‘근대초극’에서 ‘순수문학’으로 : 조연현 문학의 형성과 전개

Abstract

The purpose of this writing is to illuminate the literary achievement in Jo Yeon-hyeon (趙演鉉) as a critic with facing the 100th anniversary of his birth. The criticism of ‘irrationalism’ that Jo Yeon-hyeon did spread in the new system era formed the archetype in his literature. His archetypal literature theory, which was developed in the colonial period, was transformed with being continued the theory of criticism and the narrative of literary history, the ideology of 『modern literature』 after the liberation. The criticism of modern times that had a blind faith in rationality and reasonableness is an important thought-history flow, which can be found even in the Western intellectual system. Jo Yeon-hyeon's irrationalism is connected with the Japanese imperialist ideology in reality, but was demoted to negative legacy with privileging pure literature after the liberation. However, it is a fact that the literature of irrationalism that he raised had been a critical task in the History of the Korean Modern Literature Thought. Criticism on him will need to be put in justifying his political journey with failing to pursue this significant task to the end. It is a fact that Jo Yeon-hyeon's life and literature left many negative harmful effects in Korean literature, but are throwing a question, which will need to be still explored in the dimension of a thought-history task, of an existing method in criticism, and of a literature system.