초서의 죽음관 -영웅, 성인, 악당의 죽음- (Chaucer’s Concept of Death -The Death of Hero, Martyr and Rascal-)

서지정보

· 발행기관 : 경희대학교 인문학연구원
· 수록지 정보 : 인문학연구 / 26호 / 296 ~ 319페이지
· 저자명 : 김정애

초록

초서의『캔터베리 이야기』중 죽음을 다룬 네 이야기를 선택하여 초서의 죽음관을 고찰하였다. <기사 이야기>의 아르시타 죽음에 대한 묘사는 인간의 이원론을 전제로 아르시타의 육체가 죽은 후 가슴에 있던 영혼이 몸을 떠나 그곳에 어딘지는 모르지만 다른 곳으로 이동하여 삶을 계속해 나간다고 말한다. 이교도인 아르시타가 인생의 절정기에 맞이한 죽음은 애도하기 보다는 칭송받아야 마땅하며 그의 죽음은 팔라몬과 에밀리의 결혼을 통해 재생산이라는 삶의 사이클로 확장된다.
<수녀원장 이야기>와 <두 번째 수녀 이야기>는 모두 순교자의 죽음을 다룬다. 성모찬가를 부르다 유대인에게 살해된 소년과 결혼 후에도 정절을 지키며 이교도 숭배를 거부하고 교수형을 당하는 세실리아, 이 두 사람은 모두 목이 잘린 채 노래를 하고 설교를 하는 기적을 보이고 그 영혼이 하늘로 올라간다. 기독교 성인의 죽음은 육체의 죽음으로 끝나는 것이 아니라 영혼의 부활로 다시 태어난다.
<면죄승 이야기>는 세 악당의 죽음 이야기로 죽음을 죽이겠다는 이들의 모험은 역설적으로 자신들의 죽음으로 끝난다. 탐욕, 불경, 살인과 같은 죄를 지은 이들의 죽음은 육체적인 죽음인 동시에 정신적인 죽음으로 죽은 후 영혼의 삶은 보장되지 않는다.
서로 다른 세 장르-로맨스, 성인전, 설교-에서 젊은 기사의 영웅적 죽음, 순교자의 죽음, 죄에 빠진 악당들의 죽음을 다루면서 인간의 필멸성과 함께 영혼 구원의 문제에 초점을 맞추고 있다.

영어초록

Classical and medieval scholars thought of man as having a body and a soul. The most popular concept of soul was the Platonic one in which the soul survived the body and could continue to live in an afterlife. Belief in an immortal soul continued to be strong in medieval Christians and endowed a life of misery with significance and purpose.
War, famine and plague marked the 14th century of England, and the cult of death was reflected in art and literature and had influenced the medieval mind. Likewise death is much talked about in the four tales of Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales: The Knight’s Tale, The Prioress’s Tale, The Second Nun’s Tale and The Pardoner’s Tale.
In the Knight’s Tale, the long description of Arcite’s death shows that his internal wound causes the death of his flesh but his soul moves out of his body and goes to the unknown place and lives on there. After the death of Arcite Theseus argues his death had a good side in the sense that he died in his finest hour, increasing his glory and was free from this foul prison of this life. Theseus’s speech is an attempt to justify the ways of God to men just as Lady Philosophy says to Boethius in The Consolation of Philosophy. Though Arcite’s death brings the momentary disorder in Athenian society, Theseus offers a consolatory view of Arcite’s death, alluding the First Mover, who has established that each form of life exists within a prescribed span of time. It is pointless to lament a death which was inevitable. After Arcite’s death, Theseus arranges the marriage between Palamon and Emily through which life could be continued by way of reproduction.
Both the Prioress’s Tale and the Second Nun’s Tale are about the death of sainted martyrs. The cult of human sacrifice celebrates the violent death, the sacrifice of human beings who were eventually canonized as saints. Two tales try to find the spiritual meaning of death, salvation and eternal life in heaven. Though the Prioress’s Tale lacks some characteristics of a saint’s legend such as temptation scene, verbal trial, physical torture, two tales are similar in the sense of the specific manner of the saint’s martyrdom, i.e., cutting of throat and continued singing or preaching. The theme of the Speaking Corpse erases the boundary between life and death, making the living and dead body one. After their death, the souls of the saints go up to the heaven. Cecelia is a new kind of saint who is valued for her active engagement with the world, for her service of the poor, the civic virtue in pursuit of the common good by giving away all her property to the poor.
The Pardoner’s Tale is about death of lay men. The three rascals and Old man see death in opposite ways. The rascals want to kill Death and the Old man wants to be killed by Death in vain. Their adventure of pursuing Death ends in total death of body and soul, which is the triumph of sin and death. The two senses of death, physical and spiritual, unite in the death of the rascals whose avarice leads to crime and death. The rascals all die without time to repent and their physical death means the spiritual death which culminates to the eternal damnation.
Chaucer’s treatment of the death of young knight, martyr, and rascal shows his philosophy about human being’s mortality and in turn moral concern of well-dying.

참고자료

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