슐레겔(August W. Schlegel)의 셰익스피어 비평

Abstract

Critics in the neoclassical period criticized Shakespeare’s use of degenerating expressions, vulgar words, bombasts and his excessive use of puns. Furthermore, they criticized Shakespeare’s violation of the three unities and his lack of moral instruction or poetic justice. Their views of Shakespeare were limited by neoclassical principles. August W. Schlegel, the representative German critic of Shakespeare in the romantic period, defended Shakespeare’s disregard of the three unities, pointing out the negative aspects of the esthetic of delusion as Samuel Johnson did. He also defended Shakespeare’s “mingled drama,” and his defence was based on his belief that it is a more natural form of drama to exhibit the real state of a real world. Schlegel’s contribution to the understanding of Shakespeare’s originality lies in his theory of organic unity and imagination. In A Course of Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature, Schlegel wrote: “Organical form ... is innate; it unfolds itself from within, and acquires its determination contemporaneously with the perfect development of the germ.... All genuine forms are organical.” Schlegel believed in the power of imagination which can combine many things into one large whole to produce dramatic unity. Schlegel praised Shakespeare’s genius in keeping organic unity in his works and his way of representing the ultimate end of human feeling. For Schlegel, the proof of Shakespeare’s genius is in the creation of various vital characters who mirror each other in an organic form.