백석 시와 무속

Abstract

This article aims to demonstrate that Baekseok’s constant interest in the traditional way of life in his hometown of Jung-ju derives from his search for identity. In the hometown that Baekseok portrays in his poems, traditional folk beliefs, values, morals, and ways of life are the standard rather than modern rationality. The local community passes on knowledge, belief systems, and customs through everyday life and oral traditions. Baekseok’s poems retain traces of rich oral traditions such as folklore, legends, local customs, and superstitions, and they reflect shamanistic themes taken from oral traditions instead of firsthand experience. The influence of oral tradition on Baekseok’s work is also evidenced by his colorful, rich phrases drawn extensively from vernacular speech and his descriptive and epic characterizations. Shamanistic experiences are an important part of Baekseok’s poems, and they directly influence The Village Full of Spirits. This poem provides clues to understanding the origins and hallmarks of Baekseok’s unique compositional style, known as “interweaving.” The poem’s content and structure are deeply rooted in Jung-ju’s regional folk song, “Shunning Spirits,” and a shamanistic song, “Gutguri.” In addition, the poem’s narrative also reveals the poetic narrator’s search for identity as he is caught between the premodern, shamanistic world and the modern world.On the surface, the poem recounts the narrator’s desire to leave his hometown, which is haunted by spirits, and his failure to do so. Escaping from these spirits could symbolize leaving behind a primitive, mythic world and moving into an enlightened world ruled by modern rationality. But the spirits named in this poem all abide in the everyday, domestic space and look after the family’s well-being, health, and prosperity. Therefore, the belief in these spirits’ existence cannot be reduced simply to savage and backward practices. Alternately, escaping from these spirits could signify relinquishing belief in the comfort and security provided by premodern life. From this perspective, the poem can be read in a new light: as a desire for modernity and the frustration of that desire. In other words, the narrator is inhibited not by spirits disempowered with the advent of the scientific age, but by unfulfilled desire or unconscious attraction to the comfort that premodern times offer. The themes reflected in The Village Full of Spirits suggest that the modernizing path that modern intellectuals-Baekseok included-took was not a smooth road but a bumpy one because modern and anti-modern forces exist simultaneously and in tension with each other.