최인훈의 실제 비평 연구 -풍속의 문제를 중심으로

Abstract

This paper deals with Choi In-hoon’s actual criticisms. It examines how Choi’s literary theory is applied when reading works. It specifically focuses on how Choi evaluated the authors’ portrayal of the customs and manners in their age, because the core of Choi’s theory of literature lies in the scheme of ‘ideology=the customs+method’ and his actual criticism also depends heavily on this scheme. This paper first looked at how this problem is dealt with in novels set in rural and urban settings. Choi valued the works of Kim Jeong-han and Yoo Hyun-jong because they attempted to novelize rural reality in the social context of the 1960s. They showed the possibility of rural novel as a novel of representing the customs and manners, even though they were not successful enough because the characters’ view is narrow and the artist’s view of Korean history is low. Choi valued the works that explored the customs and manners deeply against the background of the city. These works are meaningful in that they tried for new novel styles to discover new ways of lives and contain them appropriately, instead of imitating existing novel styles. Choi saw that there were not many successful works as novels of manners. However, the responsibility is not only for the artist. There was no stable customs and manners in Korean society in the 1960s. Without stable customs and manners, there can be novels of manners. In Cheon Seung-se’s novel “Podaeryeong,” the protagonist ends his life miserably without enjoying the honor and status of his military career. This tells us that Korean society was not stable and its hierarchy was weak in the 1960s. It is impossible to write novels of manners when there is no universal, predictable and stable customs and manners. The problem is not with the artist who did not write the novels of manners, but with the backward Korean reality itself.