해방공간을 횡단하는 세 유형의 시적 실천: 임화, 정지용, 서정주의 글쓰기에 재현된 ‘인민’의 문제를 중심으로

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to compare ‘people(인민)’ and ‘nation(민족)’ represented in different ways in the literary texts of Imhwa, Jeong Ji-yong, and Seo Jeong-ju during the liberation period, and to examine the differences in political and poetic practice accordingly. Im Hwa's literature during the liberation period is concentrated as the word ‘path to the people’. Based on the concept of self-formed people, or ‘we, the people’, it was a way to imagine and practice people's sovereignty while fighting against non(or anti)-people within the people, or anti-nation within the nation on the premise of ‘people=nation= embodied person of truth’, and it was a way of people’s solidarity advocating the leadership of the working class. This line was expressed in Im Hwa’s poetry through a clear dichotomous confrontation structure between the enemy and the comrades (or friend), and a vow of revenge of blood. The ‘path to the people’ was eventually depicted in the poem as a path of resentment and revenge. Under the influence of Im Hwa, Jeong Ji-yong also accepted the discourse of people from the standpoint of the middle faction or centrism. However, to him, the people were just a number of groups (multiple⸱다중) that remained as the oppressed multiple, and they were helpless beings who could not fight to win their own sovereignty. Jeong Ji-yong, who could not imagine or reproduce the people as a political ‘body’, compared his situation to the situation of a ‘person who stammers in the dark’ and kept silent at the end. On the other hand, Seo Jeong-ju, went on the path to the ‘nation(국민)’ opposite to the ‘people’. In other words, he denied the modern state based on the ‘people= nation(민족)’, and was led to a choice of the ‘anti-people(반인민)= anti-nation(반민족)’ line negating the people's sovereignty and approaching the fascistic power. For him, the ‘people(인민)’ was a noise-like being that should be ignored in the newly established state, and a being that should remain helpless in the end. So, he idealized the mythical and ethnic hero in his poetry for this reason, and he developed a mythical imagination about leading to such beings. He imagined the generous rule of the mythical character and a community composed of the ‘people’ who conformed to it. It is a country that will be established with the so-called ‘Silla spirit(신라정신)’.