현대시에 나타난 ‘북방’과 조선적 서정성의 확립 -백석과 이용악 시를 중심으로-

Abstract

In the colonial Joseon society, forced by Japan to accept the modern civilization of the West, Joseon’s own tradition and culture were perceived to be always lagging and barbaric. With their national sovereignty lost, the Joseon intellectuals, rather than directly contesting Western civilization or Imperial Japan, sought a new vision and direction to secure the historical possibilities of Joseon. The vast territory spread out in the northern region, as a historical space of the Korean people, served as an alternative for opening up the possibilities of Joseon society. The “northern region” was a space that required no need of recognizing the difference between the East and West. The imagination and remembrance of the vast territories of Goguryo and Balhae, instead of the Joseon Dynasty that brought about the reality of national ruin, served as a powerful force in consoling such reality. The historical signifier known as the “northern region” occupies the center of Lee Yong-ak’s poetry that objectifies the subject of lyric poem. In revealing through poetry the conditions of Joseon that made vagrancy, migration and uprooting from home inevitable, he was able to bring into view the images of the lives of the Joseon people who had lost their foundation of life. His poetry drew emotional affinity, even as it sharply revealed the reality of Joseon, because the poet placed at the center of literature what was demanded by the history of Joseon at the time. The language and space of the “northern region” appear to have suggested a way out for meeting the socio-literary demand of Joseon, and this is considered to be the element lying at the core of the language and form of Lee Yong-ak’s poetry. The “northern region” is a key element in the works of Baek seok’s poetry. He agonized over a new historical opportunity and way for Joseon to encounter the outside world without the mediation of Japan. The language and customs of the “northern region” enabled him to do a self-reflective inspection of the extrinsic modernization. The “northern region” was a historical space that could reveal the origin of the Korean peninsula as well as a space that could verify the existential demand of the Joseon people remembering that history. The borrowing of such space in Baek seok’s poetry allowed the experience of the individual to attractively overlap with the history of the people, and the emergence of such literary sensibility opened up the modern possibilities of Joseon literature in a new way. In Joseon society emerged a new historical imagination of believing the recovery of the loss, that is, the recapture of the “northern region,” was the only path to salvation, and this was recognized by writers as the new path of Joseon. Within the realities and conditions of Joseon which made such historical imagination possible, Joseon literature sought to show it is possible to realize that imagination. This shows the mental movement of the Joseon intellectuals attempting to change the historical direction of Joseon.