Puritan Subjectivity and Sexual Asceticism in Shakespeare's Measure for Measure

진광현 현대영미어문학회 2010 현대영미어문학 Vol.28 No.1

This paper aims to examine how sexual desire is dramatized in Shakespeare‘s Measure for Measure, especially in the context of ascetic Puritan theology in 17th-century England. The focus is on (1) the production of Puritan subjectivity from the perspective of the Lacanian Symbolic order and also on (2) the maintenance of the social order in early modern England by controlling the sexuality of the docile and self-denying Puritan subject and simultaneously containing sexual energies in the institutionalized space of marriage. As a self-righteous puppet, Angelo mistakes his fictitious Puritan identity of humiliated and depraved selfhood as true and genuine, but when his repressed sexual desire returns, he simply collapses with the most horrific and traumatic awareness of his dual nature. The constant strife between the stoic Puritan self and the repressed sexual desire seems to characterize the split psyche of the Puritan Angelo and the saintly but “precise” Isabella. Puritan subjectivity, sexuality, Symbolic order, self-denial,social order, family

셰익스피어의 Measure for Measure에 나타난 성의 정치학 : 17세기초 영국사회의 성의 통제기능과 사회질서

진광현 새한영어영문학회 2000 새한영어영문학회 학술발표회 논문집 Vol.2000 No.5

셰익스피어의 Measure for Measure에 나타난 청교도적 성의 이데올로기(Sexual Ideology)와 주체성(Subjectivity)

진광현 새한영어영문학회 2001 새한영어영문학회 학술발표회 논문집 Vol.2001 No.10

Epic Heoism in Beowulf

진광현 현대영미어문학회 2005 현대영미어문학 Vol.23 No.3

This paper aims to examine the nature of the Beowulfian heroism in the context of the Germanic moral and social values, especially, in terms of the concept of "comitatus." Unlike tragic heroes who achieve spiritual redemption and moral vision by sacrificing their own lives, Beowulf's heroism is to be characterized by an honorable sense of sacrificial devotion to community, that is, the epic responsibility of saving his tribal community from the repeated attacks of supernatural evil forces. His heroic act of sacrifice fulfills the Germanic heroic duty and destiny with the highest courage and physical strength but sadly fails to achieve any sense of moral and spiritual redemption after death. Heroic act without ultimate moral vision is supposed to be defeated, and the ending is darkly dominated by the sense of futility and fatalism in Beowulf.

신역사주의(New Historicism) 방법론의 문제점

진광현 현대영미어문학회 2002 현대영미어문학 Vol.20 No.2

『리어왕』에 나타난 자연관의 인식론적 대립

진광현 현대영미어문학회 2009 현대영미어문학 Vol.27 No.1

This paper aims to read dramatic conflicts in Shakespeare's King Lear by tracing epistemological changes in the Renaissance period and reviewing their wider ramifications on the perspectives of nature, language, values and man in the 17th-century England. Michel Foucault says that the epistemological paradigm had changed from deductive "resemblance" to inductive "difference," that is, from the providential and essentialist view of nature to the emergent Darwinian perspective that nature is an amoral mechanism in which individuals strive to satisfy their appetites and impulses, and language turns into a hollow signifier. On the surface, the conflict develops into a struggle for power and property, but below the surface, its true nature is the clash between the residual and emergent epistemological paradigms, that is, essentialist view of nature vs. Darwinian perspective. Lear and Edmund both are naturalists and appeal to nature, but the two natures imply different reasons, values, virtues, morals and cosmoses.

The View of Nature in the First Book of The Faerie Queene

진광현 현대영미어문학회 2017 현대영미어문학 Vol.35 No.2

This paper aims to study the concept of nature and its function in the poetic vision of The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser. As a Christian humanist, Spenser integrates the Neo-Platonist view of “Ideas” and the Christian moral teleology into a wider and more comprehensive vision of nature, actively and creatively participating in divine moral perfection. Spenser views nature in this epic as an active moral agent, a manifestation of divine providence, that works to achieve God’s teleology. In the world of the Arthurian romance, nature or the pastoral sphere, if fallen and tainted, ultimately functions to illuminate God’s order in this mundane world and simultaneously to give humans life, moral encouragement and physical power against evil. In Spenser’s fairyland of the divine moral order, nature is not a passive and inanimate material entity, but a creative moral force that shows pity and sympathy for man and also encourages man with his defective reason to aspire back to the light of God.

