Abstract: This study aims to analyze Ann-Marie MacDonald's method of rewriting two of Shakespeare's most famous tragedies, Othello and Romeo and Juliet. MacDonald converts two tragedies into an exuberant comedy, Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet). This play not only revisits two narratives but also subverts their original genres by defusing the tragic elements and substituting them with comical ones. Pointing out that the reality is too contradictory to be fitted into the one-sided seriousness of tragedy, MacDonald presents as humorously inappropriate what these two tragedies has just represented as serious and consequential. Erasing the boundaries between tragedy and comedy, MacDonald uncovers and displays a broader spectrum of gender behavior. She highlights the synonymousness of idealized womanhood with passivity and makes obvious the performative and ideological limitations of that construct. MacDonald's Desdemona is not like the one we're used to. She is not a doomed and helpless victim but an adventurous, aggressive and even bloodthirsty Amazon encouraging Constance's transformation from "a Mouse" to a self-confident, strong, independent woman. MacDonald's Juliet is randy and adventurous, hardly the emblem of purity and innocence we're accustomed to. With this extremely erotic Juliet, Constance fully embraces her own sexuality. In addition, MacDonald questions the assumption that heterosexuality is the norm by rendering both Romeo and Juliet fall in love with Constance with both in error about her gender. In this story of a timid "Mouse" reclaiming the authorship of her own life, Macdonald appropriates the plots, characters, and very lines of Shakespeare making them her own. Her new story goes beyond the deconstruction of the texts that make up our cultural history to create new texts in which the old stories are re-imagined and reinterpreted from formerly excluded perspectives. It is Macdonald herself that claims "I'm the author!" declaring her independence form the Bard.

Abstract: A Midsummer Night's Dream written by Shakespeare has been evaluated as the model of romantic comedy as it deals with pairing and marriage of the lovers. This paper intends to survey the forms of fertility rites laid in the work rather than general definition of comedy. Even for a fertility rite, I have tried to focus, not on the meeting of the individual with supernatural being, but on the political and social meaning which comes from healing the abnormal phenomena of contemporary society. In this work, we can find the fruitful process of fertility rite which intends to revive the vitality of Queen Elizabeth who was becoming old at that. time. Shakespeare was not satisfied in creating the mythical meaning by means of fantastic images, for he struggles to suggest the means of healing concerning the contemporary social problems and practical ones of the audience. The spectators can feel catharsis through the erotic images which can release the repression of sexual desire hidden in the depth of their subconsciousness. By doing so, they can enjoy the normalization through the liberation of socially repressed erotic energy. The forest, the symbol of fertility, has been regarded as the origin of life and as the suitable place in which lovers can share their true love. And it can be contrasted with the city like Athens so that it seems to promise rebirth and rest to the people who are tired of repressing civilization. Thus, two couples of lovers, Hermia and Lysander, Helena and Demitrius, enter the forest in order to heal the injuries of love distorted by the law and the patriarchy of Athens. This forest is governed not by human-beings, but by the king and the queen of fairies, Oberon and Titania. Oberon, the chief of the fertility rite, uses the juice of love for healing the erotic disease of the lovers. The chaotic process of 'chase and being chased' should be interpreted as the metaphor for passionate erotic ceremonies of the lovers. The sexual behaviors of Titania and Bottom and the chaos of the lovers should be the erotic game which embodies the fertility rite in the forest. It can be said that the one appears by means of a dream scene and the other through physical conflicts in transformed forms. The play within the play, Pyramus and Thisbe, may bewilder the audience owing to the interpolation of tragedy into comedy of the main plot. However, we can find Shakespeare's true intention why tragic plot should be contrasted with romantic comedy. The lovers' tragedy in the play within the play strengthens the festivity of the marriage of Theseus and Hippolyta and two couples of lovers rather than weakens the comic spirit by showing the danger of the reality. Even this tragedy changes into comedy through the exaggeration and the buffoonery of Quince's group. In conclusion, the play in the play can be interpreted as a process of fertility that helps and strengthens the fertility rite of the main plot.

