Dame Sirith: Complexity and Sophistication as a Model for Chaucerian Tales

이동춘(Dongchoon Lee) 한국외국어대학교 영미연구소 2011 영미연구 Vol.25 No.-

Compared with the complexity and the sophistication of Dame Sirith and the Chaucerian tales, the stylistic tendency of linearity and straight forwardness in a popular narrative allows the audience less creativity in the reading of the tale; since the meaning or the truth in the narrative is simply given through the narrator’s direct voice or his manipulation of the characters’ voices by his intention. In addition, the meaning or the truth of a narrative is clear and prescribed in that the conflict is the archetypal battle between good and evil, and good triumphs over evil. What is required of an audience in a popular narrative is to accept the authority of narrator and the story told by him without question. The presentation of events, characters, the narrative styles, and the plot are all integrated to the narrator’s end of monopolizing the meaning of a tale. Contrary to a popular narrative, the narrative stylistics of Dame Sirith in conjunction with characterization are integrated in accordance with the effect of creating the gap between the “outer story” and the “inner meaning.” The artistic sophistication of Dame Sirith requires more intelligence and critical judgment to fill in the gap from a reader. The narrator of Dame Sirith does not provide the reader with the explicit guidance or any direct statement. The narrator, eschewing his position of omniscience, permits his characters to reveal their own voices respectively, and he lets a reader seek out and decide upon the truth or authenticity of the multiple perspectives the characters voice. In this regard, the effects produced by the tale-telling artistry of the Dame Sirith-narrator and the reader’s response are incipiently akin to those in the Chaucerian narrative.

성직자의 의미 : 중세시대부터 18세기까지의 작품을 중심으로

이동춘(Lee Dongchoon),강문순(Kang Moonsoon) 신영어영문학회 2003 신영어영문학 Vol.24 No.-

This paper examines the relationship between clerical portraits in some poems from the Medieval Age and the Restoration period and the writers' changing perceptions of their roles as social reformers. The authors of this study argues that clerical characters should be understood in terms of ancient literary tradition: the "balanced portrait." This paper shows how the balance remained an integral part of the writers' technique and suggested their relationship to the clerical figures. In the works from the fourteenth century the writers employed balanced portrait, in which both the negative and the positive are juxtaposed, to provide the ideal clergymen. During the Civil War period poets began destroying the conventional antithesis. Though the balance still existed, the references to good clergymen are politically charged and begin to question the clergy's role as moral reformer.

대조의 미학

이동춘(Dongchoon Lee) 한국셰익스피어학회 2002 셰익스피어 비평 Vol.38 No.2

The main polarities in Romeo and Juliet that explore the frictions between high and low spheres, public and private lives, age and youth, love and death, authority and rebellion, sacred and secular love generate powerful whirls of energy. That is one of the reasons why the play still fascinates world audiences. One must surely add the numerous language games, puns, innuendoes, and paradoxes that partly account for its enduring fascination for audiences. Especially, Shakespeare's juxtaposition of two contrastive voices in Romeo and Juliet serves to elevate tension and dramatic effect. In creating a multiplicity of voices, Shakespeare is able to view the central love story from conflicting and parallel lines and thus to deflate some of its potential pathos and sentimentality. For example, the language style that Nurse uses is paralleled with that of Lady Capulet and Paris. Nurse's speech, inheriting carnival or festive culture, is oral, comic, natural, and even bawdy. On the other hand, the speeches of Lady Capulet and Paris, mirroring their social position, are written, serious, artificial, and even superficial. Above all, life-affirming joyousness in the Nurse's speech and laughter subsumes the metaphysics of death, banishes fear, and celebrates the regenerative cycle of organic being. As in the juxtaposition of orality and naturalness of the Nurse's speech with Lady Capulet's thin and superficial conventionalities, the contrast of voices between Mercutio and two young lovers, Rome and Juliet, helps to intensify the depth of the play. Bawdiness and indecency of Mercutio's speech reduces passion of two lovers to the lower bodily stratum. His speech even demystifies the romantic and idealized with the physical. In contrast to Romeo's and Juliet's romantic and idealized speech, Mercutio's speech compounds the carnival images of earth and body mutually life-affirming and reproducing. Likewise, life-affirming and carnival voice of the servants is orchestrated with Escalus's voice of authority. The former's voice serves to tum the world upside down, to subvert its rigid hierarchies. Especially, their carnivalesque dance of life and language full of images of sex and body run paralleled with the traditional forces and voices of authority created by the characters of high class. In a word, the voices of tradition (conventional, artificial, romantic, and authoritative) and subversion (comic, natural, bawdy, and festive) are not one-sided in this play but constantly interact and reflect one another until the latter part of the play. Finally, the voice of subversion dies with the disappearance of minor characters (Nurse, Mercutio, and Servants) or the weakening of their role, and the play turns to the dark and inflexible genre of tragedy.

