워즈워스의 『서곡』에 나타난 카니발적 상상력

Abstract

In the perspective of M. M. Bakhtin's theory of the carnival in Rabelais and His World, this paper examines the ‘carnivalesque imagination' in William Wordsworth's autobiographical poem, The Prelude. The key phrase of the paper refers to various characteristics of the medieval popular carnival such as the carnivalesque ambivalence, the gay relativity, the inversion of the social hierarchy, and the people's festive laughter demolishing the cosmic and political fear of death and oppression. In The Prelude, the motif of the canivalesque imagination can be found not only in the romantic symbol of the “correspondent breeze” at the beginning but also in various climactic episodes of the so-called “spots of time,” and most importantly, in Wordsworth's ambiguous representation of the French Revolution and the St. Bartholomew Fair in London, and finally in the poet's hope for the future of humanity at the end. In view of Bakhtin's theory of the carnival, Wordsworth's poem ultimately celebrates the ambivalent but creative power of the carnivalesque imagination shared both by humanity and nature.