may very well be evidence of this pervasion, which may be perceived at least from two perspectives. From an inward perspective, through some deliberate internalizations Yeats’ philosophy of unity has made an entry into his own nature. In other words, as the gyre bristles with opposites, Yeats is also a person full of paradoxes. (Basically, this Yeatsian attribute can be deemed as a means of self-betterment, as the Blakean quote suggests!) (Needless to say, it also serves as our reminder of the Blakean streak in Yeats’ philosophy of unity!4). From an outward perspective, this philosophy has been inscribed in the fabric of Yeats’ various activities, such as his politics. Most important of all, we shall not forget that Yeats, both inwardly and outwardly, is attempting to seek a unity of being among all these antitheses.. 4. In effect, it is highly unlikely to review Yeats’ philosophy of unity without noticing the profound Blakean influence. For example, Yeats himself writes, “my mind had been full of Blake from boyhood up and I saw the world as a conflict.” See W. B. Yeats, W. B. Yeats Papers, National Library of Ireland, Dublin, 72. 17.

(18) To put it in a nutshell, or to describe what I call ‘’the pervasion of Yeats’ philosophy of unity’ more exactly, it has literally been translated into a variety of patterns. Or we can say that it has taken plenty of representations in every respect of Yeats’ life. Apart from politics, Yeats’ most celebrated ‘mask theory’ is simply another manifestation of his philosophy of unity. Deborah Fleming calls Yeats’ mask “the poet’s double consciousness”(Introduction, W. B. Yeats and Postcolonialism, xxvi). Herbert Levine identifies Yeats’ mask as “a means of disciplining the ego to accept a multiplicity of selves”(Yeats’s Daimonic Renewal, 4). Ch’ien Ch’eng Wu is more explicit, asserting that Yeats’ so-called mask is in fact an anti-self, namely, an imaginary, altogether different personality the poet has created and imposed upon himself. Wu also proposes that the making of the mask takes place as the poet moves “from the base of a cone to its top,” which will actually advance the poet’s progress (Sailing to Ireland, 66). To add a footnote to Wu’s statement, we may claim that Yeats’ mask or anti-self is fundamentally an opposite. That is to say, the moment the poet puts on his mask, he is simultaneously embracing his own opposite, or to be more precise, creating his own unity of being. Thus, the poet makes possible the sharpening of his poetic capabilities. Yeats’ mask theory is not only a doctrine of poetic composition but also a guideline in his theatrical world. However, here I would rather call for a pause, saving its follow-up for the later parts of this thesis.5 Instead, my focus had better be on the ties between Yeats’ dramatic world and his philosophy of unity. Hereby, I endeavor to present a comparative phraseology 5. As matter of fact, Yeats’ “mask,” or his Daimon, has been repeatedly topicalized in various studies of both Yeats’ poetry and drama. For instance, Richard Ellmann sees it more historically, stating that throughout the 19th century, there has been an idea of a binary creative personality. Levine, in his “”But Now I Add Another Thought”: Yeats’ Daimonic Tradition,” states, “In fashioning a poetic self, Yeats enters into a creative partnership with his God-surrogate…allowing the poet to wonder …whether he is the agent or simply the vessel of divine revelation”(172). What Levine refers to as ‘a creative partnership’ is essentially Yeats’ way to his poetic unity. Richard Kearney’s research is more metaphysical, noticing a tension between a Nietzschean desire for perpetual re-invention of self and the longing for ecstatic self-revelation. Christopher T. Malone relates Yeats’ mask to his nationalism, claiming Yeats’ mask “has this capacity to imagine the national subject as different from itself, to realize what it lacks in the present…” See Richard Ellmann, The Man and the Masks, (London: Faber and Faber, 1961) 73-8, 157-9. Herbert J. Levine, “”But Now I Add Another Thought”：Yeats’ Daimonic Tradition,” William Butler Yeats, ed. Harold Bloom(New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1986)171-78. Richard Kearney, Transitions (Manchester: Manchester UP, 1988) 20. Christopher T. Malone, “Modernist Ethos in the Postcolonial Moment: Yeats’ Theory of Masks,” W. B. Yeats and Postcolonialism, ed. Deborah Fleming (West Cornwall: Locust Hill Press, 2001) 266. 18.

