On Carnival And Subversion

As a giant of literature, Shakespeare enjoys a prestige of everlasting glamour, alongwith his infinitely brilliant works. Voluminous works on Shakespearean Criticism havebeen conducted for centuries. Focusing on his romantic works As You Like It and TwelfthNight, this thesis will probe into the carnival features against the official dogma throughthe lenses of postmodernist approach, with the explication that Shakespeare welldeconstructs and subverts the long established social conventions, pointing out that thedepiction of the carnival world is merely a method other than a purpose. Adopting thedescription of various aspects of life in the carnival world, the author concludes a wholenew relationship between the “otherized” carnival world and Shakespeare’s ideal world.This thesis can be divided into four parts:The first part is the introductory chapter, which provides in proper sequence apanorama of an introduction to Shakespeare and his romantic plays, an introduction toTwelfth Night and As You Like It, theoretical bases of the reading, literature review andsignificance of the study.The second and the third chapter constitute the body part of this thesis, whichrespectively take a postmodernist reading of the two romantic comedies. Chapter twopresents a confrontation of the official world and the carnival world, which proceeds to thesubversion and deconstruction of the official world in Twelfth Night, mainly in lights ofthe subversion of hierarchy, puritanical values and traditional function of words.In chapter three, employing the same structure as chapter two, it demonstrates anantagonism between the official world and the carnival world, which also proceeds to thesubversion and deconstruction of the official world in As You Like It, principally throughthe subversion of authoritative life philosophy and traditional gender roles.Chapter four is the conclusion, in which the author of this thesis reviews the abovementioned ideas on the carnival features in the “otherized” world Shakespeare presents from the postmodernist perspective, and puts forward the relationship between the carnivalworld and Shakespeare’s ideal society. Moreover, limitations of this study are pointed outand the author proposes some suggestions for the future research.