『사랑의 헛수고』 - 남성 주체의 사유(思惟) 욕망

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Love's Labour's Lost seems to deal with a love theme through a feast of words. The play, however, can be interpreted anew by Jacques Lacan's theory of desire, more specifically by his conceptions that the subject and thinking are structured linguistically, and that the subject manages to accomplish maturity mysteriously through Gestalt characteristic of externality and fixation.
The main reason that King Navarre and his men stick to the ideal academe is that the male subject is governed by the fantasy created by the thinking desire of the male subject, which depends on Gestalt. The mad fixation on the fantasy indicates the existential lack of the subject. This lack causes the male subject to be strictly isolated from, and thus irrational to reality. The male subject affected by the inertia of the fantasy is tenaciously haunted upon honor, but their philosophical life of honor turns out to be a lifeless and mirage-like academe of pure words. The male subject split into double realities reveals and projects such a negative and aggressive attitude onto the female subject that the male subject looks upon the female subject as the anti-concept against their academe. This misconceptual structure of the male subject results in a word game as a group, or the transposition of signifiers among men, while it pins down women to a fixed literal existence through their writing. Now the male subject substitutes women or love for their original academe, which symbolizes man's serious lack of the subject.
Women in this play belong to the world of symbolism while men belong to the mirror stage or the world of imagination. Thus women should function as a mirror to reflect man's image of the subject so that men can ultimately reach the world of symbol. The mask dance and the Nine Worthies fail to revert man's gaze into their own selves. At last, death and a waiting time of one-year take the final step in forcing men to be set up for a new system of symbolism. This new order primarily values differentiation and thus does not rule out the Other. The song of spring and winter composed of simple words exemplifies such a synthesis of contrast and harmony.
Love's Labour's Lost can be a challenge of the author's various theatrical trials. Its conclusion against the comic convention is good proof of this. Life is full of contradictory varieties. Thus, sometimes a way out of the rules or forms may be much truer to life or art. This play aims to deliver such mental openness, not just brilliant wit of a word game. This openness of the heart would eventually lead to solidify and enrich one's self by accepting one's own life and others as they are.