노인에 대한 셰익스피어의 양면적 태도

이동춘(Dongchoon Lee) 한국셰익스피어학회 2013 셰익스피어 비평 Vol.49 No.3

Striking similarities link the two old, irascible, and negligent rulers, Lear and Prospero. However, there exist distinctive demarcations between them in terms of aging and of their attitudes of accepting it. The most poignant difference between Prospero and Lear is the fact that the former is in complete control of what is going on around him, while the latter abjectly has lost control of the course of his later life. In addition, Prospero"s ideal retirement planning and concern for his daughter differ sharply from Lear"s lack of retirement planning and even his incestuous emotions directed at his daughter, specially at Cordelia. Prospero plans the future of Miranda and establishes for himself a vital network of social support. And he anticipates and accepts his coming loss of influence and power gracefully. Prospero"s recognition of bad quality deeply embedded in human mind and his discovery of his own mortality move him at last to declare his kinship with imperfect man and to forgive all. Prospero learns the lessons taught by age before it is too late and thus transforms a devouring quality of old age into a time of positive and regenerative force. Unlike Prospero, Lear wishes to retire and yet not retire. Unable to give up the dominance game, unwilling to accept aging and retirement as new stages in life"s cycles, Lear yearns to be coddled in the nursery of Cordelia"s care. Following the familiar pattern that a tragic old man usually takes, Lear first becomes disoriented, then angry, then depressed, and finally goes mad. Paradoxically, Lear"s progress into madness is accompanied by a journey into self-awareness. However, tragically, Lear learns too late the wisdom taught by age, and the eve of his maturation becomes the day of his death.

『맥베쓰』에 나타난 젠더(gender)와 이에 대한 셰익스피어의 태도

이동춘(Dongchoon Lee) 한국셰익스피어학회 2000 셰익스피어 비평 Vol.36 No.4

Though Macbeth is ostensibly concerned with regicide and kingship, with the fate of a kingdom, the play proceeds on the values of a domestic tragedy. Especially, this play takes place indoors and focuses on the values that are defined by and embodied in the relationship of husband and wife, of man and woman. Probably none of Shakespeare's plays is so explicit in demarcating man from woman as is Macbeth. Man, including manly, manhood, unmanned, and so on, appears more than 40 times. Woman, including its plural and derivatives, also appears about a third. Shakespeare's frequent mentions of two genders demonstrate a conflation of sex role and of gender, and show that man and woman are not identical sexually and psychologically. Among his comments on gender roles, Shakespeare is more concerned It) make a significant comment about a woman's attitude toward herself as wife and mother. Together with Macbeth's anxiety about the lack of an heir, the many references to childlessness and unnatural attitudes toward children and the idea of barrenness reflect Shakespeare's thought on the roles of each gender. In fact, these facts that are revealed both directly and indirectly through the dialogues of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth contribute to the basic darkness of the play world. Considering the world picture of the Elizabethans was hierarchical and patriarchal, Shakespeare's thought on gender in the play seems to be very clear. Shakespeare does not believe that women and men are psychologically identical, or should be. Moreover, I do not consider it likely that Shakespeare thought women were sufficiently inferior to men to deserve no more than a subservient role in the male-dominated Elizabeth society. However, the role of a woman is quite distinct from that of a man. It might be possible for a woman to develop the male qualities, as in the case of Lady Macbeth. But the play makes it clear that when, men and women step outside these sex and gender roles, they lose their humanity. Moreover, their liberation of gender roles destroys the order of the society that they belong to. Paradoxically, it confines men and women.

