콜리지의 “나에게는 햄릿의 기미가 있다” 다시보기 (Rethinking Coleridge's “I have a smack of Hamlet”)

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· 저자명 : 이경옥

초록

Rethinking Coleridge's “I have a smack of Hamlet”Abstract Kyung-Ook Lee

This essay attempts to rethink Coleridge’s remark, “I have a smack of Hamlet.” Coleridge has been considered as one of Shakespearean critics who was most responsible for forming the weak and irresolute image of Hamlet in the Romantic era. When he said “I have a smack of Hamlet,” people assuming that he identifies himself with Hamlet in a propensity of procreation, did not take it very seriously. Rather, they reacted depreciatingly to Coleridge’s idea of himself with a relation to Hamlet who they thought was too delicate but charming. And this kind of reaction seems to be present nowadays.
This essay, however, examines the remark from the perspective of Coleridge’s ideas of human existence and human thinking. Coleridge has both positive and negative notion of human thought. For him, thinking is the mental faculty which may lead us to discover the truth and ultimately to confront with the infinite. However, on the negative level thinking can be deteriorated to disease. As he mentions that Hamlet is the play which makes him read Shakespeare’s plays from philosophical perspective, he sees the negative function of thinking which he finds in himself in Hamlet. Hamlet’s thinking produces another one that produces another one that produces another one until this reaches nowhere, eventually ending up with sense of guilt and self reproach. This pattern of thinking also occupies Coleridge’s mind.
This negative function of thinking is responsible for a sense of incompleteness of human existence. As shown in Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” soliloquy, Hamlet’s problem is human ignorance of his life including his life before birth and after death; in other words, human ignorance of himself. With this fundamental sense of incompleteness or uncertainty, he faces necessity to clarify all the mysteries which happened including his father's death and his mother's hasty marriage. All his thoughts only confine him in limbo between thoughts and action instead of solving problems. Coleridge like Hamlet aims to know himself by means of thinking only to find himself prisoned in limbo between thoughts and action.

영어초록

Rethinking Coleridge's “I have a smack of Hamlet”Abstract Kyung-Ook Lee

This essay attempts to rethink Coleridge’s remark, “I have a smack of Hamlet.” Coleridge has been considered as one of Shakespearean critics who was most responsible for forming the weak and irresolute image of Hamlet in the Romantic era. When he said “I have a smack of Hamlet,” people assuming that he identifies himself with Hamlet in a propensity of procreation, did not take it very seriously. Rather, they reacted depreciatingly to Coleridge’s idea of himself with a relation to Hamlet who they thought was too delicate but charming. And this kind of reaction seems to be present nowadays.
This essay, however, examines the remark from the perspective of Coleridge’s ideas of human existence and human thinking. Coleridge has both positive and negative notion of human thought. For him, thinking is the mental faculty which may lead us to discover the truth and ultimately to confront with the infinite. However, on the negative level thinking can be deteriorated to disease. As he mentions that Hamlet is the play which makes him read Shakespeare’s plays from philosophical perspective, he sees the negative function of thinking which he finds in himself in Hamlet. Hamlet’s thinking produces another one that produces another one that produces another one until this reaches nowhere, eventually ending up with sense of guilt and self reproach. This pattern of thinking also occupies Coleridge’s mind.
This negative function of thinking is responsible for a sense of incompleteness of human existence. As shown in Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” soliloquy, Hamlet’s problem is human ignorance of his life including his life before birth and after death; in other words, human ignorance of himself. With this fundamental sense of incompleteness or uncertainty, he faces necessity to clarify all the mysteries which happened including his father's death and his mother's hasty marriage. All his thoughts only confine him in limbo between thoughts and action instead of solving problems. Coleridge like Hamlet aims to know himself by means of thinking only to find himself prisoned in limbo between thoughts and action.

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