イギリス演劇史の最初の女性作家,エリザベス・ケアリの主体のあり方について--Tragedie of Mariamのコ-ラスにおける父権制社会との交渉を通して
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概要
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The Tragedie of Mariam (1613) is regarded as the first play in the history of English drama written by a woman, Elizabeth Cary. This play has recently attracted the attention of critics, such as Catherine Belsey, Tina Krontiris, and Betty Travitsky, who aim to examine the nature of a female literary subject. They tend to think that Elizabeth Cary is ambivalent toward the patriarchal idea of marital relationship of her age, because they think that she internalized the patriarchal attitudes and interpretation of women. However, they think that she wants her heroine to defy them. But in my view of Elizabeth Cary, she could be more of a feminist in her play than many critics regard her to be. A detailed examination of the subtle rhetoric of the Chorus has made shed some new light on a more feminist aspect of Elizabeth Cary.One of the peculiar characteristics of the play is the inconsistency between what the play suggests about Mariam's behaviour and the opinion of the choruses. In the play, Mariam is sympathetically represented, even with some idealization in comparison with the Mariam in the source. Although she challenges the authority of her husband by refusing to cajole him, this action suggests her desperate effort to be an autonomous subject and tells us that there would be no other way for her to take if she wants to be true to her innermost feelings.But the choruses apparently repudiate her behaviour, saying such an axiomatic warning as "To wish varietie is a signe of griefe." (256) It is the more puzzling for us to decide whether Cary believes in what the choruses say because they contain the same kind of idea as Elizabeth Cary's axiom, "Be and Seem." Many critics, even if they detect the inconsistency between what the play implies and what the choruses say, do not pursue its significance.I argue that the Chorus of this play deliberately quotes dominant ideologies of the patriarchy of the age, such as the obedience of a wife to a husband, the importance of being in the traditional status quo, and the nobleness of patience. Some pieces of the criticism of the choruses are "That man is onely happy in his Fate, / That is delighted in a setled state." (530- 31) and "For in a wife it is no worse to finde, / A common body, then a common minde." (1247 - 50) These words are not the straightforward expression of Cary's belief, but only a literal quotation of the idea of the "Great Chain of Being" and an exaggerated quotation from the ideologies of the patriarchal social structures of the age. The extreme form of expression of the absolutist patriarchal ideology has a potentiality to subvert the absolutist idea about wifely obedience by alienating the reader from it. The point is that the choruses of this play would be best understood as being rhetorical strategies to negotiate with the absolutist patriarchy of Cary's time. Their apparent purpose is to blame Mariam as a rebel against the absolutist patriarchal authority, but the latent purpose expressed in subtle rhetorical strategies, such as too strong exaggeration of the patriarchal power, twists of logic, and camouflage of absolute obedience, is to subvert the absolutist ideology of the patriarchy of her age.
- 広島大学英文学会の論文
広島大学英文学会 | 論文
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