14세기 기사도 관점에서 본 『가웨인 경과 녹색의 기사』

이동춘(Dongchoon Lee) 한국외국어대학교 영미연구소 2004 영미연구 Vol.11 No.-

  By constructing Gawain as the fictional representative of the aristocratic class in the fourteenth century, the Gawain-poet dramatizes the limitations and contradictions of chivalric values and vision, which the audience realized in the real world. Gawain falls in his own estimation from the remote, fictional world of Arthur to the real world which includes knights who are not only fallible, but disloyal, avaricious and evil. Though the poet presents the cluster of chivalric traits signified in Gawain"s pentangle as an ideal example for knighthood, on the other hand, he realizes that these values are too perfect for a human being to live up to in all respects. Moreover, the poet portrays Gawain as a product of the military and religious chivalry that cannot be easily compromised. This is hinted at in the various perspectives on Gawain"s failing which Gawain himself, Arthur"s knights and Bertilak show. Gawain blames himself for his failure with the categorical, almost puritanical terms. Arthur"s knights glorify Gawain"s survival as the success of military chivalry. Bertilak, however, takes a middle position: finding Gawain guilty but at the same time demonstrating the natural weakness of human nature. The poet neither praises nor discredits any judgement among them, leaving the final judgement to the audience and asking them to perceive the complexities and the tensions in chivalry. Thus, readers are provoked into evaluating each view and thereby gaining a broad understanding of chivalry in the fourteenth century.

An Analysis of Tennyson's "The Lotos-Eaters" with Relation to Hallam's Article, "The Lyrical Poems of Tennyson"

Dongchoon Lee(이동춘) 대구대학교 인문과학연구소 2003 人文科學硏究 Vol.26 No.-

면죄부 판매자 The Pardoner

이동춘(Dongchoon Lee) 한국외국어대학교 외국문학연구소 2010 외국문학연구 Vol.- No.40

중세 설교 매뉴얼에 나와 있는 설교자의 인품, 설교 태도 및 목적 그리고 설교 내용 등을 토대로 살펴볼 때, 면죄부 판매자는 ‘실패한’ 성직자임에 틀림없다. 자신의 설교 목적(의도)과는 어긋나는 이야기를 기계적으로 내뿜는 면죄부 판매자는 심지어 자신의 종교적 무지마저도 드러낸다. 그러나 면죄부 판매자를 성직자나 설교자가 아닌 다른 순례자들과 마찬가지로 ‘픽션’을 말하는 이야기꾼으로 바라볼 때, 그는 ‘실패한’ 이야기꾼이 아니다. 초서의 의도는 면죄부 판매자를 단순히 시골사제와 대립되는 사악하고 거짓된 성직자로 독자들에게 보여주기 위한 것만은 아니라고 보인다. 다른 이야기꾼들과 마찬가지로 면죄부 판매자 역시 ‘이야기 게임’ storytelling game의 일원으로 참가하고 있으며 그가 하는 이야기 역시 일종의 ‘픽션’ 혹은 문학작품으로 받아들일 필요가 있다. 무엇보다 이야기꾼으로서 면죄부 판매자는 독자의 관심과 사고를 이끌어낼 줄 아는 능력과 자질을 갖추고 있다. 뿐만 아니라, 여관주인 the Host이 제시하고 있는 ‘이야기 게임’의 기본적인 규칙인 ‘즐거움 solaas’과 ‘교훈 sentence’을 면죄부 판매자는 이야기를 통하여 독자에게 전달하기 위해 노력하고 있다. 한마디로 종교적 관점에서 볼 때, 면죄부 판매자는 사악하고 ‘실패한’ 설교자임에 틀림없다. 그러나 세속의 이야기꾼으로서 면죄부 판매자는 여관주인이 제시한 두 가지 대원칙을 준수할 뿐만 아니 라 이야기꾼으로서 자질을 구비한 ‘성공한’ 이야기꾼이라고 말할 수 있다. While the Parson in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales is depicted as an ideal priest, the Pardoner is undoubtedly a compendium of a preacher’s faults. The two figures differ in almost every possible respect relevant to a preacher-intention, authorization, use of rhetoric, mode of delivery. Above all, as a ‘failed’ and corrupt preacher, the Pardoner shows discrepancy between his words and his deeds. His personality is at odds with what he says and his eloquence is suspect. In addition, his didacticism seems so odious and his lessons hypocritical that his character as a preacher is no doubt a target for attack. In a word, what he shows and says in terms of the preaching manuals and the rules presented by the preaching theorists are far from a virtuous and ideal preacher of Chaucer’s times. Considering the Pardoner and his tale in terms of a storyteller and an poetic artifact, however, he is one of the ‘successful’ and accomplished storytellers in The Canterbury Tales. His qualities such as rhetorical skill, theatrical gesticulation, eloquence and so on, which serve to evaluate him as a ‘failed’ preacher, properly work to arouse the pilgrims’ attention and to draw them into his storytelling. Even the Pardoner himself as a storyteller believes the power of language or speech rather than preacher. Unlike a monologic style of the Parson’s Tale, the Pardoner’s Tale is full of images, metaphors, and words which call the readers to thought, feeling, and meditation. These help the readers to transform the physical and external into something spiritual and instructive through their own literary ability of criticism. In a word, his tale shows that a literary artifact can effectively provide the readers with the possibility of repentance and salvation. However, the possibility of catching spiritual nourishment in his tale depends on the readers. Additionally, the Pardoner as a storyteller can be said to make a success in that it provides the readers with an artistic satisfaction through both ‘solas’ and ‘sentence’.

