ScholarWorks@숙명여자대학교

초록

Francis Beaumont's The Knight of the Burning Pestle includes three separate plots, which, at the first sight, do not seem to be logically connected to one another: a city comedy, a chivalric romance, and what is close to a farce created by George and Nell. And it is my contention that the most important step to the meaning of the work as a whole would be understanding the citizen George and his wife Nell. Since they are spectators of the drama, actors in the drama,and surrogates of the poet, to comprehend who they are, what their functions in the work are, and what the author tries to say through the couple is an inevitable step for us to see the core of the work. Their role in the drama is paradoxical, for they interrupt the proceedings of the plot and at the same time create their own drama. While criticizing and evaluating the characters of the drama, they induce the audience's criticism towards themselves. Through the couple and the drama produced by them, Beaumont criticizes and ridicules both the upper class and citizens in the seventeen-century England. It is the most significant aspects of the work that the drama parodies and satirizes both classes together. George and Nell are in fact the main characters of the work. The Knight of the Burning Pestle establishes itself as one of the greatest Renaissance drama through their incompatible and ingenuous wits. This paper is to re-examine the parody and satire in the work while re-reading what they say and do in the work.

키워드