Abstract: The sixteenth and seventeenth century Europe suffered from the deep and drastic changes caused by the Reformation, the effects of which reached into the political, social, and cultural spheres in a full-scale. Though England is an anomalous case of the Reformation, she gradually transformed into a reformed nation. Living in an important period of the Reformation, Shakespeare (1564-1616) was a product of this turbulent age and also one of the most representative dramatists who contributed to the shaping of the age. This paper aims to respond to the following questions. How does Shakespeare address and redress the Protestant discourse and rhetoric? In what way does he examine and respond to the conflicts and contradictions raised by the Reformation by means of his drama? For this discussion I took Hamlet as a case study not only because this play was written when the playwright came to maturity in his career but also because his concern with conflicts and contradictions raised by the Reformation was intensively projected in it not to mention his interest in the doctrinal matters of the old and new religions. This paper investigates topics such as inwardness, the Protestant concept of repentance, human depravity, and providence together with other issues of the religions related to ceremony and ghost found in the play in the immediate context of the English Reformation. Shakespeare did not give support to any specific religious sect but lived a highly engaged life as a dramatist addressing himself to conflicting religious matters of the time. Read in the immediate historical context, Hamlet is understood as one of the best efforts of the dramatist who negotiated with and intervened in conflicts and contradictions between the old and new religions contributing to the making of the mainstream of the English Reformation which would eventually prevail in the England to come.

Abstract: 결혼 소넷 혹은 출산(장려) 소넷으로 불리는 셰익스피어의 첫 17개 소넷은 화자가 미남 귀공자에게 결혼을 해서 자식을 생산함으로써 가문을 잇는 책임을 다하라고 종용하는 시이다. 이 시들에는 오직 아버지와 아들로만 이어지는 가계 (부자관계)를 강조하고 있으며 모녀 혹은 부녀간의 이야기는 없다. 여성의 부재는 곧, 결혼의 상대자인 여성에 대한 존중과 그녀와의 사랑에 관한 언급이 거의 부재함과 연결되고, 여자의 몸이 출산의 매체가 되는 정도만 언급이 된다. 많은 인류 사회학 연구들이, 여성이 한 남성 (아버지)에서 다른 남성(남편)으로 넘어가는 통로가 되며, 가부장 사회가 될 때 여성의 권리가 급감함을 밝히고 있다. 또한 역사학자들이 근대 영국 귀족들의 결혼은 금전, 경제 등의 요인이 강하게 영향을 미쳤음을 밝혀내고, 당시 여성의 재산은 남편의 소유이고, 여성의 몸은 출산에 유효한 것으로 여겨졌다. 이런 사회적 영향의 이유로도, 이 셰익스피어 첫 17개 소넷에는 남녀간 사랑보다는 아들을 낳아 상속을 하며 가문을 번성케 하라는 요청이 많은 데, 이 번성이라는 말에는 시장 경제적인 은유를 강하게 담고 있다. 즉 자손의 번창 (increase)은 한 남자의 이미지가 후손을 통해 계속 살아남는 방법이기도 하지만, 무엇보다 경제적으로도 이롭다는 이미지가 가득하며, 이 시는 당시 시장 경제화 되는 영국 근대사회상을 잘 반영하고 있다. 즉 자본주의 사회, 시장 경제사회에서는 물질적 이득이 중요시 되는 데, 가족 관계 역시 그런 상황의 밀접한 영향을 받고 있으며 자손의 출산도 이 경제적인 면에 이로우며, 이리하여 자식도 사물화 되는 과정을 볼 수 있다. 셰익스피어가 이 시들을 쓸 무렵은 영국이 점차 시장 경제화 되고, 이 과정에서 결혼도, 가정도 사물화됨을 이 시에서 엿 볼 수 있다. 이 연작시에서 가장 빈번히 쓰였던 사용, 증가, 번성, 고리, 후덕함 등의 단어는 경제 사회적 은유를 내포하고 있으며, 이런 시장 경제적 인식이 가족 관계에도 있음을 독자는 그의 소넷에서 느낄 수 있다. 즉 화자는 이 젊은 귀족의 낭비를, 도덕적 방종보다 더한 죄로 비난하고 있으며, 자손도 프린트에 비유하고 잇는데, 이는 당시 시장 경제와 같이 발생한 이윤 많은 인쇄업의 번성과도 연관 지을 수 있다. 독자는 이 시들을 영국 자본주의 발생기 역사흐름 속에서 잘 이해할 수 있다.

