서항석의 표현주의 연극 수용 연구

Abstract

This paper investigates the literary and dramatic values of Seo, Hang-seok, referred to as a producer, critic, and pioneer in foreign drama theories, who contributed to the development of modern Korean drama in 1920s and 1930s. It explores his role in introduction and reception of the German expressionist dramas compared with that of Hyeon, CeolㆍPark, Yyeong-hiㆍChoe, Hak-song and so on. Seo, Hang-seok is a symbolic figure of Korean theatre who was instrumental in the development of modern Korean theatre since the foundation of the Research Society of Drama through his whole life; He, Dong-A Ilbo reporter, plays a crucial role in founding the Research Society of Drama and its further activities; His practical criticism rectified the general tendencies of the contemporary commercial dramas and his guidance for student theatre movement became a basis of modern Korean theatre. Secondly, he was the practical theorist of modern Korean theatre who introduced the foreign drama theories including German expressionism and representative foreign dramatists and dramas. As a German literary critic, his introduction and reception of exrpessionist dramas was not unconditional but rather critical. He did not introduce German expressionism from Japanese translation, but from German materials: He documented explicitly the source of theories in his articles: He clarified the literary values of expressionism and evaluates its merits and demerits in a history of German literature. On the basis of these many points, his writings can be distinguished from those of his contemporaries' introductions of expressionism. Despite all of these excellences, he could not avoid some idealism and impatience many colonial intellectuals have had. He could not bloom all of his dramatic abilities because of his idealism shown in translated dramas, his experimentalism in ignoring Korea's colonial situation, the lack of understanding the reality in his contemporary theatrical scenes, the biased attitudes of professionals in dramas from the common people. This paper still leaves two points to be studied more: firstly, comparing Seo, Hang-seok's various activies with the expressionist movement in Japan and clarifying some reflections in a process of introducing and receiving German expressionism in Korea.