백석의 만주 체험과 시

Abstract

This article is a critical examination of Baek-Seok’s trip to Manchuria and the poems he wrote during this period through the lens of the dialectics of modernity. This critical piece particularly focuses on the re-enchantment and exoticism running through his works during this period. This approach helps us understand the contradictions in the poet’s oeuvre and life, especially the coexistence of his highly modern aesthetic taste with his love for the traditional world and the shamanistic belief system. In the poems he wrote in Manchuria, he shows little interest in Manchuria and the people who live there. His focus is instead centered on his struggle to define his own identity, which was oscillating wildly in a strange, foreign world. In the midst of this turmoil, the poet recognizes in his work that his presence is rendered anonymous and that he himself is being erased. In his efforts to escape the situation, he dreams of emotional exile from “now and here” to back “then and there” or places himself “above the outer world,” foregrounding his self-consciousness as “the cursed poet.” In his self-reflexive, creative explorations, he finds a poet’s quality in “laziness.” He sees laziness as a state for accumulating creative energy and passion. Simultaneously, however, it can be read as passive resistance against the modernity that grinds and consumes humanity in the name of speed and efficiency. Baek-Seok returned to the Korean peninsula from Manchuria right after the collapse of Manchukuo. After his return, he remained in North Korea. This trajectory, seen in the light of his poems, can be read as a descent from a loftier self-perception to a more humble one. The poem “South Sinuiju Yudong Park Bong Bang” is a case in point. The imagery of “buckthorn tree” in the poem is a discovery about earthly subjects as opposed to the lofty ideals of a poet in which he was so invested during his years in Manchuria. It is a recognition he reaches as a result of his regrets for the past and his reflections on destiny. In this respect, the poem can be read as his reflexive letter of apology about his years in Manchuria as well as his premonitions about the upcoming years. Further research on the motivations and process of the changes in his understanding of self will open new avenues to understanding why the poet was determined to stay in North Korea. In this sense, there still remains room for academic and critical intervention in studies on Baek-Seok.