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Tragic Affirmation in Yeats and Nietzsche
Author(s) -
Grgas Stipe
Publication year - 1991
Publication title -
orbis litterarum
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.109
H-Index - 8
eISSN - 1600-0730
pISSN - 0105-7510
DOI - 10.1111/j.1600-0730.1991.tb01911.x
Subject(s) - poetry , philosophy , literature , phrase , similarity (geometry) , laughter , realization (probability) , tonality , linguistics , art , computer science , mathematics , musical , statistics , artificial intelligence , image (mathematics)
The starting point for this paper was the realization that a sort of complex dynamics, a deterministic relationship is evident in Yeats's poetic output and Nietzsche's thought. In the article I try to show the similarity of structure and relations between the basic motifs of Nietzsche's and Yeats's writings. The article makes an attempt to show how tragic affirmation, evaluated here as the matrix of their work, is consequent upon the turn to the earth and the cyclical conception of time. Although the phrase “tragic joy” appears only once in the poetry. I argue that Yeats expresses this psycho‐emotional complex in at least four different ways: through his frequent evocations of laughter; by his use of the imagery of dancing; the ironic function that he assigns to the refrain; and through the emotional tonality which permeates the majority of his later poetry.