로맨스와 마법사 : 「바쓰의 여장부 이야기」와 『태풍』을 중심으로

이동춘(Dongchoon Lee) 한국셰익스피어학회 2006 셰익스피어 비평 Vol.42 No.1

Romance may be the most misused literary term. Many scholars and critics have tried to define romance in terms suited to their interests. Their efforts have confused the issue. Romance has been commonly used as a collective label for the literary works which contain such characteristics as love, adventure, marriage, and so on. In addition, romance has been considered as a story focusing on the character, exploits, and accomplishments of the hero. Critics have paid much attention to the romance hero like the tragic hero and to its structural pattern. However, they are not enough to define romance as a literary genre. Besides romance, though sharing the similarities to other literary genres such as tragedy, comedy, and heroic epic, is distinct from those genres in terms of plot, character, and effect. Above all, romance is different from other genres in terms of effect. Romance deals with the serious but does not end, as tragedy does, with the fall of the hero from some position of respect or power but with the entry of the hero into the world of new recognition or into some recognizably better world. The relief we feel in romance differs from the relief comedy affords us. In romance our relief grows out of our concern for the hero and his mission and difficulties. In particular, romance moves the readers through growing complications to a moment of crisis and discovery and finally to a period of success, in which the hero with his newfound knowledge becomes mature and better. As the readers follows the hero through his period of crisis and success, hope and new possibility for the future swells in the mind of the readers together with the hero. In addition, as the hero gains insight into the life and the world, the readers too gain insight into them. The agent which helps the hero to fulfill his role and eventually to bring about the effect of hope for the readers is the magician in the romance. While the magician is not always a character in romance, the power he represents is vital, shaping the hero's adventures and frequently providing the means for the hero's success. In Chaucer's Wife of Bath's Tale and Shakespeare's The Tempest, the role of the magician has been overlooked. In the former, the loathly lady initiates the salvation of the young courtier from Arthur's sentence and serves as a key role to make the courtier to recognize the failings of his humanity and understand the true meaning of 'gentilesse.' In the latter, Prospero serves as both magician and hero. As an agent of aide in romance Prospero teaches the characters including Alonso how to repent and ask for mercy. Moreover, as the hero he moves from ignorance to knowledge, that is, new awareness that mercy and forgiveness are more meaningful than hate and revenge.

