해방기 민족문학론과 현대시조

Abstract

The period after independence from the Japanese imperialism, it was possible to dream of a society with the consistency between nationality and the state. In the field of literature, men of letters advocated eradicating the remnants of the Japanese colonial rule through self-criticism and to firmly establish national literature to construct a state based on the concept of nationality, and they were thought to be immediate issues. Self-criticism, it could be argued, was a strategic move to occupy a position of dominance in national literature at the time. The discourse was based on the conceptualization of the Japanese occupation which dominates a subordinate state with inevitable way, and it was used to expand the sphere of those subject to criticism; the logic used was that in repenting and engaging in self-criticism, one could be allowed to participate in national literature. The establishment of national literature was considered to be a common issue of the literary field at the time, but different literary organizations, in terms of understanding and practice, showed different inclinations and participated in separate experiments. It was because the Korean society was reorganized under the influence of the dominant force that was the international order along the left-right ideological axis. In this era of turbulence after liberation, the genre of sijo ‘resurfaced’ as a national literature. Since sijo was a genre that was rediscovered or reevaluated as a ‘traditional’ form of national literature after modernization started, the discussion was an extension of the previous discourse on sijo. As well, from the special vantage point of the post-liberation politics of culture, the discussion at the time was redefinition of sijo as a genre with language and tradition as values to be pursued. Sijo was considered to be a property of the conservative nationalist literary movement until then, but, albeit in a limited sense, the ideological divide in literature was put aside, and sijo was discussed as a positive example of national literature at the time. This study examines the discourse of sijo and the patterns in the genre in the terrain of the post-liberation national literature at the time. It is an attempt to investigate the modern sijo that developed as it satisfied or responded to a society in flux at a point in time. It is also a critical look at the perspective that only looks for the internal sources for the longevity of sijo as a genre in caving to idea of national literature.