셰익스피어의 『자에는 자로』에 나타난 대화적 비전

진광현 새한영어영문학회 2005 새한영어영문학 Vol.47 No.3

셰익스피어의 『자에는 자로』에 나타난 대화적 비전진 광 현셰익스피어의 문제극의 하나인 『자에는 자로』는 신역사주의가 대두한 이래 그 주제를 자비와 용서에서 찾는 우화적 해석의 단순성에서 벗어나 작품의 역사성과 이데올로기적 맥락 속에서 그 의미를 재구성해 내려는 시도가 이루어져왔다. 본 작품의 해석에 있어 주된 문제점의 하나는 비엔나의 궁전으로 대표되는 국가권력과 억제되지 않은 성욕과 매춘으로 대표되는 두 세계의 갈등과 대립이 작품의 해석의 의미를 결정짓는 중요한 잣대였다고 하는 점이다. 본 논문은 이 두 세계의 갈등을 해석하는데 있어 바흐찐(Bakhtin)의 대화주의(dialogism)의 다성성(polyphoniy)의 개념을 이용하여, 공공질서 체계의 일방적 지배가 아닌, 양 세계의 대화적 교환과 협상을 통해 형성되는 새로운 의미의 가능성을 찾아보았다.대화주의의 측면에서 볼 때, 성적인 타락과 도덕적 혼돈을 재현하는 희극세계는 축제적 다성성의 가능성을 보여주고 있다. 성욕의 통제를 통해 사회질서의 회복을 이루고 방어적이며 영구한 기성질서를 유지하려는 군주의 권위는 희극적 타자들에 의해 끊임없이 조롱당하고 있으며, 성 에너지는 이들에 의해 자연, 풍요, 생명, 증식의 긍정적 이미지로 그려지고 있다. 주변부의 소외된 타자들인 이들은 박틴의 대화주의적 협상을 통해 법과 성의 의미를 새롭게 정의하고 있으며, 극의 이중적 의미구조를 한 차원 높은 다성성의 세계로 확장시키고 있다.

Structural and Thematic Unities in A Woman Killed with Kindness

진광현 현대영미어문학회 2018 현대영미어문학 Vol.36 No.2

This paper aims to defend a controversial Elizabethan domestic tragedy, A Woman Killed with Kindness, which has widely been criticized as a failure for its lack of structural and thematic unities between the main plot and the subplot. The double-plot structure of the play is not just to juxtapose two irrelevant autonomous plots for the purpose of relieving dramatic boredom and monotony, but to enrich the dramatic vision of the playwright by offering diverse possibilities of themes such as friendship, treachery, sexual betrayal, virtue, honor, repentance and reconciliation. The primary focus of the paper is on establishing the dramatic connection between the two plots by carefully examining the way the double-plot structure harmoniously develops into the thematic unity of the play. It is clear that the playwright consciously and painstakingly employed dramatic techniques such as comparison and contrast, alternation, and juxtaposition of the scenes to establish and at the same time reinforce integral thematic connections between the main and auxiliary plots.

Sir Gawain’s Fortunate Fall

진광현 현대영미어문학회 2016 현대영미어문학 Vol.34 No.2

This paper aims to study the spiritual and moral nature of Sir Gawain’s journey to the Green Chaple including Bercilak’s temptations and the Green Knight’s beheading game. In his spiritual quest for self-knowledge and his arduous pursuit of the chivalric and Christian ideals, Sir Gawain is put to the test and sadly fails despite his moral pride and confidence. Thanks to the blessing of the felix culpa, or fortunate fall, and truly tormenting penance, Gawain realizes his human weaknesses and finally achieves moral redemption. Only at this moment of humiliating repentance is Sir Gawain’s transformation made from a formality-bound proud knight into a humble Christian knight whose sin purges him of moral pride. His artificial chivalric code becomes reconciled with his Christian principles as well as with his frail human nature in full harmony. This sad but happy experience makes him wiser and morally stronger as the sin alone can purify the sin itself through penance, which is the central theme of the poem. The final decision to wear the girdle as the symbol of imperfection and penance instead of the pentangle is an indication of his moral development.