시조, ‘국민사상’과 ‘국민시가’의 사이 －이태극론－

Abstract

This paper looked into the aesthetic characteristics and literary value of mainly the sijo by Lee Tae-geuk and his theory of sijo. Lee Tae-geuk is considered to have served as a trigger for the rise of the secondary revival theory of sijo during the later period of the 1950s through his advocating the “Revival Theory of Sijo” with the start of his literary career. This paper shows that he elucidated the importance of “national ideology” and “national morality”. For this, the paper emphasized the understanding of emotion and contents based on the life feeling of today’s people, the creation of a fixed rhythm of freer free verse, and the quotation of the type of saseol sijo (sijo with no restrictions on the length of the first two verses)and a gasa (one of the literary forms during the Joseon period, a form between a poem and prose) form. Later, in particular, he changed the name of “saseol sijo” into “jang sijo” (long sijo); thus, he insisted on the wide collection of the common emotion and life experience of Koreans. “National Ideology and Sijo Literature” published in 1955 is a book that represents the ideology and character of sijo by Lee Tae-geuk. In this book, he emphasized the need to overcome the ruin of Korea subsequent to colonial experience and division of the country and to utilize the patriotic avidity and ethical awareness inherent in sijo for the founding of a more enriched and stable people’s nation. These contents are carried through consistently in the sijo by Lee Tae-geuk. In particular, they constantly symbolized the humanization of nature and the willingness for its recovery. Also, Lee Tae-geuk participated actively in alteration of the sijo form in order to make sijo as “national poetry”. This includes the testing of a looser fixed rhythm that borrowed the rhythm of free verse, the extension of chapters and phrases, and an emphasis on the creation of jang sijo as a sijo to read. Through this, he desired that sijo would pass not as secondary art but as poetry that reflects the actual feelings and circumstances of the times in an extensive manner. The first publication and maintenance of “Sijo Literature”might be a media style projection for modernizing sijo and making sijo as a national poetry; however, Lee Tae-geuk was not active in practicing the traditional inheritance and modernistic change of “saseol sijo” emphasized in the “Revival Theory of Sijo”. This means that there was a failure to present in a fair manner the character of the masses, namely laughter and desire,which are uniquely reflected in saseol sijo. He believed it to be right to change “saseol sijo” named in the form of a tune into “jang sijo” in consideration of reading practice; however, the change of this form ultimately brought about many limitations in the work of inheriting correctly the character of the masses and the conversation attribute that were once achieved by sijo.