김종삼 시에 나타난 기억과 증언의 방식 -‘증언(불)가능성’의 증언을 위해

Abstract

The structure of testimony in Kim Jong-sam’s poetry reveals an intention towards the possibility of giving testimony despite the reality of its impossibility. This study examines the poetry of Kim Jong-sam to understand the perspective of witnessing the lack of testimony. Kim Jong-sam’s poetry is meticulously written as a proxy for past events, especially when the event is death. The subject of his poetry is the recognition of the impossibility of testimony, and in the face of such a reality, of providing testimony through preservation of memory. A methodology of testimony here can be understood as taking the place of silence and empty space. War and massacre, which essentially represent the problem of death, are portrayed through memory in Kim Jong-sam’s poetry. The survivor narrator attempts to speak from memory, but testimony on the actual event takes the form of silence. The narration of death events is never communicated in Kim Jong-sam’s poetry. This reflects this poet’s unique perspective on the inability to easily speak about death as a survivor living in a post-war generation. In his poetry, the narration, which does not rely on memory, can be seen in his use of place. The narrator discovers the traces of death and loss where he is in the moment. Memory makes it possible to discover traces of something where there is no trace of it. His poetry manages to capture traces of events that have left no evidence of themselves behind. This is not the process of narrativizing a historical memory, but the memory captures the places that threatened us through traces. Kim Jong-sam exhibits an ethical standard in his poetry by not being quick to narrativize memory, which can be considered a virtue of his poetry. Rather, he uses the traces of memory’s ever-present actuality to actualize history to the current moment. Evidence is constantly erased. Traces of it are etched into inerasable memory, thus proving testimony’s importance.