Abstract

4 윤민우   “그녀에게 망령들어”: 복수자의 비극의 기호와 섹슈얼리티의 혼란   Medieval and Early Modern English Studies Volume 22 No. 2 (2014)    83 ~ 105 
   [Yun Min-u: “Doting on her Beauty”: Sign and Sexuality in The Revenger’s Tragedy]



In Renaissance drama, a revenger begins his action as a Platonist whoaspires to rehabilitate the violated value of the past. He cannot perform a facile mourning for the value he has cherished. Along the way, he realizes the channel to the public justice is closed.or, he himself closes it.to resort to private revenge. In The Revenger’s Tragedy, however, this process is omitted. In attempting at paying back for the immoral event perpetrated on him nine years ago, Vindice already decided to take a private revenge. The play seems to go straight to the confusion of public discourse which already everywhere reaches its full ripeness and capacity. One's public identity frequently fails, and the absolute signifier of God is parodied, and further, the revenger is cynical about his own act of revenge. This confusion of signs is finally amplified by the symbolic value of woman. In the revenger’s mind, woman takes the place of the futile public justice and transcendental authority represented by the king and God. But rather than remaining a Platonic Idea, woman soon becomes a fluid sign most susceptible to social change. Related to this sense of change, what is special in The Revenger’s Tragedy is a strong social criticism by Vindice, a disinherited son. The malcontent attitude toward society enables him to keep distance from the courtly value, including his respect for woman. In this regard,The Revenger’s Tragedy is no longer in the morality tradition. Although dramatis personae of the play are all allegorical abstractions, Vindice is not Everyman, but an individual entity under subjection to social change. Utter confusion, parody and decadence coexist with social criticism in the play.

Key words:  revenge, pastoral elegy, skull, misogyny, mourning