The Merchant’s Tale: Chaucerian Poetic Artistry and Its Effects on Readership

Lee, Dongchoon(이동춘) 한국외국어대학교 외국문학연구소 2014 외국문학연구 Vol.- No.54

중세 작가들 가운데 초서만큼 풍부하고 다양하게 과거부터 전통적으로 전해 내려오는 민담이나 로맨스, 우화 등을 이야기 소재로 즐겨 사용한 사람도 드물다. 그러나 이야기꾼으로서 그의 능력은 과거 이야기를 단순히 재생산하는데 그치는 것이 아니라 유럽의 다양한 이야기 기법을 동원하여 창작에 버금하는 새로운 수준의 이야기를 만들어 내는데 있다. 특히, 초서는 당시 전통적 이야기에 자신만의 독특한 이야기 기법들을 동원하여 ‘의미의 모호함과 다양성,’ ‘관점의 다양성’ 그리고 ‘도덕적이며 절대적인 판단의 회피’를 통하여 상인의 이야기를 비롯한 캔터베리 이야기 속 대부분의 이야기에서 의미나 가치의 최종판단을 독자가 내릴 수 있도록 이른바 ‘텍스트의 열림’ 현상을 유도한다. 이을 다르게 표현하자면, 초서의 이야기를 읽는 독자는 항시 주관적이며 비판적인 역할을 필요로 하며, 독서 그 자체가 독자의 의지 활동인 셈이다. 대중적이며 일반적인 내러티브의 경우, 관객(독자)은 화자가 하는 이야기에 아무런 의심 없이 화자가 하는 이야기에 이끌려 들어가며 이야기 속 픽션의 세계와 현실 사이의 거리감을 인식하지 못한다. 이와는 달리, 초서의 내러티브에서 화자는 이야기 속에 끊임없이 개입함으로써 화자가 전달하는 이야기가 픽션의 세계에 불과하다는 사실을 관객을 인식시켜줄 뿐더러 관객이 아무런 주관적 판단이나 비판 없이 순진하게 화자가 전달하는 이야기의 내용을 있는 그대로 받아들이는 것을 방해한다. 다시 말해서, 초서의 내러티브는 이야기 전달과정에서 화자의 끊임없는 개입이나 초서만의 독특한 이야기 기법들은 이야기의 다양한 의미나 해석을 관객(독자)에게 제공할 뿐 그것들에 대한 최종적 판단과 결정은 독자 스스로의 몫으로 돌린다. 「상인의 이야기」역시 예외는 아니다. 초서는 이야기 속에서 ‘결혼’과 관련하여 어느 하나의 주장이나 목소리에 절대적인 가치나 의미를 독자에게 주입시키려 하고 있지 않다. 다만 독자의 주관적이며 비판적인 이해능력과 판단을 믿고 ‘결혼’과 관련한 다양한 목소리나 주장들을 독자에게 다양한 기법을 통하여 제공할 뿐이다. Chaucer’s storytelling techniques, which Chaucer exploits in the basic pattern of the popular tale for certain effects, accompany his audience as a co-author in understanding a tale. chaucer’s storytelling style in its convolution and its multiplicity of voice contrasts with that of a popular storyteller. In the Chaucerian narrative, meaning, or Chaucer’s complex view-point, is wrapped and diffusely proliferated with an ostensible story. Thus, the true meaning of a Chaucerian tale is not found by simply following an omniscient narrator’s guideline, but, rather, is discovered through the audience’s subjective and critical negotiations of the tale. In case of a popular narrative, the audience is drawn into a narrator’s storytelling without doubt and does not even realize the distance between the reality and the world in the story. Contrarily, a narrator’s continual intrusions in the Chaucerian narrative awaken the reader from a fictional world and prevent him from being naively immersed in a narrative. The narrator’s interruptions in the course of his tale-telling enable the audience to view the tale not as an absolute entity with a direct meaning or interpretation, but as a polysemous narrative which invites us to view it in several ways. Chaucer’s effort not only to impose the “unreliability” or the “indeterminacy” on his narrator’s voice, but to preserve the multiplicity of voices with no merging or resolution among them is observed throughout the Merchant’s narrative as well. 