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The Antithetical Tincture, Spiritual Discovery and Absorption in God: Yeats’ Cycle Derived from Noh Theatre in The Cat and the Moon

Received: 9 September 2022    Accepted: 3 January 2023    Published: 31 January 2023
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Abstract

As the Noh drama concerns itself with a moment of intensity of a single action, human emotion or experience, Yeats presented his conception of moment of intensity to be instilled in the depth of the mind and to lessen all other irrelevant elements that distract attention. Therefore, Yeats looked for a new, unconventional and non-narrative form. He searched for a workable precedent in myth, Celtic and Gaelic tradition besides experimenting with theoretical techniques, traditional as well as revolutionary. Personality and passion are key concepts in the plays of Yeats. They reflect an intensely passionate moment experienced by a character in their lives. Such experience pours dramatic quality and power on those rituals. Characters face situations of conflict or they lack harmony with the forces around them, so they pursue a more favorable or attainable manner of living in this world i.e. a better mode of existence. The solution to the conflict, or the choice of a way out, or the making of a decisive decision may require conscious intervention or action or it is suddenly and strongly pushed upon them by universal or spiritual forces manifested in the physical world. Within the realm of the antithetical tincture that is emotional and aesthetic and the primary tincture that is reasonable and moral the four faculties are formed: Will and Mask, Creative Mind and Body of Fate. Will and Mask are the will and its object, the Is and the Ought, while Creative Mind and Body of Fate are the thought and its object or the Knower and the Known. The first two are lunar, antithetical or natural and the second two are solar, primary and reasonable. “Will” represents all what is desired, resisted or accepted, and Creative Mind represents facts. So the will of an individual can be the mask of the other and the Creative Mind of a human being is the Body of Fate of the other. The Cat and the Moon displays a conflict between a blind man and a lame man. The blind man represents the body and the lame man represents the soul. Yeats chooses the cat as a representative of an ordinary man and the moon as the opposite. Finally when the lame man carries the blind man on his back, he unites with his opposite.

Published in International Journal of Literature and Arts (Volume 11, Issue 1)
DOI 10.11648/j.ijla.20231101.13
Page(s) 13-19
Creative Commons

This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.

Copyright

Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

The Cat and the Moon, Lame Man, Blind Man, Antithetical Tincture, Moon Phases, Noh Plays, Kyogen

References
[1] “A Brief Approach to W. B. Yeats’ Lunar System”. FAENA Aleph. https://www.faena.com/aleph/a-brief-approach-to-wb-y eats-lunar-system
[2] Magi. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magi.
[3] Theosophy Wiki. https://theosophy.wiki/en/Theosophy.
[4] Harper, Margaret Mills. “Yeats and the Occult”. The Cambridge Companion to W. B. Yeats. Ed. Marjorie Howes & John Kelly. Cambridge University Press, 2006. pp. 153, 154-5, 150-1, 161.
[5] Putzel, Steven. Restructuring Yeats: “The Secret Rose” and “The Wind Among the Reeds” (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan; Totowa, NJ: Barnes & Noble, 1986). P. 3.
[6] Harper, George Mills. Yeats’ Golden Dawn. Macmillan; First Edition, January 1, 1974. 261-7.
[7] Jeffares, A. Norman, and A. S. Knowland. “The Cat and the Moon”. A Commentary On The Collected Plays of W. B. Yeats. Stanford University Press, California, 1975. pp. 174, 172, 173.
[8] Manabe, Akiko. “Are you that flighty”? “I am that flighty”: The Cat and the Moon and Kyogen Revisted. International Yeats Studies. Vol. 5: Iss 1, Article 6. Shiga Univeresity, Japan. pp. 53, 61, 56, 54 https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/iys.
[9] Clark, David R., and Rosalind E. Dark, ed. The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats Vol. II: The Plays. Scribner, New York, London, Toronto, Sydney, Singapore, 2001. P. 897.
[10] Cowell, Raymond, ed. Critics on Yeats. “The Gyres”. Vivienne Koch. University of Miami Press, Coral Gables, Florida, 1971. P. 79.
[11] Yeats, W. B. The Cat and The Moon And Certain Poems. The Cuala Press, Merron Square, Dublin, Ireland. P. 14.
[12] Fenellosa, Ernest, and Ezra Pound. The Noh Theatre of Japan, With Complete Texts of 15 Classic Plays (Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 1917, 2004). pp. 45-6.
[13] Manabe, Akiko. “W. B. Yeats and Kyogen: Individualism & Communal Harmony in Japan’s Classical Theatrical Repertoire”. Dans Etudes Anglaise 2015/ 4. Vol. 68, pp. 425-441. https://doi.org/10.3917/etan.684.0425.
[14] Yeats, W. B. A Vision. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1961. pp. 117, 140.
[15] “Faculties of the Soul”. Encyclopedia.Com. https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/faculties-soul.
[16] “What is Zen Buddhism?” Tricycle Buddhism for Beginners. https://tricycle.org/beginners/buddhism/what-is-zen-buddhism
[17] Taylor, Richard. A Reader’s Guide To The Plays of W. B. Yeats. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1984. P. 12.
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  • APA Style

