1970년대 서정주의 세계여행론

Abstract

Seo, Jeongju, in 1977, had travelled to thirty-nine countries about for one year, and wrote essays on his world travel, The Story of World Wanderings serially in a newspaper. The aim of this paper is to examine the interrelationship between literary achievements of his later poetry and world travels, and especially is to have a new understanding of the status of Jilmajae Myth. It might be said that the influence of Seo, Jeongju in literary circle had diminished in those days. However, national folk tales and local narrative forms which were introduced to Jilmajae Myth stood at new turning point of both his poetic world and the history of Korean contemporary poetry. ‘Jilmajea’, a mythical space and traditional place, was accepted as an extraordinary representation of the Korean characteristics. As the local sentiments of ‘Jilmajae’ come into contact with ‘World’, what change has happened to Seo, Jeongju’s poetic literature? Paradoxically, after "Bride" and "The Singing of Best Singer" were published in 1972, Seo, Jeongju was absorbed in embodying the local space called ‘Jilmajae’, and at the same time he was imagining a broad world. In this context, ‘World Representation’ and ‘Traditional Sentimental Structure’ which appeared in the travel essays by Seo, Jeongju were reconsidered in this paper.