백정국: 셰익스피어의 ｢햄 릿｣에 투영된 앰릿 사가의 흔적    pages 75 ~ 96 
      [Baek Jeong-guk: Traces of Amleth Saga Embedded in Shakespeare’s Hamlet]

Abstract


The long-standing glorious aura hanging around Hamlet is not necessarily an indication of its dramatic perfectness and by extension Shakespeare’s inviolable theatrical virtuosity. Hamlet has been by fits and starts a target of doubts from quite a few critical minds. Their doubts center around what they believe the unstable, if not labored, development of the events, the apparent inconsistency of the plot, along with more or less unsatisfactory representation of some of the characters.
Keeping a moderate distance from a relentless vivisection of the awkward elements of the drama, this essay, while acknowledging the legitimacy of those doubts, argues that Hamlet’s indebtedness to Saxo Grammaticus’s Amleth saga is largely responsible for such doubts, in ways to suggest the challenging nature of transforming the original work and the referential importance of experiencing Hamlet. The invisible as well as visible texture of Amleth’s adventurous heroic life affects the present shape of Hamlet. The suppressed part of the saga in particular subtly left indelible marks on it.
In the course of reshaping extrovert Amleth into introvert Hamlet Shakespeare might have found it hard to radically revamp the saga, as its ethos, form, narrative voice and pattern, possible audience, and the representation of characters are sharply different from those of drama. Hamlet’s controversial disguise of madness in its purpose and validity, the changing focus of his anger and his strange attitude toward Gertrude, the inevitability of (re)creating the mysterious ghost, the introduction of Horatio and his dominant role in the drama, all these will not be convincing enough if we fail to notice that the playwright resorted to some suppressed and re-envisioned parts of the saga.

Key words

햄릿, 앰릿, 삭소 그라마티쿠스, 사가, 유령, 호레이쇼, 거트루드, 엘리엇

Hamlet, Amleth, Saxo Grammaticus, saga, ghost, Horatio, Gertrude, Eliot