20세기 초 동아시아에서 괴테 수용과 ‘베르테르’ 번역 비교 연구

Abstract

Full-scale introduction and acceptance of Western literature in Korea, China and Japan began in the late 19th century. But there is a difference in their contact and exchange with Western culture and acceptance of Western civilization. Thus the aim of this study is to compare the various similar and different aspects that emerged in the process of the East Asian countries’ acceptance and appropriation of the literature and culture of Western countries. In doing so, the focus will be placed on the appropriation of the German cultural and literary figure Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who can be said to have had the greatest cultural and intellectual influence in East Asia. Goethe had already been introduced to Japan by the 1880s but his name was mostly mentioned in the context of youth education, and the education of children by parents. That is, the focus was placed on how Goethe, as a genius and great writer, had been raised and the educational methods used by his parents. Goethe’s major works, including The Sorrows of Young Werther and Faust, were translated into Japanese one after another. In Korea and China, the translation of The Sorrows of Young Werther in the 1920s had great repercussions. In China, The Sorrows of Young Werther was first translated into Chinese in the early 1920s by Guo Morou. Indeed, Guo sought to adopt Werther as a model and standard for the China’s modernization and revolution in modern literature. On the contrary, there were five different versions of “Werther” in Korea in the 1920’s, they show the specific characteristic of Korean modern translation and adaptation, that is to say indirect, ex-tracted, summarized and so on. On the other hand, concerning new appropriation of Goethe, it is worth focusing on the late 1930’s. It’s the era of fascism, militarism of japan. In China Marxism and commu-nism became the mainstream principle, but by contrast in Japan and Korea every attempt and trial leaning Marxism is suppressed. In this situation, converted Japanese socialist Kamei replaced Marxism with Goethe, but Korean ex-socialist Han Sorya reminded Werther’s pure love and passion with his remembrance of youth and sought new power and energy to struggle in the age of brutalism.