1930년대 후반기 시에 나타난 ‘가난’의 의미

Abstract

The Meanings of ‘Poverty’ in the Poetry in the Latter Half of the 1930's－With a Focus on the Poems by Paek Seok and Lee Yong AkLee Kyung SooThe purpose of this study was to examine the meanings of “poverty” in the poems in the latter half of the 1930's by focusing on the works by Paek Seok and Lee Yong Ak. In their poems, “poverty” gets to have a new meaning referring to the mental space that the poets possess beyond its common concept of physical destitution.In the poems by Paek Seok, poverty represents the space where the poet is willing to stay along with the beings he feels connected to, meaning “voluntary poverty.” He doesn't highlight poverty as physical destitution much in his poems. On the other hand, the poverty in the poems by Lee Yong Ak is more closely related to physical destitution and accompanied by his own self－consciousness of shyness and a sense of shame. In his poems, poverty is not restricted to personal meanings but expands its meaning to the reality of the Korean people under the Japanese rule. Although the two poets adopt different ways to present the meanings of poverty and to embody it in their poems, they share a common feature that their poverty has something to do with a sense of loss of the poetic subject. Representing the poetry in the latter half of the 1930's, the poems by Paek Seok and by Lee Yong Ak don't limit the meaning of poverty to the physical destitution at the end of the Japanese rule and add another meaning of the poets' mental space to it. The poems by the two poets in which poverty is embodied give a glimpse of how they faced the world beyond control, took up a challenge, and maintained their moral probity during the difficult times at the end of the Japanese rule.