재코비언 극장의 역병에 대한 대응: 벤 존슨(Ben Jonson)의 『연금술사』를 중심으로
Representing the Plague in the Jacobean Theater: A Way to Read Ben Jonson’s The Alchemist
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This paper explores Ben Jonson’s appropriation of the plague in The Alchemist by analyzing the way the outbreak is represented in connection with alchemy and theatre. The plague sets the scene and determines the structure of the comedy, with the narrative progressing through the rage and withdrawal during the epidemic. Visitation of the deadly disease disrupts city life and causes a rift through which the nature of London and its theater is revealed. Above all, Jonson uses “the sickness” as a metaphor for Londoners’ moral infection. Under the siege of the epidemic, all characters become infected by greed, making charlatans run rampant. The ‘venture tripartite’ of the rogues could hold as long as the infected dupes approach them anxious to play out their fantasies. The unrestrained desire of the gulls as well as the rogues is ultimately subversive since each of them wants to be exalted to what they are not. However, Jonson’s satire is not on universal human greed but on the selfishness and acquisitiveness triggered by social and economic changes in early modern England. In The Alchemist, Jonson invites us to meditate on the connection between theater and alchemy/plague. He repudiates theater as a pesthouse that conflates reality with fantasy, which leads its victims to humiliation and loss of self. The theater of alchemy does this to its customers. In its place, Jonson establishes another kind of theater that embraces its position on the threshold where fantasy helps to transform and enrich reality. At the end of the play, Lovewit wins wealth, vitality and rejuvenation of youth, which were promised to the gulls by alchemy, as he understands the nature of the new theater and welcomes his role in it.
Abstract
This paper explores Ben Jonson’s appropriation of the plague in The Alchemist by analyzing the way the outbreak is represented in connection with alchemy and theatre. The plague sets the scene and determines the structure of the comedy, with the narrative progressing through the rage and withdrawal during the epidemic. Visitation of the deadly disease disrupts city life and causes a rift through which the nature of London and its theater is revealed. Above all, Jonson uses “the sickness” as a metaphor for Londoners’ moral infection. Under the siege of the epidemic, all characters become infected by greed, making charlatans run rampant. The ‘venture tripartite’ of the rogues could hold as long as the infected dupes approach them anxious to play out their fantasies. The unrestrained desire of the gulls as well as the rogues is ultimately subversive since each of them wants to be exalted to what they are not. However, Jonson’s satire is not on universal human greed but on the selfishness and acquisitiveness triggered by social and economic changes in early modern England. In The Alchemist, Jonson invites us to meditate on the connection between theater and alchemy/plague. He repudiates theater as a pesthouse that conflates reality with fantasy, which leads its victims to humiliation and loss of self. The theater of alchemy does this to its customers. In its place, Jonson establishes another kind of theater that embraces its position on the threshold where fantasy helps to transform and enrich reality. At the end of the play, Lovewit wins wealth, vitality and rejuvenation of youth, which were promised to the gulls by alchemy, as he understands the nature of the new theater and welcomes his role in it.
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