『페리클리즈』: 신의 섭리에 의한 구원과 재생의 기적 세계

Abstract

The “Romances,” the last plays including Pericles, have been isolated from the rest of the Shakespearean canon, but their characteristic is also explained in terms of their abundance of religious echoes and the significant appearances of the gods. The setting of these religiously rich last plays is a pagan world overseen by the gods and goddesses of classical antiquity. Pericles, like their preceeding plays, deals first and foremost with the human secular world and the sufferings and achievement of Man. The pagan settings were a means by which the playwright could treat theological themes without risking prosecution by the 1606 “Act to Restrain Abuses of Players,” which forbad any blasphemous Christian references in the theatre. There is a deep Christian inspiration behind Shakespeare’s treatment of pagan themes in Pericles. Pericles presents us with very moralistic worlds in which the good, Pericles, Thaisa and Marina, are eventually rewarded and the sinners, Antiochus and his daughter, Cleon and Dionyza, are punished. It has been suggested that this moralism indicates the Christian allegory intended in the use of the classical gods and goddesses. And though this may be the case, it is important to remember that such moralism belongs as much to the pagan world as to the Christian. In Pericles we find characters who endure suffering and hardship, seemingly arbitrarily, as with Pericles, Thaisa and Marina. In Pericles suffering eventually receives reward, largely as a result of the human practice of the godly virtues of patience, mercy and forgiveness. As we witness Jupiter, Apollo and Prospero performing miracles, so we witness Diana making a similar appearance in Pericles. Diana is ultimately merciful, rewarding redemption and regeneration with happiness, even in a hostile, sinful world. Pericles ends on a peaceful note of harmony in the miracle world after redemption, regeneration and reunions in which the characters pay tribute to the gods. It is the result of the gods’ graces to human beings that the separated Pericles, Thaisa and Marina are reunited and regenerated in forgiveness. In other words, the happy ending like this could be attributed to the mysterious functioning of the theological echoes and divine providence displayed in this play.