‘기괴’에서‘괴기’로, 식민지 대중문화와 환멸의 모더니티

Abstract

‘Goegi’is a Korean word which is usually translated into the English word‘grotesque’. The word was composed of two similar Chinese characters ‘Goe(怪)’and ‘gi (奇)’, which indicated abnormality, in general. In the pre-moderntimes,‘Goegi ’or ‘Gi’goe’was not only used to indicate immoral subjects, butalso to praise marvelous creatures in nature, as well as particularly great worksof the literati. In the 1920s, the enlightenment movement made use of the wordas part of an ironic rhetoric when it needed to criticize the colonial governmentand its officers. In this case, the words ‘Goegi’and ‘Gi’goe’were used to raisethe rationality of society. However, in the early 1930s, Goegi became a sign of aspecific interest when it was adapted as a translation of the English word‘grotesque’. The word grotesque was imported in the early 1930s as part of amass-media catchphrase, which can be translated as “Ero-Gro-Nonsense,”which also set a major trend in Japan, at the same time. The catchphrase wassupported by both the imperial government and the mass media. Wanting toturn the intellectuals’attention into non-political taste, the government’s strategywas matched by the interest of the mass media. Becoming the translation of theword grotesque,‘ Goegi’came to define the taste for horror and ugliness, for thefirst time. The rise of this new taste was the result of diverse political factors,such as the development of mass culture, the strategy of the colonialgovernment, the traumatic despair of intellectuals due to the failure of theenlightenment, the desire for knowledge of others in foreign lands, and so forth.