Abstract: In one sense, the universe can be said to operate by the will to power of all living things. The ultimate expression of will to power in a human being is the omnipotence of God. Caesar in Julius Caesar is rather a set of images of the highest object of will to power than a real human being. Therefore, Caesarism can be a symbol of an energy or a power which operates in the universe of human beings. According to Nietzsche, the life of a man is a constant power-struggling process. The motivation of struggling may be different from man to man externally, but generally speaking, the desire and intention to extend his power is based on the same impetus. That impulse is a desire of setting his force over and against other forces. Therefore one's will to power can oppress the other's will to power, which leads to a conflict and an inevitable clash between powers. If we see Julius Caesar superficially, Brutus is a very ambiguous character who takes part in a cruel conspiracy with an honourable intention. Brutus, however, is one of the common people whose ambition is to maximize his power over the will to power of others. As Caesarism is within all human beings it also works in Brutus, even as he is described as an honourable man by Anthony. Brutus is only deceived by himself and blind to reality. When the Spirit of Caesar visits Brutus and says that he is Brutus' evil spirit, he means evil by a self-centered external power which intends to oppress another's will to power. And one of the main themes of Julius Caesar is that if the self-centered will to power is circulated in the universe, treacherous history will recur eternally, like a bloody wheel.

Abstract: Antony and Cleopatra not only swerves from the classical tragedy but shows a lessening of tragic intensity compared with the so-called "four great tragedies." As its action moves toward the end of the play, the comic stands out in relief. The double catastrophe presents a comic vision rather than a tragic vision. Antony's suicide is a triumph over himself and a heroic act by Roman standard. Shakespeare, however, evokes a sense of irony by giving the comic to the serious and tragic act. Antony does not kill himself, but asks Eros to kill him. He stays alive wounded by bungling his suicide. In the monument scene, drawing dying Antony up to her side, Cleopatra said "Here's sport indeed" as if she had fished Antony. The second catastrophe of Cleopatra's death supplements the first catastrophe of Antony, yielding dialectical meaning. It enhances Antony's status as a hero. Furthermore, it brings Cleopatra and Antony a spiritual victory over Octavius Caesar through her suicide which Caesar wants to evade eagerly. Cleopatra is a serpent of the old Nile, and the Nile Valley, a fertile land itself. So when she is bitten by an asp of the Nile, saying "my baby at my breast, / That sucks the nurse asleep," that has a comic perspective, a resurrection over death. The double catastrophe that the two lovers bring paradoxically heightens the comic vision of the play. At the moment of death, Antony shows her his wholehearted trust and love without any doubt and suspicion. Cleopatra's death is a splendid ritual that humbles Caesar's mundane success. Antony and Cleopatra is closer to the late romances rather than to the tragedies.

Abstract: This paper reads Macbeth as a socially radical text which disrupts the didactic, morality-play structure based on the traditional discourses of tyranny and treason, thus exposing the political mechanism of the ruling ideology. As reflected in the countless treason cases during the Tudor and early Stuart monarchies, the historical events and the literary representations of tyranny and treason constituted a characteristically discursive field where the potential subversiveness of Macbeth operates. Located within the extensive inter-textual field established between the text and its context, and specifically in an illuminating relation to the conservative discourses which repressed the traces of radical antithesis to the ruling ideology, Macbeth opens up the possibility to question the stable relationships between the ruler and the ruled. The subversiveness of Macbeth is initiated and amplified by the unsettling overlaps in structure, characters and images, which constantly blur and erase the politically prohibited boundaries and the socially tabooed borders, mainly between Macbeth, traitor and usurper, and legitimate kings. The inter-penetrations and contaminations between the differentiated but overlapping notions are reinforced through excessive violence, which cannot be safely contained in or recuperated by the dichotomy between good ruler and bad tyrant. The limitations of the ruling ideology's attempt at symbolic containment could be clarified through explaining Macbeth's desire with reference to the particular social structure. Even though it is not deniable that he stands as a clear case of unbearable moral degradation, Macbeth is also a product of the specific society which sanctions and forbids the certain types of violence. In turning our attention to the nature of the political structure in which Macbeth's treacherous desire is fermented and cultivated, we are encouraged to see him as an embodiment of the society's structural contradictions. An unsettling symbolic challenge to the sacred status of a king, Macbeth's severed head registers the audience's contradictory responses to the contemporary treason cases The sense of excess in language and violence, which has been repressed not by the text itself but by the cumulative conservative criticisms, functions as a statement of the historical trajectory of the society, producing a subversive reading against the usual grain to succumb to the moral texture of the text. Thus, the audience's eyes are allowed to be firmly set on the particular historicity of the ruling ideology, and the social conditions which never cease to promote the subversive desire and temptation.

