시인 이(리)용악을 관통하는 감정, 마르지 않는 ‘연민’에 대해 ―사회주의 체제의 가능성을 믿는다는 것

Abstract

This writing is concerning about the ‘chasm’ in the literary achievement of the poet Yi Yong-ak. [Note: After he took up residence in North Korea, his surname was changed into ‘Lee’ according to the local grammar applied on the first vowel in words.] This chasm derives from the gap between Yi Yong-ak and Lee Yong-ak. The former has inclined to produce his writings using curt and powerful words, according to his contemporary writer ‘Lee Su-hyung’. In his words, Yi’s writing also contains ‘typical feelings of sorrow, anger, grief and melancholy as most of people in his lifetime which was colonial period underwent’. On the contrary, Lee Yong-ak has lived up to the expectation of North Korean State which forced domestic artists to produce works within the boundary of the policy of Arts and Letters. The chasm in his works lies somewhere on the gap between Yi and Lee. Indeed, the Policy of Arts and Letters of North Korea made writers to be unable to create their work freely. That is why literary critics have been noted that connection between Yi and Lee is hardly found. In my opinion, however, it is not reasonable to portray him just as an artist who was submissive to the State policy and not to think further about his art, based on the fact that he followed the top-down policy arbitrarily. Accordingly, I aim to discern the very point that the art of Yi and Lee comes be interconnected. To reach the point, I tried to focus on the word ‘river(강)’ which can be found throughout all of the books of his poetry in order to discover its function as a ‘medium’ for expressing his specific sentiment on it. Through studying on the usage of the word, I could find his strong will for the future. This will seem to be based on the fact that Lee could not settle for the status quo and felt the strong need to search for utopia. It is clear that his feelings of compassion and outrage, which can be found in his early works, have something to do with his discontent with the direction of society. Based on this fact, we can understand the reason why Yi chose to become Lee and to be submissive to the North Korean policy of censoring works of art. That is because he truly believed socialism could be an ideology for a utopian society then. It is certain that this kind of belief could be changed. Originally, any belief could be destroyed when the basis of the belief proves to be unreliable. However, when Yi (Lee) embraced the moments of creation, he did believe that socialism is the system optimized for the coming utopia. This is what this thesis mainly claims.