(19) of my following task: in The Da Vinci Code, the hints of the shocking secret of Jesus Christ are concealed everywhere in a variety of manners, and it takes an erudite and observant person to decipher all the concealments. Likewise, Yeats’ philosophy of unity has been transformed and represented in a multitude of fashions in his theatrical world, and I believe that it will require a huge quantity of dialectical energy to perceive all these transformations and representations. Certainly, here by no means should a thorough fulfillment of this task become a necessity; all I have to do, I believe, should be nothing more than posit a rather crude outline. First of all, I choose to tap the nucleus. Taylor takes the first glimpse of the unities in Yeats’ drama:. As Yeats worked out his ideas of universal order [the conception of unity] with more and more precise detail, his ritual dramas reflected the various patterns and interrelationships of the visionary systems he was constructing. The characters he portrayed and their motives as well as the actions and their outcomes exemplified, and therefore represented, the inner workings of the universe [his gyre]. (11, italics mine). In brief, Taylor’s statement may boil down to be a description of a superimposition, which is triggered as Yeats begins his layout of the details in a play. That is to say, Yeats has done all his intricate treatments of dramatic visionary systems, characterizations, and actions with his philosophy of unity as a governing doctrine. In brief, it is the dramatic representation of Yeats’ philosophy of unity! Speaking of Yeats’ dramatic world, it is always of overriding importance to gain a theological insight. In constructing his theatrical world, Yeats has always borne in mind an intention of creating ‘a unity of culture.’ James W. Flannery believes that for Yeats, the greatest attraction of the theater lies in its power of transforming isolated individuals into the unity of being. Thus, the unity of culture may be effected (W. B. Yeats, 65-6). As matter of fact, as far as Yeats is concerned, this transforming power of theater is not only responsible for a unified culture but also the Irish nationalization. First, Yeats intends the Irish theater to 19.

(20) help unify Ireland into a nation, and more specifically, “give Ireland a hardy and shapely national character ”(Explorations, 76). It is Yeats’ hope that theater may unify the Irish society into a nation; that is, the Irish theater’s unifying power, in this respect, involves the Irish sociality. In addition, Yeats himself claims in his journal, “All creation requires one mind to and one mind for enjoyment; the theater can at rare moments create this one mind for an hour or so…Once created it is like the mind of an individual in solitude…”(Memoirs, 215). Yeats is convinced that theater serves the function of unifying individual thoughts into one single mind, or a thinking collectivity, which in Marxian language, could be termed as ‘an ideology!’ Hereby, the social and ideological shapes of Yeats’ philosophy of unity are clearly revealed. Of course, Yeats has regarded drama as an influential branch of the Irish literature, about which Yeats states:. It was impossible that those nations which spoke for good or ill, the English tongue would accept perpetually the ideas of one city [London], of a city which was no longer moved by any high ideal. America had a national literature, and America wrote in English. Ireland would have a national literature which would be written to a very great extent in English. (qtd. Dawn Duncan, Postcolonial Theory, 132). Most clearly, in terms of an Irish national literature, Yeats has juxtaposed literature with language. Yeats is strongly convinced that Ireland’s national literature should be engendered when Irishness is infused into the English language. Reading between the lines, I feel so intrigued by Yeats’ emphasis upon the notion of hybridity. I think the way Yeats asserts his philosophy of unity is by dealing with a complex interface of Irishness and Englishness. On a broader, more general level, if it is what Yeats thinks of an Irish literature, then a simple deduction would be that his dramatic literature must have inherited the same attribute of hybridity. This is how Yeats philosophy of unity is represented in his (dramatic) literature and language. In addition, roughly the same representation may be further evidenced in the Yeats’ 20.

