워즈워스의 『불멸을 깨닫는 노래』와 『반야심경』

Abstract

This paper aims at defining the connection between “immortality” and “mortality” through the “Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood” of William Wordsworth. Generally speaking, two words “mortality” and “immortality” are regarded as opposite each other. But prefix “im-” has the function of “in” as well. Therefore the word “immortality” contains “mortality”, and we can suggest that the “mortality” is the sign to denote what the “immortality” connotes. In fact, the immortal world is not easy to explain. Everything is always changing and cannot but be mortal. But each of all has one significant clue to “immortality”, for whatever that exists is changing endlessly. So William Wordsworth realized the “immortality of changing” through “the meanest flower of his poetry” and himself. And in The Heart Sutra, “immortality” can be compared to emptiness, “mortality” to form. In conclusion, it is a kind of synecdoche, a part for the whole, the “mortality”(form) for the “immortality”(emptiness).