한국 셰익스피어 번역의 새로운 도약을 위한 제언

초록

Though there is a disagreement on whether 1914, 1919, or 1920 was the year Shakespeare was first translated into Korean, we must now be proud of the 100 year tradition of Shakespeare translation in Korea. Since the first introduction of him in early twentieth century, the year 1964 was a turning point of Shakespeare reception in Korea because the public witnessed two translated versions of “complete Shakespeare” to appear at the same time—one as a collaborative project by Shakespeare Association of Korea, the other by Jae-nam Kim, whose revised version (1971) has become the standard edition in Korea for a long time. During the year of 2016 when the world was in euphoric celebration of the 400th anniversary, the Korean readers again saw two “new” translations of “complete Shakespeare”—ironically again by Shakespeare Association of Korea and by Lee Sangsup, a professor emeritus in English. While investigating the two recent Korean translations of “complete Shakespeare” as well as several editions of individual plays, I investigate how conscious or oblivious the Korean translators have been about the issues of authorship, collaboration, canon, and (modern) editorial interference (or, to borrow Lukas Erne’s expression, the contribution of “modern collaborators”). I also address the issues of how “complete” the new complete translations are, in what sense they did establish or betray “completeness,” what improvement they have made in comparison to the earlier translations, and so on. And thus I propose the translators of Shakespeare should not only become a kind of editor but also a collaborator, whose intercultural transposition will make Shakespeare a Shakespeare for contemporary Korean readers. In the same vein, I’d suggest a Shakespeare translator should not simply be a ventriloquist puppet but be a conjuror whose faculty may help the literary ghost come back to life. The translator of Shakespeare’s works must indeed become, in Marjorie Garber’s words, a ghost writer.

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