오장환 시에 나타난 근대와 자연

Abstract

The 1930s was both the unhappiest period in modern Korean history and, paradoxically, the richest period in the history of Korean poetry. It was at this time that Japanese fascism reached a peak, causing an extreme contraction in the literary world and making it hard for many writers to produce work. These historical and literary-historical contexts enabled a sharp awareness of the times and literary response to them; Oh, Jang-hwan frequently used images of nature to compare it with the corruption of civilization, which was seen as its polar opposite. This study begins from an awareness that nature in realism has until now been excluded from the scope of studies of contemporary poetry. At the same time, it explores the meaning of nature as manifested in Oh’s poetry in the 1930s, given that criticism of modernity in Oh’s poetry uses nature as a vehicle. In Oh’s poetry, nature is given two layers of meaning: nature as the world and nature as a symbol of existence. Nature as the world manifests itself strikingly through images of the sea. In Oh’s poetry, harbors, part of land and spaces of modern dilapidation, exist in a relationship with the sea; the fate of a sailor, forced by fate to sail the sea, must be seen as symbolizing, in a higher dimension, the people of that time, who had to live through the 1930s. Images of the sea, which enriches all beings, give visual form to the modern world and its lack of solidity. Additionally, the contemporaries who had to live through the period are represented as a sailor who floated in the ‘sea,’ unable to settle. Meanwhile, through “nature as a being,” Oh embodies beings living in colonial modernity. When he calls the domination of nature by humans a worldview inevitably intertwined with modernity, we know that this worldview is juxtaposed in three dimensions in his works with oppression by colonial capitalism in colonies and with the oppression of women by men, with nature mediating effectively in criticism of modernity. First, in 「Hwawon」 (“Flower garden”) and 「Dokcho」 (“Poisonous herbs”), Oh gave form to the values of nature polluted by humans and civilization. This structure of dominance of nature by humans is given varied embodiments through goldfish and flowers, both confined beings, thus specifically symbolizing modern individuals living in oppression by colonial capitalism. What they have in common is the way they have lost their original, basic vitality and are becoming sick. Images of flowers are connected to sex with women, commodified in 「Oncheonji」(“Hot spring”) and 「Maeeumbu」(“Prostitute”). These images of women are expanded to encompass reptiles, a criticism of modernity, in which sex has been degraded to the value of a commodity. Oh further extends his criticism by also portraying men who consume sex that has been degraded into a commodity as consumers and isolated agents, sidelined by modernity. This indicates that, in the works of Oh Jang-hwan, nature and colonies, and modern people and women, are placed in relationships of equivalence. By juxtaposing the suppression structures of such beings in three dimensions, Oh transcended the boundary between a macroscopic world view and the embodiment of specific beings, delivering effective criticism of colonial modernity. In view of this, nature as manifested in the poetry collections of Oh Jang-hwan can be seen as a vehicle for effectively showing criticisms of modernity, which functioned as a key element of his poems.