근대 문인의 '사회적 얼굴'로서의 우울

Abstract

Melancholy as the 'Social Face of Writers' in Modern Jeong, Kyung-woon This study aims to examine the role it plays in creating social face of modern writers, based on the premise that melancholy is one of the representative form of emotion in modern Korea. To begin with, the tangible phenomenon that writers of the time accepted melancholy as their common emotion was associated with their memories of their literary youth; the atmosphere of melancholy as a rite of passage for literary youth was interpreted as romantic melancholy accompanying liveliness rather than lethargy or despair. Their melancholy, however, did not end with their literary youth but, instead, played a role in creating the collective representation of writers in the 1930's. This was done as a combination of hopes and expectations that the Joseon in the colonial era has for intellectuals and writers' desire to display their presence. The creation of the writers' representation based on melancholy in the 1930's is attributed to writers' antecedent perception of melancholy in the 1920's; melancholy as a form of emotion was regarded as expression of the violence of the world and writers' feeling of helplessness against it or as power to overcome such a world. This stemmed from the perception of melancholy as a form of emotion enabling reflection on the world, instead of a mere psychological state. The melancholic emotion as an introspective ability was perceived as one of the qualifications intellectuals including writers should have at the time, and this perception may have led to the representation that melancholy is the social face of writers.