(21) dramatic language. In 1934, Yeats made a speech on the Irish culture and national theater, “We must put Irish emotion into the English language if we were to reach our own generation…The people…after generations of politics …could listen (to what interminable speeches they had listened) and they could listen to plays” (David Clark, “The Irish National Theater,”148). Once again, Yeats stresses the importance of framing Irishness with the English dramatic language. Yeats has indicated a pragmatic aspect, namely, the usefulness of English in reaching the Irish audience in the theater. Remodulating W. B. Yeats’ Dramatic Voice of Unity in a Williamsian Frequency At this point, a perspicacious observer must find my ‘grand design’ plain to see! Discussing Raymond Williams, I have laid out the crucial concepts of drama, culture, society, literature, language, and ideology. Perceiving W. B. Yeats’ philosophy of unity, I have concentrated on its dramatic, cultural, social, ideological, literary, and linguistic representations. And in both cases, drama is dominantly thematicized. Most clearly, my ‘grand design’ would be to re-examine Yeats’ philosophy of unity in his dramatic world, within a Williamsian framework. Metaphorically, I am an acoustic engineer, who has just contrived an enterprise of first recapturing Yeats’ dramatic voice of unity, then remodulating it in a Williamsian frequency, for which I have readied the following vocal tracts: drama, culture, society, literature, language, and ideology. Through these processings, I hope that Yeats’ dramatic voice, projected out, may pristinely be received and inspiring! There is crucial clarification about my re-examination, or this acoustic enterprise: either is double-edged; namely, I shall observe how each of Yeats’ dramatic unities comes to reveal and then to shatter itself. In other words, I shall be a Williamsian observer while Yeats designs and constructs his dramatic system of unity, which in turn collapses like a house of cards. In addition, two critical factors have motivated me to attempt this re-examination or acoustic enterprise: newness and compatibility. First, newness, in this thesis, may be delved 21.

(22) into on two different levels. On the level of ingenuity, it is a brand new idea to directly locate and process Yeats’ dramatic voice of unity in a Williamsian frequency. It remains an endeavor that has never been tried explicitly. (At this point, I suppose I should feel the same way Neo does in The Matrix: when Morpheus is captured by the agents, Neo decides to storm into the building to come to his rescue, with nothing but plentiful ammunitions and Trinity’s help. Trinity has warned Neo, “No one has ever done anything like this!” Neo’s reply is quick, assured, and clever, “That’s why it’s going to work!”) For me, it seems like an unexplored, fertile dialectical virgin land! On the level of Williamsian essence, the Williamsian construct is an alternative tradition of Marxism. Terry Eagleton sees Williams as a “truthteller in heresy.” And “Whatever he has contributed to Marxism has been founded, necessarily, on his early break with it” (“Base and Superstructure,”175). Indeed, as a major member of the New Leftism, Williams has been distinguished for his radical, trail-blazing divorce from traditional, or vulgar Marxism. As far as I am concerned, drawing on the Williamsian materials is equal to infusing Marxian newness into my research. Secondly, the majority of the Yeatsian research is postcolonial. For instance, Edward Said has shed light on the postcoloniality of Yeats, especially when Yeats becomes aware of “the overlapping he knew existed of his Irish nationalism with the English heritage”(Culture and Imperialism, 227). Mark Mossman thinks Said’s argument is founded upon the British empire, which eventually slips under the umbrella of postcolonialism (“W. B. Yeats and Salman Rushdie,”167). Commonsensically, postcolonialism is undoubtedly compatible with Marxism. Here is a perfect example. In her “’The Rough Beast’: A Postcolonial and Postmodern Yeats,” Cristina J. Thaut, instead of specifically targeting Yeats’ drama, has a clear tendency to generalize about her studies of Yeats in a postcolonial context. She believes that “Yeats defines Ireland through culture,” and breaks an imperialism/colonialism ideological system of oppression (5). Also, he “attempts to break dependency on the colonizer by creating an independent literature”(6). Last but not least, for Yeats words are a tool for forging a nation, 22.

(23) and the power of language is central (8). In Thaut’s somewhat general, postcolonial contour of Yeats, several big Marxian words have been highlighted: culture, ideology, literature, and language. In the very least, it bears witness to the compatibility of Marxism with Yeats’ postcoloniality. Therefore, as I’ve decided upon this remodulation, I am confident that Yeats’ dramatic voice of unity will immanently be compatible with the Williamsian frequency. Above all, this encouraging compatibility will offer solid grounds for my acoustic engineering.. 23.