Abstract: A German star actress, Asta Nielsen's film version, Hamlet: The Drama of Vengeance, directed by Svend Gade in 1920, endows the film with a radical change in nineteenth-century travesti tradition of female actors' playing the role of Hamlet: Nielsen's Hamlet is not merely a cross-dressed Hamlet but a woman dressed in men's clothes. The film's screen play author Erwin Gepard relied for the story more upon Edward P. Vining, an American amateur Shakespeare scholar, than upon Shakespeare. Vining, in his The Mystery of Hamlet: An Attempt to Solve an Old Problem(1881), tries to solve Hamlet's gender mystery and comes to a conclusion that he was, in fact, a woman who had been born a princess but brought up as a prince by Gertrude. Nielsen's Hamlet conceals her born identity and is not allowed to be who she is. Hamlet's life is a life of gendered double: mannish woman and womanish man. Nielsen's gender-split Hamlet represents the modernist crisis in gender which refuses traditionally constructed gender hierarchy and then results in male anxiety. In Weimar background which observed the breakdown of old certainties, therefore, Hamlet was regarded as a threatening force against still male-dominated gender system. Hamlet's androgyny is more dangerous because it was forced upon her by her mother during the absence of her father. In this regard, Hamlet is supposed to carry out two-fold revenge: for Claudius who murdered her father, and for her monstrous mother who forced upon her the disguised gender identity. Stabbed by Laertes's poisoned sword, Hamlet dies on the steps leading to the throne, and her original gender is disclosed by Horatio who has been an object of female Hamlet's unfulfilled desire. Eventually their seemingly homoerotic relationship is safely restored to heterosexual normality. Hamlet's final death has a couple of meanings. There might arise a question of how Hamlet can return to her female identity that she longed for, and the answer is that it is only possible in her death. The other meaning is to be found in Weimar male anxiety about her androgyny: her death is a punishment by men who seek to re-place the 'New Woman-in-man's clothing' onto her safe seat on which she is to remain 'silent' hereafter. Nielsen's Hamlet film willingly provides an interesting controversy on our time's concern with the idea of 'split subject' or 'becoming' gender.

Abstract: The aim of this study is to interpret the Hamlet-Ophelia relationship in Hamlet In order to understand Hamlet's cruel treatment of Ophelia in the nunnery scene, it is essential to study first the issues and dilemmas Hamlet is confronting Hamlet is shocked by a series of events, such as the unnatural death of his father, his mother's hasty and incestuous remarriage to his father's brother Claudius and the ghost's revelation that his father was killed by his uncle Claudius Hamlet has regarded his mother as the perfect woman - chaste and devoted to his father Once he perceives that his mother is guilty of lechery in her marriage to Claudius, he thinks that all women are sexually corruptible He is obsessed with the idea of misogyny and sex nausea He associates Ophelia with his mother Gertrude and further, identifies her with his mother It is very embarrassing to read or hear the nunnery scene and the play within the play scene, where Ophelia is treated with apparent cruelty by Hamlet using sexual words and pun Although Hamlet accuses Ophelia of his mother's apparent sin, his real purpose is to get her out of the disgusting atmosphere of the court-an unweeded garden with sexual corruption and evil intrigues, and to catch the conscience of the King under the disguise of antic-disposition It is noted that Shakespeare puts emphasis on the passive and obedient nature of Ophelia She is the innocent victim of a patriachal society and a corrupted court, though Hamlet's guilt caused by Gertrude's sexuality is projected to Ophelia

