서정주와 1970년대 영원주의－『西으로 가는 달처럼…』을 중심으로－

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to reconsider the interrelationship between ‘traditionalism’ and ‘pure literature’ focusing on Seo Jeong-ju’s world travel essays in the late of 1970s. The ‘Perennialism’ (or Eternity), one of his significant literary characteristics, is a kind of integrative time transcending historical moments, in addition, is the central ideology of the Korean pure literary theory which searches for the deep essence of human. After the 1970s, the fact that ‘Jilmajae’ emerged, instead of ‘Shill’, became the interesting issue in reviewing that nationalistic nature that his a variety of literature carry. It is possible to interpret his world travelogue as a meaningful event that expanded worldwide the ‘things of Jilmajae’. In other words, his travel served as a momentum to extend nationality, tradition, and the East to world as an ideology which possesses world universality. Therefore, his poetical works, the moon going to the West, published during the 1970s in which the theory of National Literature suddenly emerged, deserves to be called a trans-national text of pure literature and perennialism as well as his individual world travelogue.