(24) Chapter II Culture, Literature, and Society. Culture and Society In the Willimasian construct, ‘culture’ and ‘society’ are two intertwined, complex big conceptions. Here in this chapter, I’ve determined to do the follow-up of them both on a step-by-step basis. In “The Idea of Culture,” Raymond Williams makes a strong point of “the intimate and complex relations between ideas and the other products of man’s life in society” (245). Unquestionably, Williams’ emphasis has already shed light on the inseparability of culture and society. And it is this inseparability I intend to deconstruct. That is, my task has hereby become twofold: I shall find out what culture can do to society, and vice versa. First, Williams seems to give a sketchy answer: culture has to be explored in a societal context. Then Stuart Hall, from a broader perspective, does a further pursuit of this assertion:. First…it was in the cultural and ideological domain that social change appeared to be making itself most dramatically visible. Second…the cultural dimension seemed to us not a secondary, but a constitutive dimension of society. (This reflects part of the New Left’s longstanding quarrel with the reductionism and economism of the base-superstructure metaphor.)…The New Left therefore took the first faltering steps of putting questions of cultural analysis and cultural politics at the center of its politics. (”The “First” New Left: Life and Times,” 25-6). Hall has taken a critical stance in reviewing the New Left’s culturalism. In the simplest sense, Hall has depicted a relational interaction between culture and society. Roughly speaking, this is the inseparability of culture and society. Furthermore, Hall has pointed out that culture is a constitutive component of society, whose change is sure to be perceived culturally. For Hall, this is the New Left’s trailblazing (,not necessarily successful though, in Hall’s opinion) effort to challenge “the reductionism and economism of the base-superstructure metaphor” of vulgar Marxism. Hall’s observation of the New Left’s or Williams’ culturalism could be summed up in this way: instead of being a determined factor of the superstructure, as it used 24.

(25) to be seen in vulgar Marxism, culture in fact serves as a constituting force of society, and vice versa; that is, the correlation between culture and society should immanently be inter-constitutive. What Hall gives us is an overview of the New Left’s culture-and-society interface. As far as I am concerned, it is an enabling process for us to characterize Williams’ cultural materialism. When Hall speaks of the constitutive nexus of both culture and society, it should be noteworthy that Williams, as a critical New Leftist, has gained such an insight into this nexus, evolving it into a theory of ‘cultural production.’ First of all, Williams redefines the word ‘production’ on a social level:. But then this same point is highly relevant to the actual process of “mental” labor. Even if we retain, at this point, his [Marx’s] categorical distinction between “material” and “mental” labor(overriding…the diverse social and historical conditions within which this distinction is variably practiced and theorized), it soon becomes clear, from historical evidence, that the productive forces of “mental labor” have, in themselves, an inescapable material and thus social history. (What I came to say, 211, italics mine). By and large, in his cultural materialism Williams articulates that culture is a material product of social machinery. This is what society does to culture! Paul Jones, in his Raymond Williams’s Sociology of Culture, believes this quoted passage to be “Williams’s most explicit declaration of the conception of cultural productive forces that is quite crucial to his mature sociology of culture” (19). First, Williams has posited two modes of production, which Jones has worked into Table 1 (50):. Forces of production, i.e. labor plus these varying means of production. Relations of production. General. Means of ‘general’ production. Capital/labor (initially). Cultural. Means of cultural production, including means of communication. Relations of cultural production, including ‘formations’. 25.

(26) Indeed, the significance of Table 1 lies in Williams’ problematization of the distinction between “mental and material labor,” which attracts constant social and historical attention in various contexts. First, Jones has emphasized that by no means should this distinction be rigidly hard and fast. ”For Williams it is a matter of determinate conjunctural analysis, whether the relation between social and cultural reproduction is one of correspondent homology…,asymmetry, or symmetry ” (51).1 That is, in Jones’ opinion, Williams’ distinction does not undermine the inter-constitutive relationship between culture and society, now that he stresses the commonalities between social and cultural reproductions, believing the two forces to be “common but differentiated processual dynamics” (50). Besides, even Williams himself also indicates ‘the social history’ of mental labor. In such a case, it is our preliminary conclusion that Williams still targets materiality of culture even if it is a result of mental labor, rather than propose an arbitrary, overall blurring of this distinction. For him, this materiality seems like an inescapable answer to the complex process of cultural production. Next, we should get to the other crucial question: what does culture do to society? For Williams, culture constitutively impinges upon society equally needs to be treated:. A cultural phenomenon acquires its full significance only when it is seen as a form of（known or unknown）general social process or structure…there is no a prior distinction between the necessary and the contingent, the “social” and the “cultural,” the “base” and the “superstructure.” (Marxism and Literature, 105-6). Williams views culture as a significant in-built component of society. That is, culture, such a social product of materiality, may well acquire an internally structural influence on society.. 1. In addition, Jones, with respect to Table 1, has chosen the perspective of Williams’ attitude towards the problematic, vulgar Marxism metaphor of base/superstructure. He believes that Williams has redressed the faults with this metaphor, rather than undercut it. “For we still have the original categories of the metaphor , as well as Williams’ culturally specified versions…The determinant role of the ‘the base’ over formal superstructure in any general sense is thus supplanted by the relation between what have now been constituted as two sets of productive forces and relations：culture and ‘social’(or ‘general’).” See Jones, 50. 26.

