여행하는 하이쿠, 개구리는 몇 마리인가 - 하이쿠적 시선의 발견과 시적 소통의 가능성 -

Abstract

Frogs can be considered as hatred creatures for their crying habit in groups with loud noises. However, in Japanese literature, frogs have been a motif arousing poetic inspiration. Frogs appeared in about 20 songs in the ancient poetry collection ‘Manyoshu’(around 770), and were marked “Gawaz” instead of “Gaeru,” an ordinary expression for frogs. The word “Gawaz,” for frogs here was distinctly used from a “Gaeru” referring loud and hatred frogs, but a magical and poetic terminology that can bring a transition to a poetic being. This tradition continued even after Japan wrote literature in their own writing, Kana. Among Japanese poems, the most well-known work is Matsuo-basho (1644-1694)’s Haiku “Old Pond/ Frog Jumping/ Water Splashing.” In the mid-to-late 19th century, many invited Western writers were attracted by the simplicity and uniqueness of Haiku and translated them directly into their own languages. “Old pond” was the most preferred work at that time. This work could be strange and esoterically sensitive even for the Western expert writers, but the unfamiliarity and esotericity of frogs in Haiku became more famous as it was interpreted as the mystery of Japanese culture or the world of oriental dhyana(선). In this paper, we learned about the poetic sensibility of Japanese frogs that have been handed down through traditional Japanese poetry, and further examined how they differ from Koreans, and the meaning of the difference. Furthermore, this paper can be regarded as a report of poetic filed based on cultural exchange of different poetic tradition, expression and sensitiveness of South Korea and Japan.