Earticle

초록

영어

This paper investigates the social function of William Shakespeare’s plays in nineteenth-century America, focusing on how Shakespearean eloquence served to promote the abolitionist movement. While many scholars discuss the significant contribution Shakespearean education made to the formation of early America’s cultural homogeneity and social unity, little attention has been paid to the historical fact that Shakespeare’s work also involved in fostering various political debates, especially when civic leaders criticized social injustice such as racial slavery. In this respect, this essay examines a selection of abolitionist texts from William Lloyd Garrison, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Frederick Douglass, and William Wells Brown, suggesting that these four prominent abolitionists used Shakespeare as a means to legitimize their egalitarian ideals and, in turn, contest American democracy in its flawed state. Conceived as a symbol for egalitarian social change in the revolutionary period, Shakespeare’s plays helped facilitate the abolitionist movement that made it possible to envision the future of American democracy in a more ethical way.

목차

I. Introduction
 II. Politicizing Shakespeare as an Abolitionist Language
 III. The Shakespeare Culture in the Black Abolitionist Movement
 IV. Conclusion
 Works Cited
 Abstract

키워드

저자

• Kim, Yugon [ 김유곤 | Sungkyunkwan University ]

참고문헌

발행기관

간행물

표지보기 관심저널 등록

• 간행물명

  영어영문학연구 [The Jungang Journal of English Language and Literature]

• 간기

  계간

• pISSN

  1598-3293

• 수록기간

  1968~2026

• 등재여부

  KCI 등재

• 십진분류

  KDC 840 DDC 810