(27) This is how Williams obliterates the distinction between “the “social” and the “cultural,” the “base” and the “superstructure.” By now, my twofold task is completed: Williams impugns the rigid one-way connection of the base with the superstructure and replaces this connection with a mutually constitutive relationship between culture and society. This is also what Hall praises Williams for: a crowning achievement of modifying the traditionally Marxian base/superstructure model.2 At this point, I have highlighted and explored some register of Williams’ cultural materialism, including culture, society, and materiality. Of course, as I have stated, the register comprises crucial factors of the Willimasian process of cultural production. Thus, as I intend to remodulate Yeats’ dramatic voice of unity at the vocal tract of culture, it readily becomes my top priority to introduce the very register into the realm of Yeats’ dramatic culture. And in the course of this introduction, these key words of culture, society, and materiality are my points of dialectical leverage. To be more exact, what I’m seeking to do is to find practical applications of Williams’ cultural materialism in the context of Yeats’ dramatic culture. First, I have mentioned in Chapter I that Yeats’ intention of founding the Irish theater is to create the unity of culture. Yeats has firmly stated:. All my life I have longed for such a country [that is, a country with Unity of Culture], and always found it quite impossible to evoke without having much belief in its real existence as a child has in that of the wooden birds, beasts, and persons of his toy Noah’s ark. (Plays and Controversies, 434). Here, Yeats has first envisioned his childlike prospect of Ireland, “a country with Unity of Culture.” Most of all, for Yeats this prospect always has a chance to materialize, as long as Irish people’s confidence in it can be inspired. In addition, Yeats is convinced that either this 2. On the other hand, György Márkus has saliently critiqued Williams’ model of cultural and social reproductions. He is convinced that this paradigm fails to address the specificity of cultural objects with cultural meanings. He thinks that “their emphasis…falls predominantly and one-sidedly, upon social institutions which pertain to the sphere of culture…not on the social relations constituting the realm of culture as such.” See György Márkus, “Marxism and Theories of Culture.” Thesis Eleven 25: 99. 27.

(28) materialization or this inspiration has to hinge upon the power of the theater. Here are more details: in terms of such a theater, Yeats has painted this picture with his imagination: on the slopes of the Acropolis was a theater, as the core of the civilization and the center of the community life. Pisistratus had created this ideal theater with the deliberate intention of unifying the city-state of Athens. His practical means was through the tragic contests performed annually at the Festival of Dionysus. Following this plan, the Theater of Dionysus became a religious temple, which transformed Athenian myths and rituals into art forms in order to raise Athens’ cultural level and create their sense of communal identity (Fergusson, The Idea of a Theater, 15). Flannery bears witness to Yeats’ plan to pattern the Irish theater on Yeats’ own vision of Theater of Dionysus; in particular, Yeats’ wants the Irish theater to fulfill a similar intention:. Thus we see the dream of Yeats defined: nothing less than the re-creation of society and theater in the image of the greatest society and theater in the history of Western civilization; nothing less than the creation of an Irish Athens, and an Irish Theater of Dionysus where a Unity of Being and Unity of Culture might be effected…(66). Obviously, Yeats hasn’t merely premeditated an imitation of the Theater of Dionysus. What he actually desires is a ‘package deal!’ That is, he wishes the Irish theater to consummate the objective of unifying his fellow Irish people; afterwards, Ireland may be the modern version of Athens, in whose society a Unity of Being or a Unity of Culture might be a possibility. Looking at the larger picture, we may even say that it is Yeats’ idealized blueprint of his utopian Ireland. Of course, there will be an arduous process if this blueprint is to be realized, and most important of all, Yeats has determinedly counted on theater for facilitating this process, for in Yeats’ mind, the Irish theater is a model of Irish people’s national institutions to reverence, or national success to admire (Autobiographies, 493). Up to now, culture and society, the two elements of the Williansian equation of cultural 28.

