『사랑의 헛수고』에 대한 통과의례적 해석

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Love's Labour's Lost has been regarded as one of the most difficult and obscure comedies of Shakespeare. As the tittle of this comedy implies, love's labour is so full of word play and abstract talking that it seems to be lost. But love's labour is won after a long trial and endurance at the end of the play. The great amount of word play which caused some difficulty to approach this comedy is another merit to make the audience come back to the stage and readers to the text.
In this paper, I tried to analyze the actions of the main men characters in Love's Labour's Lost by applying the rite of passage of anthropology. The period of separation, transition and incorporation can be traced through the actions of the main men characters. I pointed out that the four young men go through the long period of hardship and penance, but arrive at the last step of love achievement at the end of the play. The four young men of Navarre who swear to fast and study for three years take the course of the three steps of the rite of passage.
The four young men are forced to break their vows by falling in love with the four young women from France. But the way of courting between the lovers of Love's Labour's Lost is very different from the other Shakespeare's romantic comedies. Especially the youthful King of Navarre with three other courtiers acts in a group, so there is no personal talk or action with his love partner. The love among the young men is implied in the word plays such as quibbling, jokes and punning or in writhing love poems. So the four young men seek their love only in the form of abstraction. The four young women make fun of their partners by way of testing their love. The four young men who are confined in the house of abstract study and fanciful love are driven and tested by their partners.
At the end of the play, Shakespeare shows another aspect of treating with the final of his romantic comedies by making the Lord of Marcade appear with the news of the sudden death. By this abrupt ending, Shakespeare reassures the unreality of the merry courting of the young men before they are fully accepted by their partners. And by postponing love commitment for twelve months, Shakespeare emphasizes that the young men should be more trained to be in the state of maturity and incorporation.