메타모포시스(Metamorphosis)의 현장 - <情俠誌>와 영웅소설을 중심으로

Abstract

This paper focuses on Junghyeopji and its attention to the metamorphosis phenomenon based on the literary preferences of traditional heroic novels. Junghyeopji is closely connected to the narrative tradition of heroic novels, yet it demonstrates a different narrative orientation. While the tradition of heroic novels may have facilitated the reception of Muhyeop[=martial arts] novels, it also presents an element of unfamiliarity that contrasts with that comfort. This creates a blending of the familiar and the unfamiliar. Within Junghyeopji, this hybrid of familiarity and unfamiliarity is rooted in literary symbols, which act as a driving force for change. The readership of heroic novels, based on their literary experiences[=the familiar], contributed to the establishment of this new type of novel. However, this is not a process of dynamic displacement of the subject based on internal value systems and historical experiences. Rather, it is a bidirectional and simultaneous change occurring between the newly introduced genre and the receiving readership. It is the result of a creative contact arising from the influx of a new genre—specifically, the force driving the formation of genre rules at the boundary where the familiar and the unfamiliar interact. This is the emergence and variation of a new type, what is referred to as metamorphosis. At this point, one could conceive of the primordial source of the variation. However, that primordial source is not what fundamentally makes the new type possible. The source is a flexible entity that has experienced metamorphosis in the past. It is this entity that provides the driving force for metamorphosis by utilizing its inherent attributes. The familiarity of heroic novels and their literary symbols became the root cause of Junghyeopji’s attempt to establish Korean Muhyeop[=martial arts] novels, and the driving force for the promotion of metamorphosis.