이광수와 ‘국민시’

Abstract

‘Kookminsi’ in the late period of the Japanese rule of Korea was colonial literature and imperialist literature at the same time. As a upper level concept, ‘kookminmunhak’ strongly advocated that making Koreans Japanese was the primary condition necessary to overcome colonial sit- uations, rebirth as Japanese ‘nationals,’ and advancement to the status in world history. In other words, ‘kookminmunhak’ was a means to ex- press false desire to grow into more powerful civilization/nation through alteration of the subject and the people. This essay examines such kind of desire of Lee Kwang Soo by way of ‘kookminsi’ directly embodying soul and emotion of the subject. First of all, he paid attention on ‘spir- itual lineage’ as a foundation for ‘kookminmunhak.’ For him, ‘spiritual lineage’ was a key mechanism to identify identity and orthodoxy of the people/nation. He accepted ‘the Japanese spirit’, valued newly in the Meiji period, as the principle of the birth of new subject and nation. Creation and translation of Japanese traditional poetry waka(和歌) was satisfactory writing for this purpose. It should be noted that waka was a newly ‘made tradition’ of value in the Meiji period to seek national and ethnic identity of Japan, and absolutization/beautification of the Emperor of Japan was at the center. Lee Kwang-Soo’s waka was a national anthem and song of loyalty to the king fully in conformity with this principle. In the meantime, his ‘kookminsi’ chose ‘the youth’ especially to realize the desire to become Japanese, namely, grow into more powerful nation. He used all this resources to mobilize young Korean people for war, recognizing that self-annihilation of ‘the youth’ for the sake of the country was the most effective means for Koreans to become Japanese and perpetuity of the people. He beautified the death of ‘the youth’ as ‘a Bodhisattva’s behavior,’ for the purpose of empha- sizing it as transformation of the subject being reborn as Japanese and existential behavior transcending limited life, rather than being false and consumptive. However, this is highly regressive and violent in that it was a mental manipulation to conceal and delete basic human emotions such as fear, agony, and desire to survive of young people, who were doomed to die. They were finally registered as a ‘nation’ through their death, rejected to become a common man at the same time.