    Dahlia Kashmiry. (2023). The Antithetical Tincture, Spiritual Discovery and Absorption in God: Yeats’ Cycle Derived from Noh Theatre in The Cat and the Moon. International Journal of Literature and Arts, 11(1), 13-19. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijla.20231101.13

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    ACS Style

    Dahlia Kashmiry. The Antithetical Tincture, Spiritual Discovery and Absorption in God: Yeats’ Cycle Derived from Noh Theatre in The Cat and the Moon. Int. J. Lit. Arts 2023, 11(1), 13-19. doi: 10.11648/j.ijla.20231101.13

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    AMA Style

    Dahlia Kashmiry. The Antithetical Tincture, Spiritual Discovery and Absorption in God: Yeats’ Cycle Derived from Noh Theatre in The Cat and the Moon. Int J Lit Arts. 2023;11(1):13-19. doi: 10.11648/j.ijla.20231101.13

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      author = {Dahlia Kashmiry},
      title = {The Antithetical Tincture, Spiritual Discovery and Absorption in God: Yeats’ Cycle Derived from Noh Theatre in The Cat and the Moon},
      journal = {International Journal of Literature and Arts},
      volume = {11},
      number = {1},
      pages = {13-19},
      doi = {10.11648/j.ijla.20231101.13},
      url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijla.20231101.13},
      eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ijla.20231101.13},
      abstract = {As the Noh drama concerns itself with a moment of intensity of a single action, human emotion or experience, Yeats presented his conception of moment of intensity to be instilled in the depth of the mind and to lessen all other irrelevant elements that distract attention. Therefore, Yeats looked for a new, unconventional and non-narrative form. He searched for a workable precedent in myth, Celtic and Gaelic tradition besides experimenting with theoretical techniques, traditional as well as revolutionary. Personality and passion are key concepts in the plays of Yeats. They reflect an intensely passionate moment experienced by a character in their lives. Such experience pours dramatic quality and power on those rituals. Characters face situations of conflict or they lack harmony with the forces around them, so they pursue a more favorable or attainable manner of living in this world i.e. a better mode of existence. The solution to the conflict, or the choice of a way out, or the making of a decisive decision may require conscious intervention or action or it is suddenly and strongly pushed upon them by universal or spiritual forces manifested in the physical world. Within the realm of the antithetical tincture that is emotional and aesthetic and the primary tincture that is reasonable and moral the four faculties are formed: Will and Mask, Creative Mind and Body of Fate. Will and Mask are the will and its object, the Is and the Ought, while Creative Mind and Body of Fate are the thought and its object or the Knower and the Known. The first two are lunar, antithetical or natural and the second two are solar, primary and reasonable. “Will” represents all what is desired, resisted or accepted, and Creative Mind represents facts. So the will of an individual can be the mask of the other and the Creative Mind of a human being is the Body of Fate of the other. The Cat and the Moon displays a conflict between a blind man and a lame man. The blind man represents the body and the lame man represents the soul. Yeats chooses the cat as a representative of an ordinary man and the moon as the opposite. Finally when the lame man carries the blind man on his back, he unites with his opposite.},
     year = {2023}
    }
    

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Author Information
  • Department of English, Faculty of Languages and Simultaneous Interpreting, Al-Azhar University, Cairo, Egypt

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