일제강점기 한국 작가들의 중국 현대문학 바라보기와 수용양상 -梁建植, 李東谷, 梁明을 중심으로-

Abstract

This article attempts to excavate Korean literary works influenced by modern Chinese literature during the Japanese occupation of Korea, based on which it also analyzes the ways in which Korean writers and intellectuals received, perceived and transformed modern Chinese literature. Research findings in this article are to be summarized as follow. Firstly, writers such as Guangsoo Yi and Nanson Choi, who lived during the nascent period of modern Korean literature, approached China in the image of a looser and Japan in the image of an empire. Thus, they completely excluded Chinese literature from the world literature since the Japanese occupation of Korea. This was a dark side of modern Korean literature as a result of Korea’s marginality in the colonial age. Secondly, Baekhwa Yang is generally regarded a first writer that received modern Chinese literature; but most of his works and translations related to China were from Japan since he introduced them to Korea by translating Japanese. Consequently, the perspective that Yang applied in approaching Chinese literature was not his own but Japanese during the colonial age. Although Yang’s contribution to the translation of modern Chinese literature needs to be fairly appreciated, one may not arguably say that he was the first writer who received Chinese literature based on a proper understanding of the trajectory of China’s intellectual history. Thirdly, Dong-gog Yi and Myung Yang are the critics who for the first time accepted Chinese modern literature into Korea on their own perspective. This study has a considerable significance in excavating, introducing and analyzing the large amount of their works. Dong-gog Yi had deep interest in the value and spirit of the Chinese New Cultural Movement, and was the first critic in Korea who accepted the value and spirit of modern Chinese literature in its full measure. Myung Yang was pursued ceaselessly in what direction Korean should lead their lives under the rule of Japanese imperialism, and for the first time accepted and blended Chinese modern theory with Korean reality. This was consequential of their struggles to overcome the dual problem of particularity and universality that Korea confronted during the colonial period. Thus they approached Chinese culture and literature in terms of the world historical conjuncture of decolonization and yearnings for modernity. They did not follow the trajectory of the reception of modernity via Japan as many Korean intellectuals did but groped for a way to receive it via China.