Celtic imaginary: the birth of desire

Résumé du document

Comparative study of Ellys et Thanatos of André Suarès, The Shadowy Waters and The Land of Heart's Desire of William Butler Yeats. "Le rêve ondule sur la mer. Qu?est-ce que tout cela ? La pensée d?un mort, qui médite la vie ? Ou la vie qui s?adore elle-même, dans la langueur ? Ou? On m?appelle, de l?autre rive ." It is within the landscapes of Cornouaille that Suarès indulged in this meditation which ended up with him writing the hymn to Brittany, Le livre de l?Emeraude which led to the creation of the spirit which animates his drama Ellys et Thanatos. He found there, "le climat de [s]on amour", a love in which the most intensive joys are tinged with sadness. Facing the ocean, the soul loses the measure of its humanity in the contemplation of a superhuman beauty and gives itself to the vertigo of the infinite.

Extraits

[...] There is no more inaccessible place upon the earth[12]”. The innocence of Ireland creates itself in contrast to a corrupted and sullied modern world which has forgotten dream and beauty. It is startling to see the similarity between Yeats's description of the “square of limestone” and this extract of Suarès's Livre de l'Emeraude: “Dans les paysages les plus terribles, sur les hauts lieux de la solitude et de l'immense tristesse, là où il n'y avait eu, pendant mille et mille ans, qu'une pierre noire, un long menhir, index de la terre [ c'est à présent, de tous côtés, les hôtels, les hangars, les bicoques d'Asnières et d'Ostende[13]”. [...]

[...] J'ai rêvé jusqu'à vous[25].” According to Suarès, the maiden is a moment of intense delicacy as eternal as fleeting since it reaches its perfection as soon as it is born and then dies. In this dynamic, Mary is one step before Ellys. In fact, she is no more a virgin and then is in danger of withering through the contact with her family in-law whose all characters represent the real life and therefore the death of idealism and youth: “Characters are mainly suggested types. [...]

[...] Yeats, Presses Universitaires de Lille Grene, Nicholas, Yeats's Poetic Codes, Oxford, Oxford University Press Hough, Graham, The Mystery Religion of W.B. Yeats, Brighton, The Harvest Press Limited Jeffares, A. Norman, W.B. Yeats : Man and Poet, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul Jeffares, A. Norman, The Poetry of W.B. Yeats, Edward Arnold Jeffares, A. Norman W.B. [...]

[...] Ils était beaux comme ceux qui ne meurent jamais[46].” This description links the apparition with the figures of Aengus, god of love, and Edain whose couple embodies the perfect love promised to Forgael. However, he has guides towards the west as birds with human heads which are supposed to be the souls of the dead. They can be interpreted as a symbol of freedom and light wandering, answer to Forgael's search for escape and emancipation from the human sluggishness. We can also find in the heroes' marginalization a sign of this predestination of the ferrymen to them, as an echo to their death wish. [...]

[...] cit., p.72 William Butler Yeats, The Land of Heart's Desire [1894] London, MacMillan & Co LTD p.53 Ibid. p.72 William Butler Yeats, The Celtic Twilight, op.cit., p.98 William Butler Yeats, The Secret Rose [1897], London, MacMillan & Co LTD, 1962,? Leonard E. Nathan, The Tragic Drama of William Butler Yeats, New York and London, Columbia University Press p.3 Ibid., p.5 Yves-Alain Favre, Rêverie et grandeur dans la poésie de Suarès, trois études, Paris, Archives des Lettres Modernes p.27-28 André Suarès, Ellys et Thanatos, Limoges, Rougerie p.19 Ibid., p.20 Leonard E. Nathan, op. [...]