외국문학으로서의 이태준 문학 - 일본문학과의 차이화(差異化)

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the characteristic features of the past studies in Japan on Lee Tae-jun and to investigate, based on the results of the analysis, what types of studies on Lee Tae-jun would be possible particularly in Japan. It was in 1941 that the Japanese first showed an interest in Lee Tae-jun’s literary works, when the Japanese translation of the collection of his novels was published. There was no Korean novelists but two, Lee Kwang-Su and Lee Tae-jun, whose literary works were translated into Japanese in the colonial days. The most definite reason why the Japanese became interestes in Lee Tae-jun was that his short stories showed a high level of completion. Therefore, the postwar study in Japan on Lee Tae-jun was also started by clarifying the structure of the mental world of the novelist, which lead his literary works to a high level of completion. Shokichi Cho paid attention to the fact that though Lee Tae-jun had aimed at becoming an activist in a racial movement in his youth, his failure in attaining his wish caused him to be a novelist. According to Cho, the motive for Lee Tae-jun’s aiming at becoming an activist in a racial movement was his wish to assimilate himself to his dead father. If such assimilation had been attained. Lee Tae-jun should have been liberated from his sense of being an orphan. However, his wish could not be fulfilled under the colonial circumstances at that time, and he was resigned to his fate as an orphan, and at the same time, to the fate as a novelist, a special profession allowed to the special fate as an orphan. It can be considered that Shokichi Cho’s understanding of Lee Tae-jun’s literary works has greatly been affected by his experience in Japanese literature. In the Japanese literary world, there was a novelist whose mental structure was poles apart from Lee Tae-jun’s. It was Naoya Shiga. His father was a living existence that oppressed him. Therefore, Shiga’s literary works were always created through his sense of conflict with his father. In Lee Tae-jun’s Iiterary works, we often find the situations in which the hero/heroine is unable to act in accordance with the dictates of his/her own sense. The reason for it can be clarified by making a comparison between his literary works and Shiga’s. In Shiga’s literary works, the hero/heroine acts in accordance with the dictates of his/her own sense. Hero’s/heroine’s decision is always made with confidence, as Shiga’s reaction to his living father. On the other hand, Lee Tae-jun created a virtual image of his dead father and tried to assimilate himself to it. In the background of hero's/heroine’s decision lies Lee Tae-jun’S vurtual image of his dead father. Therefore, such a decision cannot be made with confidence. The next step of the study in Japan on Lee Tae-jun was to clarify the philosophy that threaded through his short stories and long novels. Lee Tae-jun’s short stories have been highly estimated, while his long novels have always been estimated low. Toshikatsu Saegusa analyzed the personalities of the characters in Lee Tae-jun's long novels and classified them into several types. Through this work, it was cIarified that the most important motif for Lee Tae-jun’s long novels was the betrayal of love. This betrayal is characterized by the failure of the hero/heroine not only in love but also in his/her economic and social life. The hero/heroine, who failed in his/her life, is left behind the society and falls into a state just like an orphan. At this point of time, the characters in short stories and those in long novels are in the same situation. However, the characters in long novels do not disappear from the society without doing anything as in the case of those in short stories. They change their passion for love into the passion for trying to reform the society. Based on his analysis, Saegusa suggested that the reason for such an action is that they substituted love as a personal issue with the racial consciousness as a public issue. A Japanese novelist contrastive to Lee Tae-jun in this point was Kan Kikuchi. Kikuchi treated personal issues consistently on a personal level. As a consequence, Kikuchi’s long novels became popular ones. Lee Tae-jun left personal issues unsolved and replaced them with public ones. Owing to this, though his novels did not result in popular ones, they still remained immature ones with regard to the deepening of his consideration of a specific issue.