シェイクスピアにおける宗教的位相 : 言葉-人間-宗教-ドラマの輪の中で

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This paper sheds some light upon the religious aspects of Shakespeare's drama, which have been considered by so many critics especially from the Christian point of view. In Shakespeare's plays, Christianity has a rather wide, loose, and ambiguous sense than these critics have considered. Moreover, Christianity was extremely complicated in his time mainly because England, in the Elizabethan age, was in a very difficult time, oppressed by the conflicts of Catholicism, Protestantism and Anglicanism. We can point out two typical critics from these, who show great diversity in their interpretations concerning religious viewpoints. One is A. C. Bradley, who claims Christian elements are essentially irrelevant to Shakespeare's plays and the other is G. Wilson Knight, who, putting some symbolic interpretation on Shakespeare's plays, writes that Shakespeare's plays are essentially and pervasively the reflection of Christianity. The poet, nevertheless, does not intend to show directly Christian ideas such as God, the devil, prayer, providence, repentance, sin, etc., but he refers to these only when these are strongly demanded by the dramatic contexts. He does this by means of objective commitment to drama, which is shown by words such as Hamlet's "to hold the mirror up to the nature, " and Jaque's "all the world's stage, " while Job's attitudes to Christianity in the Old Testament presents a striking contrast to the attitudes of Shakespeare's characters and is fundamentally subjective and existential. Claudius' soliloquy in Hamlet, for instance, shows a deep human suffering and prayer, but the purpose of the poet does not lie in describing the religious aspect of prayer but makes Claudius stand face to face with Hamlet who is hesitating to kill the wicked king. At this great, dramatic moment, our attention turns from the dimension of prayer to the dramatic conflict between these two opponents. Thus, Shakespeare, at first, describes men and their existence through words. Next, men are dramatized in their various phases, passing through the aspects of religion inclucing both Christianity and non-Christianity. That is to say, Shakespeare completes his drama by creating one dramatic cycle starting from words to men, men to religion and then religion to drama. He has a keen interest in this secular world; not in the world to come. His intention is to dramatize, the reality of men struggling and enjoying in this secular world order. This religious aspect is essential to dramatize these characters and to describe this human reality. We, therefore, cannot essentially nor completely understand the whole body of Shakespeare's drama without considering the religious aspects.
1973-03-31

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中村匡克
相模工業大学英語:英文学

シェイクスピアにおける宗教的位相 : 言葉-人間-宗教-ドラマの輪の中で

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