조병화 시에 나타난 꽃 이미지와 실존적 세계

Abstract

This article aims to identify the meaning of the existential poetry world of Jo Byeong-hwa in the 50s by analyzing the nature and format of the "flower" image that appeared in the poem from the first collection of poems to the 8th collection. Among the poetic objects that appeared in Cho Byung-hwa's poems, the "flower" image is a symbol of "pureness," which appears consistently in his poems in the 50s and has noteworthy features at the same time. This article aims to reveal the personality of the world in the case of Jo Byeong-hwa, which has not been fully illuminated, by considering the attitude of the speaker "I" related to "flower-pure" rather than the notion and theme-level approach that the "flower-pure" image means and directs. The article argues that the poet represents the misery and natural vitality of the reality of the time, along with the "flower-pure" image, but more precisely, conveys an ironic effect to the reader by making the image function as a "question.” The poet's "flower-pure" image plays the role of "self-idea" that the poet's "inside" aims for, and also the "confession" that makes him feel more desperate about reality, but more accurately, the "flower-pure" image points to more than that. The poet's "flower-pure" image represents the "difference and contradiction itself" between ideals and reality, by coexisting both the dual nature of the "flower-pure" image, namely the "transcendency" of nature that regenerates spring-to-spring and the "handiness" tied to miserable reality. In other words, the poet is not merely seeking the mysterious comfort provided by nature through an ideal pure-flower image, nor accusing the misery of reality in contrast to purity, but eventually capturing and conveying the estrangement between the two as a "flower-image." According to this poetic image, to a poet, "flower" exists at the scene of miserable history, but at the same time, it is a free stare at the misery of reality outside of history. And the "flower-pure" image serves as a "otherness" that approaches a threatening question to the "me," an actor and observer in history, and makes "me" reflect on itself as a whole. In other words, the poet relativizes the entire "human life" as a historical subject (or victim or observer) as well as the "flower-pure" image as "otherness," which confirms that both the pessimistic and nihilistic attitude he has held toward the world and the comforting attitude focused on self-idential recovery were narcissistic. This creates the possibility that the poet himself and the reader can escape from these traps and move on to true reality awareness and new ways of existence.