(29) production have been contextualized by the Yeatsian dramatic philosophy of unity. And above all, when Yeats talks of creating a unity of Irish culture, he has inevitably launched into a process of cultural production. Let me posit a more Williamsian rendition of this case scenario. Williams believes that culture is a product of the social machinery. Hence, as Yeats has founded the Irish theater for the purpose of creating a unity of culture, he simultaneously occupies the position of a ‘cultural producer,’ and the Irish theater qualifies as a part of the social machinery, or a social institution. Perhaps the time has ripened to inspect Yeats’ theatrical products of unity by this criterion. Yeats’ early play, The Shadowy Waters, typifies this case. In this play, Dectora is stolen from King Iollan by the adventurer Forgael. Eventually, Dectora and Forgael consummate a union. Taylor perceives the characterization, “Forgael represents reason or mind seeking death and the life of the spirit beyond, while Dectora represents the human will in its search for the force and passion of physical life.” Above all, he perceives Yeats’ plan for this play to be “a merging or melting of opposites” (48), namely, a theatrical instantiation of Yeats’ equation of unity. That is, when Dectora recites about her union with Forgael at the end of this play, this is precisely what the audience is expected to be instilled into:. DECTORA: And I am left alone with my beloved, Who cannot put me from his sight for ever. We are alone for ever, and I laugh, Forgael, because you cannot put me from you (The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats, 479-82). In Yeats’ dramatic vision, the union of Dectora and Forgael is an effectuation of his equation of unity, and this effectuation supposedly contributes to the unity of culture in Ireland. That is, it is when the audience watches this scene of union when the social influence of the theater will be exercised most efficiently, which, in Yeats’ opinion, ought to be instrumental in making possible the unity of culture. We have seen the implementation of the Yeatsian equation of unity. I think it’s time for the 29.

(30) operation of the Williansian equation of cultural materialism in the very same context. Here the operative complexity shouldn’t be overestimated, now that two main elements, society and culture, have manifested themselves. Rather, my emphasis is consequential; that is, once this Williamsian equation is put into operation, materiality will be an outcome that will undeniably be taken for granted. Materiality, by a Williamsian extrapolation, will forcibly work its way into the fabric of Yeats’ theatrical unity of culture. It enables us to shift our focus to materiality, whenever we have to view Yeats’ dramatic production of cultural unity. First, Williams’ cultural materialism legitimizes my comparison of Yeats’ Irish theater to a social machine. And this giant social machine is powered by capitalism, of which Williams has never sought a total negation. On the contrary, he, to a certain extent, even privileges this word to be part of legacy of traditional Marxism:. …because there was an industrial revolution there must have been industrial poetry…It would seem a reasonable deduction from a very simple version of economic determination, that since the decisive phenomenon was the advent of capitalism, there should be capitalist poetry. (Politics and Letters, 144). Based on ‘a very simple [,or traditional] version of economic determination,’ Williams acknowledges the workings of capitalism, determining how it dictates a new trend of poetry. I think Williams’ point is a ‘chain reaction,’ or literary developments triggered by capitalism. In addition, Williams’ point may be placed in a social context: either the industrial revolution or capitalism must occur in society before it can impinge on literature. That is, sociality of them both has to be self-evident, and so is that of literature! Williams accentuates sociality of culture, which provides a solid basis for materiality. From this perspective, capitalism and materiality should, at least partially, be synonymously interchangeable. It simply causes our dialectical veer to the capitalism of Yeats’ theater. In 1904, a well-to-do British lady, Annie E. F. Horniman, generously donated the Abbey Theater to be the operation base of the Irish drama. In his Behind the Scenes, Adrian 30.

