The Continuity of Romantic Predicament: de Man and Yeats

Abstract

The works of W. B. Yeats have challenged serious readers, defying a facile explanation and sometimes resisting a lucid categorization. It is no wonder that they have received a wide range of critical reviews and scholarly interpretations. The contrast between his politics and aesthetics, between his personal and esoteric systems of belief and the impersonal significance of his best poetry leads readers to delve into the profoundest mysteries of his poetic creation. Among many of his critics, Paul de Man, one of the Yale Critics, ushers readers into a new territory of Yeats scholarship by reading his poems from a totally different angle. In this paper the writer is going to examine the scope and the full implications of the so-called de Man’s allegorical reading which is centered upon Yeats’s emblematic images, and move on toward an investigation of how his reading can be a radical new departure in terms of Yeatian scholarship. By doing so, the paper intends to serve as a stepping stone connecting the two prominent figures, Yeats the poet and de Man the critic. (The Catholic University of Korea)