earticle

영어

This paper explores Shakespeare’s representation of political controversies over sovereignty in relation to two prominent but seemingly incompatible notions of monarchy in the early modern period: sacred kingship and Machiavellian principality. Particularly, analyzing a king’s virtue, competence, and legitimacy in his plays staged just before and after the ascension of King James I to the English throne, this paper examines the tension between a monarch’s morality and competence, which King James triggered in his The Trew Law of Free Monarchies. On the one hand, Shakespeare raises questions about the unique aspect of legitimately elected usurpers, Claudius and Macbeth, direct questions for James’s arguable defense of legitimate and divinely-ordained tyrant in Hamlet and Macbeth. On the other hand, the playwright depicts a monarchical attempt to create compatibility between sacred and practical kingship through Duke Vincentio’s disguise as a friar and his actual mimesis of priesthood, the symbolic but arguable embodiments of divine rule on the earth. Therefore, Shakespeare presents to the audience/readers an opportunity to ponder over the ambivalence about sacred kingship in relation to King James’ argument for divinely ordained but immoral kings.