(31) Frazier describes Horniman as a lady “proud of the mercantile virtues of Low Church petty capitalists.” In the eyes of other Irishmen, she seems to possess certain spiritually demeaning commercial characteristics (, a statement she has never quite confessed to, though!) (157). In addition, in 1907 Yeats had already gotten £7,000 out of Horniman (purchase of theatre, actor salaries, subsidies for tours of England), by no means was it quite enough for him (155). Even when Horniman was disillusioned about the Abbey Theater, she still told Yeats to "hold tight to the remembrance that he could always claim her help"; if he needed more cash, she would find a way to send it (165). Horniman’s subsidies of the Abbey Theater could be accounted for variously.3 However, as Frazier chronicles Horniman’s financial support, he is in fact corroborating this simile: if the Abbey Theater is Yeats’ flagship in his crusade of the Irish dramatic movement, then it definitely floats in the ocean of capitalism or materiality.4 All these have simply provided us with another angle of viewing Yeats’ dramatic creation of a cultural unity: it is actually a product of materiality from a social institution. In other words, it leads to our re-evaluation such Yeatsian plays as Deirdre, where Yeats has implemented his philosophy of unity more cleverly and sophisticatedly. David R. Clark, in his “Deirdre: The Rigor of Logic,” states:. The whole play has been a tragic chess game in which each player followed the rules sacred to him: Conchubar sovereign pride, Fergus statesmanly good-faith, Naoise heroic honor and Deirdre the laws of love. In a sense the finish was determined before the start…The stage movement…follows that of pendulum. 3. A main reason for Miss Horniman’s financing the Abbey Theater is her infatuation with Yeats, which can be proven by her jealousy or resentment of Maud Gonne. For example, on December 10, 1906 when she wrote to Yeats, she sounded like a lover green with envy, speaking of their conversation about Mrs. MacBride, or Gonne “You naturally made no remark when I said that Mrs. MacBride got what she deserved when she came to the theatre. In a case like that your silence is quite right—you know that it is true but of course you object to saying so…so I'm not at all cross & trying not be sad & I certainly will not worry you, for I have my own dignity to consider.” See A. E. F Horniman. Letters to Abbey Theatre directors and to W. B. Yeats, 1903-11. National Library of Ireland, ms. 13068. 4 In addition, Miss Horniman is not only the financier of the Abbey Theater but also an influencer of it. That is, she has quite direct bearing over dramatic products of the Abbey Theater. For instance, on February 16, 1910, she wrote Yeats, asserting that anything pertaining to the theater “concern[s] my property and as such [are] my business and I ought [to be] considered.” In a way, it confirms Williams’ idea how capitalism affects literature. On the other hand, considering Horniman’s identity as a Briton, it more or less renders Yeats’ inclination of Anglicization accountable. See the Horniman Papers at the National Library of Ireland, ms. 13068.. 31.

(32) (111). What Clark has articulated is the four major opposites, which constitutes the main action of this play. In Deirdre, as we can see first, Fergus displays his faith in Conchubar:. FERGUS: If Conchubar were the treacherous man you think, Would you find safety now that you have come Into the very middle of his power, Under his very eyes? (354-7) And Conchubar bases his betrayal on his kingly pride:. CONCHUBAR:. Do you think that I Shall let you go again, after seven years Of longing and of planning here and there, And trafficking with merchants for the stones That make all sure, and watching my own face That none might read it? (589-94). Afterwards, Naoise maintains his honor:. NAOISE: And do you think That, were I given life at such a price, I would not cast it from me? O my eagle! Why do you beat vain wings upon the rock When hollow night’s above? (604-8). Eventually, Deirdre clings to her love for Naoise, still believing herself to be his wife:. DEIRDRE: Now strike the wire, and sing to it a while, Knowing that all is happy, and that you know Within what bride-bed I shall lie this night, And by what man, and lie close up to him [Naoise] For the bed’s narrow, and three outsleep the cock-crow. (728-32, italics mine). About these opposites, Clark has listed them all, indicating that the movements between them 32.

(33) have essentially generated a pendulum-like dramatic intension, until their convergences are fulfilled (111-2). This purely metaphysical intention of Deirdre instantiates a higher-level implementation of Yeats’ philosophy of unity. Above all, Williams’ cultural materialism has informed us that while this metaphysical message is being conveyed to the audience in the theater, it has readily been transformed into a cultural product of society, and materiality has nevertheless made its entry into its immanence. If it were the end of my discussion, hardly could I obviate the accusation of being an inadvertent researcher! When Yeats advocates a Unity of Culture, it is noteworthy that its nature is in fact a conundrum! Thomas R. Whitaker, in his “Poet of Anglo-Ireland,” attempts to unravel it:. When, in the late nineties, Yeats placed himself in a personal relation to Ireland, he not only moved toward a more autobiographical poetry and a dramatic relation to history but also took an important step toward a specific historical allegiance that would deeply affect his poetry. His early attachment to Sligo, his family heritage, his fruitful reliance upon Coole Park－all pointed toward the Anglo-Irish tradition. (41). To this conundrum, Whitaker presents an answer of pinpointing a specific time when Yeats has by degrees begun to gesture towards Anglo-Irishness. Basically, the outcome of Yeats’ gesture is to regard the Anglo-Irish tradition as the only paradigm of Ireland’s culture; in the eyes of Yeats, the so-called ‘Irish culture’ can only be Anglo-Irish. Chronologically, Yeats’ drama is created after his Anglo-Irish attitude has taken shape. In this respect, Whitaker’s observation amounts to identifying Yeats’ cultural unity as Anglo-Irish. Seemly and etymologically, Yeats simply combines England and Ireland. But a closer look at Yeats’ so-called Anglo-Irishness is absolutely rewarding. Michael North takes this look, arguing that in Yeats’ opinion, the Anglo-Irish are a small minority, the aristocracy of Ireland, representative of the whole nation in every way (The Political Aesthetics, 36).. 33.

