문학사와 탈식민성 －김현을 중심으로

Abstract

Kim Hyun intended to overcome the schema in his Korean Literature History(1973) such as ‘Modern literature = Western literature.’ This general concept shows that Korean modern literature still could not get out of the colony of western literature. This stereotype is prominent in the history of Korean literature influenced by Im Wha's theory of transplanted literature. Kim Hyun aimed at revealing the character of this colonialism and defeating it in the history of Korean modern literature. He regards this colonialism as the passive method in which people can not help depending on the outer viewpoint to resolve the conflict of their own society. The thinking structure of the political judgement in the past colonial period had continued to the critics' cultural judgement of 1950's. They insisted on 'the theory of interrupted tradition'. They asserted that western literature should be imported so as to overcome the underdevelopment condition of Korean literature. However this way of thinking regards the relationship between Korean literature and western literature as that of master and servant, and as that of the original and the copy. As the result, they deny the difference between the two and confine their theory to the system of identification. This theory of interrupted tradition makes the negative understanding to the foreign literature spread and forces to select one of the alternatives. However this theory of the selecting one of the alternatives just corresponds to the logic of colonialism. The literature history written by Kim Hyun defeats this logic. He criticizes the blind reliance on the universality of western literature in order to set up such correction. Western literature or their theory can not directly resolve our own problems because it has been produced to solve the problems of their society. It's ‘validity’ was just approved from their society not from ours. Therefore first, western literature has to be considered as ‘the valid’ of a specific society and not as a original work which we should follow after. Second, hybrid culture produced in the process of copying western literature has to be evaluated positively. Third, ‘epistemological rupture’ which Gaston Bachelard had referred to might be induced so as to exclude the concept of straighten progress in the history of Korean literature. There were already several cases of interrupted tradition due to the shock of the imported culture in the history of Korean literature, and those cases proves the existence of the non-straighten time system. Then Korean modern literature which has formed under the influence of western literature has to be rearranged in the view of the epistemological rupture. Kim Hyun's Korean Literature History is the product of this desire.