장소의 생성과 지역문학

Abstract

Local literature identifies, produces, and sustains the emotions and consciousness of the community. Place is deeply involved in these action. This study explores how local literature expresses such places. Place becomes the object of expression and becomes the most prominent sign of the identity of local literature. Place and local literature are so closely linked. To explore this topic in detail, I would like to trace the sign of the place of Yuseong and Sintanjin. Yuseong and Sintanjin are the most prominent places in Daejeon’s local literature. They are constantly signed in writing, demonstrating that they are local literature. This sign does not only have a simple descriptive relationship to place, but also implies ambiguity as a literary symbol. It is possible when this sign is not just a reproduction of a place but its expression. Yuseong and Sintanjin as a place clearly show that it is an expressed place, not a reproduced place. At this time, placeness is generated. In that sense, the place belongs to the realm of expression to be unfolded infinitely and also folded. Place is expressed and constitutes local identity, further creating the specificity of local literature. Place is expressed and serialized into a metaphorical structure. Yuseong and Sintanjin, which formed a material presence as a series, become a nonmaterial sign, a nonmaterial sign that creates a mental meaning. Yuseong or Sintanjin, as an indication of a place, takes off materiality and be molecularized into images. Thus, Yuseong and Sintanjin are largely divided in the literature of Daejeon into symbols representing four categories: landscapes, events, relationships, and non-places. Events in places create a sense of place and become citizens’ lives. Relationships with people there are also memories of finding truth. The emergence of non-placeness implies the loss of sense of place damaged by development and the willingness to restore it. Local literature restores place in the crisis of non-placeness. The literary place of Yuseong and Sintanjin is an indication of such possibility. They introduce the unique structure of human marking into the local literature of Daejeon.