윤동주 시에서 나타나는 신앙의 회의와 극복의 문제: ‘시쓰기’와의 연관을 중심으로

Abstract

This study discusses Yoon Dong-ju’s poetry, focusing on the issue of “religious doubt.” Yoon’s period of religious doubt overlaps with the year during which he stopped writing. The fact that religious doubt led Yoon to retire from writing for a brief period indicates that his poetic activity and his religious belief were closely connected. This study seeks to shed light upon the relationship between Yoon’s belief and his poetic activity, as well as his perception of reality, and ultimately to investigate the shape that his poetic activity takes between his beliefs and reality. First of all, sadness arises as an important issue in Yoon’s poetry in relation to the social context of the colonial period. The first clue in understanding Yoon’s religious doubt can also be found in this sadness. Yoon expresses existential concern about his life in a tragic world, and in the end succumbs to his religious doubt and gives up writing. However a more active interpretation of Yoon’s religious doubt reveals that in his case this period actually served as a time of preparation to embark upon deeper religious beliefs. In the same way this period away from poetic activity was in fact a time of silence and self-purification that was necessary to the composition of his more refined work. Lastly this study seeks to investigate how Yoon overcame this period of doubt in his belief and poetic activity. The shape of his life in the social context of the colonial period is decided under the larger direction of his religious belief. This is a path of constant self-purification and recognition of humiliation. However the weight of living through a social context of constant humiliation may become an opportunity for despair. It is at this point that the aspect of self-forgiveness appears in Yoon’s poetry. Ultimately to Yoon, poetry is a means of continuous purification amidst the perception of a humiliating reality and conversely provides the strength to continue down his path through the process of self-forgiveness. Thus in his poetry we see the sublimation through poetic activity of the conflict between belief and reality and the ability to overcome the pain of the colonial period through constant effort.