Abstract: The purpose of this study is to compare Orson Wells's film Macbeth with Roman Polanski's film Macbeth focusing on their different representation of the dual political aspects presented in the original Macbeth. Orson Wells takes notice of the typical morality pattern of good and evil in Shakespeare's original work. So he emphasizes the protagonist's evil deeds and their results based on Christian doctrine. It's political vision is that the absolute kingship tested by the villain like Macbeth is finally recovered by the legitimate heir. On the contrary, Roman Polanski discovers the corrupted and hypocritical human nature in the original work. He emphasizes the political reality dominated by violence, crime, and disorder, representing the skepticism and absurdity of the absolute power and justice. Because of these different viewpoints, the famous two directors show quite different film-making techniques and different interpretations of the major scenes. Orson Wells uses expressionistic technique in order to express Macbeth's painful and confused inner mind. Therefore, his work is full of surreal images and settings which represent the embodiment of the dark evil force based on Christianity. On the contrary, Roman Polanski uses realistic technique in order to show the wicked social reality which is full of violence and betrayal for one's desire. Polanski's protagonist Macbeth is portrayed not as a tragic hero but as a coward trickster, and we can find lots of characters like him in the play. His confession that "life is but a walking shadow" and "a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury" becomes an effective way to present the absurd reality.

Abstract: Under the influence of Greek romances and the New Comedies of Plautus and Terence, Shakespeare's late plays or romances are set in the sea. In these Mediterranean plays, the sea is the setting for shipwrecks and sufferings of separation, but it is also the place for a rebirth and resurrection, and a family reunion. In the sea, sorrow changes into joy, death into resurrection, and separation into reunion. This sea of changes represents loss of an identity from Shakespeare's early comedies onwards to his major tragedies and Roman plays, as a drop of water confounding itself in the water. However, in his romances the sea travelers experience their loss of identity after their initial experience of a sin, and succeed in regaining their lost identity by finding out their lost family members. The tripartite phases of identity crisis, identity dissolution and the final identity re-solution of the main characters correspond to the three parts of plot development in Shakespeare's last plays: protasis, epitasis, and catastrophe. Shakespeare inherits the traditional plot structure of the New Comedy and creatively varies it in his last romance plays. In Pericles, the titular hero experiences an Edenic fall in his marriage proposal and riddle test. Seeing into the incest of Antiochus with his daughter, he contaminates himself with the sin of thwarted sexual desire and is haunted by his vision of distorted feminine sexuality. This crisis in his identity comprises the protasis or the problem of the play. Afraid of murder and war, he puts himself to the sea of wandering and shipwrecks. Pericles's repeated sea voyage dissolves his identity as the prince of Tyre and lowers himself to a kind of a "wet" beggar. The dissolution of Pericles's identity on the sea in the middle part of the play is dramatized by his comatose state and his speechlessness, a drastic change from the famous Athenian orator. The stormy turbulence of the sea reflects the passions of his mind and a patient conformity to the cosmic order. The experience of sea suffering and the deadly dissolution of his identity corresponds to the epitasis or the complicated knotting of the plot. In his final meeting with his daughter and his wife, both supposed to be dead and lost, Pericles enjoys the experience of resurrection and regains his identity as father and husband. This family reunion brings his tragic problem to a resolution or a catastrophe. The sea in this experimental epic play is the setting for changes of events and identity. Shakespeare's sea is more than a mere setting in his romances, and does play both thematic and structural functions.

Abstract: The aim of this study is to interpret the Hamlet-Ophelia relationship in Hamlet. In order to understand Hamlet's cruel treatment of Ophelia in the nunnery scene, it is essential to study first the issues and dilemmas Hamlet is confronting. Hamlet is shocked by a series of events, such as the unnatural death of his father, his mother's hasty and incestuous remarriage to his father's brother Claudius and the ghost's revelation that his father was killed by his uncle Claudius. Hamlet has regarded his mother as the perfect woman - chaste and devoted to his father. Once he perceives that his mother is guilty of lechery in her marriage to Claudius, he thinks that all women are sexually corruptible. He is obsessed with the idea of misogyny and sex nausea. He associates Ophelia with his mother Gertrude and further, identifies her with his mother. It is very embarrassing to read or hear the nunnery scene and the play within the play scene, where Ophelia is treated with apparent cruelty by Hamlet using sexual words and pun. Although Hamlet accuses Ophelia of his mother's apparent sin, his real purpose is to get her out of the disgusting atmosphere of the court-an unweeded garden with sexual corruption and evil intrigues, and to catch the conscience of the King under the disguise of antic-disposition. It is noted that Shakespeare puts emphasis on the passive and obedient nature of Ophelia. She is the innocent victim of a patriachal society and a corrupted court, though Hamlet's guilt caused by Gertrude's sexuality is projected to Ophelia.

