‘사건’으로서의 3·1운동과 1920년대 시문학―한용운의 『님의 침묵』과 최남선의 『백팔번뇌』의 의미

Abstract

This paper argues that the genetic causes of Han Yong-un's “Silence of Lover” and Choi Nam-seon's “Baek-pal-beon-noe”, published in the mid-1920s, should be identified in the 1919 the March 1st Movement of Korea, which needs to be understood as an “event.” Most can agree that the Korean literature in the 1920s started under the influence of The March 1st Movement; however, recent studies of poetry have attempted to restrict the 1920s as an era of coterie magazines or proletariat literature of KAPF. Establishing the mainstream trends of the Korean literature during the 1920s this way probably narrows down the values and meanings of the works of the two poets of the time. In this context, this paper tries to understand the literary trends of the mid-1920s as an extension of the March 1st Movement. Although the March 1st Movement is generally appraised as an opportunity from which the Korean interim government was established and then the Republic of Korea was founded, the political body it aimed had some aspects that are difficult to be understood within the predominant orders of the time. This emergence of an unfamiliar order that cannot be explained (represented) from the orders of the time was called “event” by Alain Badiou. The March 1st Movement can be an example of Badiou’s “event.” Han Yong-un and Choi Nam-seon, who participated in the Movement as the members of the 33 Korean leaders, probably served as the main agents of the “event.” They had been toward enlightenment and modernity but changed their literary directions after experiencing the March 1st Movement. Han Yong-un transformed himself from a monk who made efforts to modernize and popularize Buddhism to a practical intellectual, seeking for the destiny and ways to go of the Korean people. Choi Nam-seon had pursued “enlightenment” and “the people” at the same time, fully turning to the direction of “the people.” Recently the discourse of “the people” in the Korean 1920s literature has been understood from the aspect of “imaginary community.” However, “the people” seen in their texts requires re-interpretation within the “modernity” and tension of the time, and the reinterpretation should inevitably begin from explaining its relation to the March 1st Movement.