바틈과 퍽의 에필로그: 르네상스 연극 개혁 운동의 관점에서 본 「한여름 밤의 꿈」

Abstract

A Midsummer Night's Dream has been traditionally understood as an early work of Shakespeare in which the festive air and energies are exploited to strengthen the communal bonds between the elite and the common people. Theseus's famous speech in Act 5 on the obligation of the ruler to entertain and mingle with the ruled is one of many examples that Shakespeare employs to highlight the importance of communal unity. In this context, Pyramus and Thisbe, a play-within-the-play, can be also seen as a meta-theatrical device through which Shakespeare expresses his homage to the time-honored tradition of drama in early modern England that had played an important role in binding different social groups together in the event of weddings and other social occasions. While admitting Shakespeare's friendly gestures toward the traditional communal values that Medieval drama served to strengthen, this article attempts to show a different impulse of A Midsummer Night's Dream to differentiate his own work from amateur performance of the previous generation by detailing the ways in which Post-Reformation cultural movement in Shakespeare's time eventually led to the suppression of the medieval drama and its traditions. Shakespeare's desire to distinguish his dramatic piece from those of the previous generation, I argue, can be internally found in the different treatment of Puck and Bottom. By having Bottom end his performance with Bergomask dance, instead of allowing him to speak an epilogue before his audience, and whereas by choosing Puck to be a speaker at the end of the play that sums up A Midsummer Night's Dream, Shakespeare reveals his prejudices and preference toward the reformed (professional) plays, which started to replace traditional performances of drama and were able to expand their influence throughout the Renaissance period.