한국 구비문학의 성격과 민족문화의 정체성 ― ‘호랑이설화’를 예로 들어

Abstract

This paper investigates what correlation characteristics of Korean oral literature and the identity of national culture do and should have with each other. While the ‘characteristics of oral literature’ have been made clear, we don’t have any clear concepts of what are the ‘characteristics of Korean oral literature. Due to this, it is rather a difficult task to discuss them in tandem with the ‘identity of national culture.’ Thus, in order to solve these two problems, in the dimension of seeking the identity of national culture, this paper first of all checks previous works that have discussed how Korean oral literature has been used and recognized historically, and indicates their limitations. In general, the use and recognition of Korean oral literature have been focused on the subject of creation and transmission of oral literature, and constantly produced discourses about national culture around oral literature. However, needless to say, we cannot resolve the given issues in such a way because the discussion of the identity of national culture in relation to Korean oral literature should make reference to its contents. To address this problem, what this paper tries to propose is the viewpoint of ‘ethnic zoology.’ We can get some clues to the clarification of the correlation between such recognition and the identity of national culture by examining how the recognition of national symbolic animals in oral literature has been formed. This paper discusses this issue with ‘tiger tales’ as its object. As a result, it makes the point that two viewpoints from effective use and misuse of national culture may have important influence on the formation of ‘identity’ or of discourses. Consequently, the correlation between the characteristics of Korean oral literature and the identity of national culture can be determined by the regulation of these two viewpoints.