IRISH LITERARY TRADITION IN THE PLAY “THE WORDS UPON THE WINDOW-PANE” BY W.B. YEATS

Abstract

The article investigates the problem of emergence of the Irish meta-ethnic literary tradition at the beginning of the XXth century. It analyzes the late play of W.B. Yeats “The Words Upon the Window-Pane”, which concludes his canon-creating period of the 1910s – 1920s, with a view to identifying the literary and mental patterns Yeats choses from the Irish literary past to include into the newly created Irish literary tradition. The focus of the author’s attention is on Yeats’ interpretation of these patterns in his play. Having chosen four great minds as the foundation of Irish tradition (Swift, Goldsmith, Berkley and Burke), Yeats identifies in their literary and philosophical heritage a common domineering mythologym – the eternal clash of faith and reason, rational and irrational, in which the Irish tradition has its own clear stand and arguments. Apart from that, the article puts forward the question of legitimization of discussing irrational in the scientific discourse and formulates a meta-problem of Yeats’ studies: what methodology could provide a scholar with instruments ample to describe the places of the rational converting into irrational in the works of Yeats, without trespassing the measures of literary studies. The research appeals to the works of Rudolf Otta, Mircea Eliade and Harold Bloom as its theoretical background.