백석 시에 나타난 ‘동물’과 원시적 감성 고찰

Abstract

This study will investigate primitive meanings of Baekseok’s poetry focusing on animals. The way of living of the villagers appearing in “The Village Where a Fox Was Born” has something in common with the way of living of animals. In other words, all villagers have their own pains, such as Sinri aunt “whose face has star marks”, Tosan aunt who became “a second wife of a widower aged over 40 at the age of 16”, and the eldest aunt who is “a widow with red end of her nose wearing white clothes always”. However, the reason they can become one lightly on the holiday and sublimate their pains is because they live as they are like animals. There is no superiority or power in the animal’s life. In this context, the villager’s life is a state of nature as animals. Although they looks separated from each other, they communicate and are in harmony with each other. This is to show the primitive world. Next, symbols of many animals in Baekseok’s poetry were expressed identified with the poetic narrator. This attribute is shown in his poem, “I am also a long pale pollack”: because animals do not have individuality, they have a new continuity, and this feature opens even a new possibility. That is, the poetic narrator establishes his being through the continuity animals have. That is, in the expression “I am also a long pale pollack”, he is immersed in the sad and cold feelings. This is a homogeneous aspect between I and pollack, which shows animals and human beings are not different and essentially the same. In light of this, the poetic narrator shows through pollack the totality that the inner world and the outer natural world are not separated. This is primitive emotion, a state of essential mind. After that, Baekseok dreams community orientation based on the stable inner world through animals in the collections of fairy tale poems. Especially, a collection of fairy tale poems Four Brother of the Hermit Crab Family is composed of animal stories for child readers. Especially, “A Pot of Boiled Rice of a Frog and Its Friends” shows a frog is helped by its friends that it helped in the day, when it is in trouble. This poem shows community orientation through animals. The poet shows the essential and primitive value through a frog in the end. In his early poems, the poet recognized through animals totality which the inner world and the outer natural world are not separated, which is primitive emotion, which makes the poet establish the inner world. After that, he goes toward community orientation, more essential value, through animals based on the primitive emotion. The poet gives relationship between all isolated beings, embraces everything around him, and makes a peaceful world through animals appearing in his fairy tale poems. In this context, the primitive emotion is fundamental and essential to Baekseok.