Abstract: The general hypothesis of this study is that all the male characters in this play have unconscious anxiety toward female sexuality. This male anxiety concerning sexuality originates from the infantile experience of the loss of and the antagonism toward mother figure when the baby develops through the passage of mother-baby symbiosis, and differentiation/individualization. The often overlooked markers of dubious sexuality (both female and male) are to be focused. One of the markers is that the unfeminine, predatory female sexual desire are lucked beneath the folkloric narrative of the poor physician's daughter who deploys bed-trick and cunning in order to restrict male desire within marital boundary. Overall presumption is that there might be a certain indistinguishable image in All's Well That Ends Well which is equivalent to the skull lying at the ambassador's feet in Holbein's 〈The Ambassadors〉. This image is hinted in Act 4 Scene 2, where Diana says to Bertram on Helena's behalf, "When you have conquer'd my yet maiden bed,/ Remain there but an hour, nor speak to me. / My reasons are most strong." There is nothing, in the play, that can explain what took place during this curious postcoital detention of one hour. But at the same time, this detention, the indistinguishable image like the blurred skull in 〈The Ambassadors〉, provides the spectators with proper ground in which they can contemplate the darker side of male/female sexuality rather than be satisfied themselves with the traditional, fairy-tale-like, interpretation. Something indistinguishable, in other words, some anamorphosed image is represented as a genuine sexual disturbance in the play. In the sexual perturbation, Helena occupies the masculine position of desiring subject and on the contrary, Bertram, remained at the position of the desired object, expresses dread toward the problematic masculine sexuality. All's Well illustrates the fundamental incompatibility between marriage and male desire and provides a magical solution to it: the final scene of the play depends on something akin to a theatrical exorcism, where sexual contamination is first attached to the supposedly violated virgin and then cleared and solved as the virtual wife returns and truth is revealed. The aim of the play presumably is to show the meaningful change and development in the manhood of Bertram, thus happy-ending. But with the fundamental incompatibility prevailed, spectators is only to witness the instability of the genders that Helena and Bertram seek to stabilize. Thus all seems well, not all's well, and spectators don't find any improvement from Bertram. The reunion that decorates the end of seemingly happy ending is actually a threatening compulsion tor Bertram, and this is why All's Well That Ends Well remains in the category of Problem Play.

Abstract: This study attempts to shed light on the dramatic significance of Shakespeare's servant characters played by contemporary comic actors. In the company Shakespeare worked for, there were famous popular comic actors such as Kempe and Tarlton who mainly played the roles of fools or servants. They often attracted more attention and received more applause from audience than the other players. Their popularity usually exceeded that of other popular or more experienced actors as well as younger actors usually playing the roles of young lovers who were often regarded as heroes and heroines from a perspective based on the plot. Such popular comic actors were mainly cast as servants in Shakespeare's early romantic comedies. In this respect, the dramatic importance of servant characters on stage requires reassessment with regard to the popularity of this type of actors. Even though they were not given many lines in a play, their appearances on stage were often accompanied with a great amount of laughter and usually left vivid impression on audiences. Therefore, when their dramatic effect is measured in comparison to the consideration of the popularity of the actor who played them, their words become more significant. Futhermore, given that the comic actors had far more freedom on stage with regard to their actions and words and could extemporize as often and freely as they could, it becomes clear that such servant characters must have had much more dramatic importance in reality. When their unwritten extemporizations in Shakespeare's early comedies are examined, the remarks made by such servant characters in relation to the contemporary economic and political climate begin to reveal their true significance and resonate in their society.