Dialectic of Opposites, Anti-Self, and Unity of Being in Yeats' The Only Jealousy of Emer

Dialectic of Opposites, Anti-Self, and Unity of Being in Yeats' The Only Jealousy of Emer

W. B. Yeats is a philosopher-dramatist who challenges the difficult tasks of embodying his philosophy in his drama. His philosophy can be summed up into three concepts: the dialectic of opposites, the doctrine of anti -self and the unity of being. These concepts respectively reflect: his concept of reality, the way to transcend that reality, and the final and ideal state of being. Considering The Only Jealousy of Emer as an effective representation of Yeats' philosophy. this paper explores Yeats' philosophical concepts which are evident both in dramatic form and content. Dramatic personae is approached as a means to understanding his dialectic of opposites. Yeats' development of dramatic form is scrutinized as it relates to the anti-self. Dramatic action is analyzed to present Yeats' concept of unity of being. In The Only Jealousy of Emer, the dramatic personae effectively present a world of opposites in which exist both human beings and supernaturals. Each one of them epitomizes the essence of the soul and represents different qualities of love, desire and achievement. Reflecting Yeats' realization that drama is a reality in itself which consists of different dimensions of life experience and diverse ways of representation, the play finds its dramatic form in opposition, i.e., an anti-self to traditional western drama. The anti-self that the play attempts to find is not a single character or protagonist. but an antithesis of direct representational dramatic form. The play also dramatizes the protagonist's achievement of unity of being through the dramatic action which centers around the turmoils and achievements of the soul. The play restrains external dramatic action to focus on the inner world of the soul and capture the changes in the state of that soul. As an individual lingering between two opposing realms of activity and ways of representation, i.e., philosophy and drama, Yeats himself embodies a dialectic of opposites. He finds a solution in the anti-self, by finding a way to make his philosophy live in his drama, and he finds his dramatic methods and materials in his philosophical concepts. Through such dialectic, Yeats achieves the unity of being, i.e., a philosopher-dramatist.