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영어

The purpose of this paper is to analyse what political desire is embedded in the main characters' love in Dido Queen of Carthage. Especially it will be interesting to observe how the contemporary Elizabethan English politic context is connected with the love scenes of the play. This play does not simply present the conflict between love and duty, but the conflict between Aeneas's colonialism to rebuild Troy and Dido's desire to attract European hero. What is important is that the conflict between African and European culture represented by the love of Dido and Aeneas does not only justify the imperial desire but reveal the injustice of the imperial desire and the disaster it causes. It is raised as Aeneas's heroic aspects decline and Dido's heroism rises. This play seems to emphasize the importance of gods' will and the fortune of the country rather than individual desire. Aeneas follows Jupiter's order and leaves Dido to found Rome. It seems to designate that his duty is much greater than the love with a woman. This view makes it possible to insist that Dido's love is not noble but vain and foolish. Dido and her love become just a means for Aeneas to complete his noble duty. However, we can find another desire through the subversive elements in this play. It is the desire to challenge God, to suspect the monarch's authority, and to value the individual and the other. This desire is revealed in the sense that Dido obtains the typical Malovian heroism, and in the sense that the gods are portrayed comically and absurdly. Dido becomes the symbolic means to resist the European imperialism, representing exploited Africa.