@article{oai:nagoya.repo.nii.ac.jp:00027894,
 author = {Ishikawa, Ryuji},
 journal = {IVY},
 month = {Oct},
 note = {This essay aims to examine W. B. Yeats's unstable state of mind in the midst of the movements for independence in Ireland which is expressed in "Meditations in Time of Civil War." The key term is "nationalist poet." As Yeats himself admits, he expected to be a "nationalist poet." It is true that the term cannot decisively be defined. In this essay, therefore, the term is used for loosely designating "the poet who can represent the nationality of his homeland in the form of poetry." Especially concerning Yeats as a nationalist poet, two points are specifically referred to. The one is his patriotism, and the other is the Irish identity that he assumed. The latter forms the central concept of his nationalism. While his ardent love for his country fully qualified him as a nationalist poet, his excessively idealistic nationalism made the qualification invalid. Therefore he himself could not be sure whether he could be called a "nationalist poet" or not. Such uncertainty of his arised when the movements for independence in Ireland took violent turns. At that moment, the inefficiency of his idealistic nationalism became explicit. His nationalist concept could find its place nowhere in the actual movement for independence. That situation inevitably obliged him to reconsider his role as a nationalist poet. The process of this unsettled inquiry is depicted in the whole sequence of "Meditations in Time of Civil War." In the first section of this essay, inefficiency of Yeats's nationalism is examined. His inclination to "elitism" of the Protestant Ascendancy caused the negligence of the majority of the Irish people, that is, the Roman Catholics. And his denial of violent activities kept his nationalist concept remaining an unpractical idealism.  The second section is allotted to investigate how Yeats found the appropriate place for his nationalist concept after he was alienated from the actual condition of Ireland. It is true that there is no such place in the actual sense. Therefore he constructs his own symbolical world in his "tower." In the last section, it is proved that Yeats's inquiry of "nationalist poet" is a question which can never be settled. His idealism is totally antithetical to the actual force of history but he could abandon neither of them. Therefore he has to remain in perpetual agony between them.},
 pages = {23--44},
 title = {The Ineffaceable Border in Yeats's ''Meditations in Time of Civil War''},
 volume = {28},
 year = {1995}
}