햄릿과 그의 세계: 하이데거의 󰡔존재와 시간󰡕을 통한 실존론적 존재론 고찰

Abstract

A wide range of modern essays written by contemporary critics have dealt with various aspects of the play in a large number of topics from character, theme, language to politics, and ideology. Traditional literary criticism on Shakespeare has always been concerned with the question of Being in tragedy within the scheme of sin, corruption, suffering, repentance, and salvation. Such traditional readings of Shakespeare are primarily concerned with the triumph of the good of a hero over the evil under the providence of God. In opposition to such traditional criticism stand more recent poststructuralistic readings: Psychoanalyticism, New Historicism, Cultural Materialism, Marxism, and Feminism. In the middle of these two extremes stands Heidegger’s existential ontology as a transitional foundation on which deconstructive readings are triggered off. Though there are some resistance against Heidegger’s political, idealogical traces in American and British criticism, it seems rather regrettable that there has been no such study on the whole text of Hamlet through Heidegger’s existential ontology. Heidegger’s ontological inquiries into human existence are well suited for examining tragedy. Heidegger can throw light on tragedy, but tragedy can throw light on our understanding of Heidegger’s philosophy. This is indeed the case with Hamlet. From Heidegger’s ontological view, Hamlet is a tragedy which demands remembering the forgetfulness of Being. Heideggerian ontology provides us with such insight that Hamlet can be more clearly understood in the context of historical milieu in which Hamlet is thrown. Hamlet is not a drama in which Hamlet’s life is machinated by God on the stage of the world; but it is a drama in which his life is disclosed in a historical scene. Hamlet lives in the world in which he is intertwined with the Others. Denmark is a swirl of the world in which Hamlet is thrown as Being-in-the-world. This essay explores Hamlet and his world on Heidegger’s existentiale of existential-ontology so that I can lay bare the basic state of Dasein: Hamlet as being-in-the-world; inauthenticity of Claudius and the surrounding characters; Hamlet’s “To be, or not to be”: boredom, melancholy and anxiety; Claudius’s conscience and terror; and Hamlet’s call of conscience; Hamlet’s readiness and death in Heidegger’s existential temporality.