글쓰기로서의 시쓰기 : 셰익스피어의 소네트 시집>에 나타난 메타-시적(meta-poetic)요소

Abstract

In attempting to read Shakespeare's Sonnets in a way different from the ways of the past, I begin my argument by quoting T.S. Eliot: About anyone so great as Shakespeare, it is probable that we can never be right; and if we can never be right, it is better that we should from time to time change our way of being wrong. Therefore, my reading of the Sonnets is, in a sense, one more "way of being wrong." There is a possibility, rather, a great probability, however, that my reading may prove to be right in a wrong way and/or wrong in the right way. Many critics have so far read the Sonnets as representing some aspects of Shakespeare's life. As Stephen Booth denies such claims to validity emphatically and categorically, this representational mode of interpretation of the Sonnets is shot through with many holes in it. The time has come for us to try a new way of reading the Sonnets by throwing out the old-fashioned method of representational interpretation. My reading of the Sonnets is in essence deconstructive in that I don't see any connection between some elements in the Sonnets and those in Shakespeare's life. What I am trying to say is that Shakespeare was writing the Sonnets as écriture. Therefore the fair young man and the dark lady are pure literary creations, as Booth claims. Just as Shakespeare urged the young man to marry so that his youth could be preserved through his male offspring, Shakespeare may have wanted to preserve his Sonnets by way of writing a meta-poetic ecriture.