Shakespearian Myth and Fantasy

• 발행기관: 한국영미어문학회
• 저자명: Eun-Sook Hong
• 간행물 정보: 『영미어문학』영미어문학 제89호, 135~154쪽, 전체 20쪽
• 주제분류: 어문학 > 영어와문학
• 파일형태: PDF
• 발행일자: 2008.12.31

영문 초록

Shakespeare dramatizes the inexplicability of love's choice in A Midsummer Night's Dream. As the origin of love never lies in reason, the playwright ventures to display this inexplicability through myth and fantasy, running counter to a long tradition of criticism such as realism. Entering into a magic fairy realm, the four lovers to through role transformation and identity crisis. They come to face with mythic and fantasy devices such as the love-juice, animality, and literary metamorphoses that are unfamiliar to realist plays. After the adventure, they enter another realm of theater and have time to reflect on their experience, as they watch a play within the play. A Midsummer Night's Dream as a zigzag play features stories within stories and plays within plays. Zigzagging each story and realm, this play produces its own structure and dynamics. While each realm crosses over, each story also crosses over. Through this chiasmus, this play establishes the mythic and fantasy structure. Theseus and Hippolyta as critics for other realms have their strong and opposite opinions regarding the existence of the fairy wood and the effectiveness of theater. This serves as a conclusion in denouement. Simultaneously it leads the audience to hesitation for other realms. The theatricality of this play is accomplished when paradoxes and hesitation are overcome. Their discussion to clarify the existence of the other realms, therefore, is a research for imagination and the inexplicability. A response to other realms presented through myth and fantasy is to provide another way of recognition for reality.

키워드

Myth fantasy Other Realms a Midsummer Night's Dream Shakespeare