중세 작가들 가운데 초서만큼 풍부하고 다양하게 과거부터 전통적으로 전해 내려오는 민담이나 로맨스, 우화 등을 이야기 소재로 즐겨 사용한 사람도 드물다. 그러나 이야기꾼으로서 그의 능력은 과거 이야기를 단순히 재생산하는데 그치는 것이 아니라 유럽의 다양한 이야기 기법을 동원하여 창작에 버금하는 새로운 수준의 이야기를 만들어 내는데 있다. 특히, 초서는 당시 전통적 이야기에 자신만의 독특한 이야기 기법들을 동원하여 ‘의미의 모호함과 다양성,’ ‘관점의 다양성’ 그리고 ‘도덕적이며 절대적인 판단의 회피’를 통하여 상인의 이야기를 비롯한 캔터베리 이야기 속 대부분의 이야기에서 의미나 가치의 최종판단을 독자가 내릴 수 있도록 이른바 ‘텍스트의 열림’ 현상을 유도한다. 이을 다르게 표현하자면, 초서의 이야기를 읽는 독자는 항시 주관적이며 비판적인 역할을 필요로 하며, 독서 그 자체가 독자의 의지 활동인 셈이다. 대중적이며 일반적인 내러티브의 경우, 관객(독자)은 화자가 하는 이야기에 아무런 의심 없이 화자가 하는 이야기에 이끌려 들어가며 이야기 속 픽션의 세계와 현실 사이의 거리감을 인식하지 못한다. 이와는 달리, 초서의 내러티브에서 화자는 이야기 속에 끊임없이 개입함으로써 화자가 전달하는 이야기가 픽션의 세계에 불과하다는 사실을 관객을 인식시켜줄 뿐더러 관객이 아무런 주관적 판단이나 비판 없이 순진하게 화자가 전달하는 이야기의 내용을 있는 그대로 받아들이는 것을 방해한다. 다시 말해서, 초서의 내러티브는 이야기 전달과정에서 화자의 끊임없는 개입이나 초서만의 독특한 이야기 기법들은 이야기의 다양한 의미나 해석을 관객(독자)에게 제공할 뿐 그것들에 대한 최종적 판단과 결정은 독자 스스로의 몫으로 돌린다. 「상인의 이야기」역시 예외는 아니다. 초서는 이야기 속에서 ‘결혼’과 관련하여 어느 하나의 주장이나 목소리에 절대적인 가치나 의미를 독자에게 주입시키려 하고 있지 않다. 다만 독자의 주관적이며 비판적인 이해능력과 판단을 믿고 ‘결혼’과 관련한 다양한 목소리나 주장들을 독자에게 다양한 기법을 통하여 제공할 뿐이다. Chaucer’s storytelling techniques, which Chaucer exploits in the basic pattern of the popular tale for certain effects, accompany his audience as a co-author in understanding a tale. chaucer’s storytelling style in its convolution and its multiplicity of voice contrasts with that of a popular storyteller. In the Chaucerian narrative, meaning, or Chaucer’s complex view-point, is wrapped and diffusely proliferated with an ostensible story. Thus, the true meaning of a Chaucerian tale is not found by simply following an omniscient narrator’s guideline, but, rather, is discovered through the audience’s subjective and critical negotiations of the tale. In case of a popular narrative, the audience is drawn into a narrator’s storytelling without doubt and does not even realize the distance between the reality and the world in the story. Contrarily, a narrator’s continual intrusions in the Chaucerian narrative awaken the reader from a fictional world and prevent him from being naively immersed in a narrative. The narrator’s interruptions in the course of his tale-telling enable the audience to view the tale not as an absolute entity with a direct meaning or interpretation, but as a polysemous narrative which invites us to view it in several ways. Chaucer’s effort not only to impose the “unreliability” or the “indeterminacy” on his narrator’s voice, but to preserve the multiplicity of voices with no merging or resolution among them is observed throughout the Merchant’s narrative as well.