1960년대 한국문학전집의 발간과 문학 정전의 실험 혹은 출판이라는 투기

Abstract

This paper investigates the meaning of various completed Korean literary works for the celebration of the 60th anniversary of modern Korean literature, considering the relationship among the publication condition, the reading public and the socio-economical context. The sharp rise of complete collections needs serious consideration; the public desire for reading materials, the increased purchasing power of consumers, the new marketing system and the upgraded or differentiated publication planning. In poor conditions of publication market in the 1960s, the raid increase of the collected literary works catches our attention. With the radical division of the reading public since the late of 1950s, the introduction of a monthly installment sale system produced the structural reorganization of book market for the potential readers with purchasing power. In the 1960s, many publishing companies actually had to plan and publish various complete collections for survival in the poor book market system. Considering this situation, the publishing project for the 60th anniversary of modern Korean literature has a double meaning. It means not only a speculative publication in the logic of market, but also a symbolic ritual commemorating the memory of deceased writers and their works. Under the condition that the publisher’s existence depended entirely on the final consequence of its complete collections, the book market pressure ironically made the diversity of the complete series of Korean literature. Especially, in the middle of 1960s the flood of mass media produced not only the sense of existential crisis in the literary field but also a strong antipathy towards popularity. As a result, in the process of planning the collected literary works, the desire of editors was expressed in a radical way. As a kind of canonical experiment, the publishing project produced both an obsession with purity expanding the border of Pure literature and an active signification towards a healthy popularity.