현대시와 타자의 윤리학

Abstract

The terms “the Other“ or “Otherness” means who and what is alien and isolated from the norm or from identity in the modern civilized society. More specifically, it includes social minorities such as women, the colored, and homosexuals, as well as the human immaterial aspects such as emotion, unconsciousness, insanity, and imagination. From the perspective of Plato, who argues that a poet should be exiled from the Republic, poets belong to “the Other”. They have been isolated from western societies that emphasized on metaphysical philosophy or ego-centrism. In modern poetry of South Korea, “Otherness” are revealed in various literary conditions. In particular, poems written in 1990’s and onwards explore “Otherness.” Park Jinseong’s examines insanity, Choi Seongja’s, melancholy, Kim Kyeongmi’s, femininity, Kim Jiha’s, physical body, and Kim Seonwu’s, sexual desire. In addition, Some poets such as Chehogi, Lee Yeonju, Kim Shinyong, and Hwang Byeongseong explore socially underprivileged classes such as homosexuals, prostitutes, city slum residents, and trans-gender people respectively. Poets who shows interests in Otherness want to tell that the world can be more diverse, where individuals pursue their true self. Those poets advocate that a society should accommodate the minorities who exist as “the Other” because revelations of the Otherness in a society eventually expand the horizon of human lives. These poems expose an selfish human nature, and want to find out how “the Other” can co-exist in a society. That is, the modern poems of South Korea that explore the Otherness expand the horizon of Korean poems and persue moral and ethical balance.