한용운 시에 나타난 젠더화된 애도

Abstract

Poems written by Han Yongwun present the gender position of women as those who are ‘left’ behind as their beloved, men, ‘leave’ through repetitive acts and declarations of mourning. The form of mourning is a process of speech act and mourning is carried out on two levels: ‘declarations’ that occur within the poetic discourse and genderization of the voice of the declarations as being female. The agent of ‘mourning-waiting’ is an exclusive agent that is composed within the ‘maternity-nationalism’ frame. The agent of mourning practices the ethics of love by sacrificing her own body and the masochistic sacrifice is genderized. The agent of mourning composes metaphysical impulse that attempts to transcend national absence and loss with gender-based metaphor. In poems by Han Yongwun, femininity is absorbed in the metaphysical logic set by a hidden male ego, rather than being created as a new agent. If the existence of the ‘beloved’ was genderized as male in a way that reconstructs the fantasy of a ‘nation state,’ by contrast, the agent of ‘female-mourning’ who relies on existence of the ‘beloved’ is objectified. Suturing the autonomy and purity of a damaged nation via feminine image denotes control of sexuality. The insecurity of male agents in a colony, where historical modernity was incomplete and the ‘nation state’ was damaged and absent, had to be filled with the existence of females. ‘Gender ventriloquism’ is a way to aesthetically conceal the contradiction of (male) agent and community but also shows a trace and evidence of such conflict and contradiction. Poems of Han Yongwun presents both achievement and contradiction of literary modernity when the custom of feminization in traditional lyric is reconstructed as ethics and national discourse of mourning.