A Study of Clothing Imagery emerging from Shakespeare's Drama I -Focusing on King Lear I

Shakespeare 희곡작품에 나타난 복식 이미저리 연구 I-"King Lear"를중심으로

The purpos대 f this research was to figure out clothing imagery underlying Shakepeare's King Lear and transfer it into actual stage costume. Three steps were taken in order to achieve the purpose . The first step exemined theoretical background of the Shakepeare's imagery. The second step reviewed a wide spectum of stage costume used in the last four centuries. The final step was to design and produced actual stage costume focusing on Lear, while considering clothing imagery drawn from the previous steps. King Lear contained rich clothing imagery which could contrast the relationship between material and spirit. In particular, it shed light on the contrast between Lear's divesting and Edgar's wearing and denoted that wearing and divesting processes were closely related to spiritual and status changes. A review of stage costume used for four centuries was prepared in order to understand how clothing imagery was applied in producing stage costume. It was found that their stage costume was reflecting clothing imagery captured from the analysis of king Lear. On the basis of this review, this research presented Lear's stage costume which applied clothing imagery drawn from King Lear. In producing stage costume , actual stage costume used Elizabethan fashion as its basic color and pattern. It also utilized modern clothing production techniques and ornaments acceptable in these days. As Lear was depicted as a character who underwent spiritual and status changes in the process of divesting , his costume was produced in line with this clothing imagery (i.e., divesting). The long journey of reviewing and analyzing King Lear from a stand point of clothing reassured us, on the one hand, the importance of stage costume. On the other hand, it established the groundwork for developing the methodology of fashion design by applying clothing imagery drawn from literature to design and production of stage costume.