근대 초기 이솝우화가 갖는 의의

Abstract

Historically, in the early modern period, the Korean Empire was an arena for competition between other stronger nations and its people tried to be independent from the world powers. A newly emersed group of intellectuals strove to enlighten their nations in various ways and we call it ‘enlightenment campaign rooted in patriotism’. They were extremely excited by the new Westerm culture and knowledge and made great efforts in enlightening children by containing Western stories which were translated into Korean on their textbooks and magazines for children. Among them, Aesop’s Fables, timeless stories with a moral, gave children a refreshing jolt because the stories used appropriate figure of speech using humans and animals’ attributes. The first book contained Aesop’s Fables was ‘Shin Jeong Shim Sang So Hak’, a textbook for children which was published at the end of the Joseon Dynasty. Also this paper treated with textbooks, ‘Cho Deung So Hak(An Elementary Korean Book)’, ‘Kuk A Dok Bon(Korean reading book for elementary school students)”, the magzines, ‘So Nyun(A Boy)’, ‘Ai Deul, Boy(The children, Boy)’, ‘Sae Byul(A New Star)’and the newpaper for kids, ‘Bulgen Jeogori(The Red Jacket)’ which included various stories of Aesop’s Fables at the early stage of the modern Korean literature. At the earlier textbooks and newspapers, Aesop’s Fables stressed on universal morals for children but later all the stories were strongly infected by censorship and suppression of Japanese colonial authorities and were perverted. It means moral aspects of Aesop’s Fables cannot be free from political and social changes of a nation. Aesop’s Fables influenced the modern Korean children’s literature significantly. First of all, it performed its own roles when modern children’s literature was in its embryonic stage in Korea. Secondly, Aesop’s Fables played a textbook role for morality. Thirdly, it was regarded and recognized as a new genre of children’s literature. Finally it has contributed to children’s literary attainments in many ways. I tried a new aspects of study to examine position and significance of Aesop’s Fables in the underdeveloped stage of Korean children’s literature and treated with the interesting traces of Aesop’s Fables in the whole history of Korean children’s literature.