1920년대 인도 시인의 유입과 탈식민성의 모색

Abstract

Indian poets such as Gandhi, Tagore, Naidu, Nehru and more influenced in the development of modern Korean poetry in two contradictory ways. First of all, Koreans were initially interested in the above mentioned poets in that they were most admired in the West. It is obvious that Koreans were strongly conscious that these political (or religious) poets were the Orientals recognized and praised by Westerns. In a certain way, it is implied that Koreans highly regarded Western perspective and modernity. On the other hand, it is noticeable that most of the eminent figures in India were against modernization and civilization. Not only did they reject to be confined to Western modernity but also unreservedly pictured "the East" in opposition to Western civilization and modernization. They indeed regained self-esteem and respect as Orientals. Nonetheless, it cannot be ignored that discourse on the Orient was central to Japanese imperialism and colonial ideologies. In fact, the Japanese colonization of Korea was once justified in the name of the Oriental identity. While discourse on the Orient in India suggested the possibilities of post-colonization with post-modernization and post-civilization, the discourse in Korea was deeply imbued with Japanese colonial ideologies which were regarded as the Oriental representative of modern civilization. In other words, discourse on the Orient in Korea was not incompatible with the ideologies of Western modernization. However, under the influence of Indian poets in the 1920s, Koreans were challenged to reconsider Western modernization. A controversy over translating Tagore's poems in English into Korean was exemplary in case. What was at issue in translating Tagore's poetry was its religious implication. Especially, how to translate 'thou' in the English version of 『Gitanjali』 into Korean was debated. Oh Cheonseok translated 'thou' as 'you' indicating a lover. In doing so, the poem was more likely to be romantic than religious. In contrast, Kim Uk distinguishably understood it as 'God/Lord/Jesus' to underline the religious implication of the poem. However, after translating all three volumes of Tagore's poems, Kim stressed that characteristically there was no difference between 'thou' and 'you' in terms of an Oriental sensibility. He thus argued that Oh's word 'you' was equivalent to his word 'God/Lord/Jesus' as Han Youngun's 'Nim(you)' was variously conceptualized as a lover, nation, Buddha, and more. From the concept of 'Nim,' rather, Oriental characteristics such as the unity of literature and religion and the deconstruction of poetic subject into oneness with 'Nim' have been distinguished as those of modern poetry. This is to say that the elementary model of 'traditional' lyric poetry came to be complete. Also, it is what differs the development of modern Korean poems from that of modern Korean novels which aimed at the settlement of Western novels' style. Moreover, the narrative on 'the loss and recovery of Nim' took root in Korea, and the Renaissance of the nation identified with Nim was established as ideology. Since the modern era, a notion to incorporate 'before the era' and 'after the era' has been diffused in a great degree. 'Before the modern era' (pre-modernity) was much studied as 'an original storage' to appreciate the potentials of 'after the modern era'(post-modernity). In the end, it partly resulted in the rediscovery of 'Shilla' in the 1930s.