(34) What North indicates is Yeats’ controversial (,for some people, infamous) belief in aristocracy. Of course, here I don’t mean to be judgmental. I simply choose to adopt this perspective: in terms of culture Yeats’ emphasis on the unity can’t be too much noticed; however, he representatively singles out the Anglo-Irish culture. The logical deduction would be that Yeats arbitrarily equates Anglo-Irishness with the Culture of Unity. If so, Yeats has blatantly defied the commonest definition of ‘unity’: the state of being one or a unit; the thing consisting of parts that form a whole; harmony or agreement (“unity.” Def. 1663. Oxford Advanced Learner’s English-Chinese Dictionary. 4th ed. 1999). In this way, Yeats has literally upset his own so-called ‘unity,’ rendering it paradoxical and self-contradictory! Of course, some staunch followers of Yeats may come up with such an extenuating doubletalk, “[Yeats wants to] forge a harmonious alliance between aristocrat and peasant”(Howes, Yeats’ Nations, 44). However, Howes has proven it to be nothing but wishful thinking, perceiving Yeats’ upset to be a quagmire, and stating that Yeats presents a national unity as a radical equality of all elements; at the same time, he also imagines the same unity based on the maintenance of political and economic hierarchies (45). Of course, what Howes gives is an adumbration of Yeats’ version of national unity. However, with a dialectical juxtaposition with North’s and Whitaker’s remarks, I believe it also serves as a reflection of Yeats’ dilemma in creating a cultural unity: Yeats can’t resist valorizing the vantage point of Anglo-Irish aristocracy while promulgating his conception of cultural unity! This upset unity may be a major crevice of the Yeatsian cultural construct, through which the anglicization of Yeats slips. It is also a starting point of plenty of argumentations about Yeats’ (post)coloniality or ethnicity. But here, I still choose to frame it with Williams’ cultural theorizations. In his Culture and Society, Williams has theorized culture this way:. The development of the idea of culture has, throughout, been a criticism of what has been called the bourgeois idea of society. The contributors to its meaning have started from widely different positions…But they have been alike in this, that they 34.

(35) have been unable to think of society as merely neutral area…The stress has fallen …on the fact that the values of individual men are rooted in society, and on the need to think and feel in these common terms. (328). In brief, Williams attempts to remind us of the bourgeois’ decisive social role in the shaping process of culture. He not only affirms the heterogeneous social composite of the bourgeois, but also perceives their consensus (,intentional or unintentional,) of molding a bourgeois culture in society. Now that people cling to society like barnacles, these bourgeois values will be forcibly implanted into them. Williams has highlighted the bourgeois’ role of primacy as culture takes shape. Placing the Anglo-Irish on top of Ireland’s “political and economical hierarchies,” Howes has literally inserted the Anglo-Irish into the position of the bourgeois. Thus, Yeats’ partiality with the Anglo-Irish is rendered explainable, or even extenuated. It would be as if Williams had endorsed Yeats’ selection of the Anglo-Irishness to be the backbone and determinants of his ideal culture of unity. Besides, another major complication of Williams’ cultural theorizations needs to be introduced, namely, his categorization of the residual, emergent, and dominant cultures. First, in “Base and Superstructure in Marxist Cultural Theory,” Williams compares the residual culture with the dominant:. By “residual” I mean that some experiences, meanings and values, which cannot be verified or cannot be expressed in terms of the dominant culture, are nevertheless lived and practiced on the basis of the residue…A residual culture is usually at some distance from the effective dominant culture, but one has to recognize that, in real cultural activities, it may get incorporated into it. (Contemporary, 496). Later, Williams sums up his definition of the residual culture, “[Residual meanings and practices] are the results of earlier social formations”(497). Then comes the comparison of the emergent and dominant cultures: 35.