서정주 시에 나타난 ‘바다’의 의미 변화

Abstract

In “Jawhasang(Portrait)” written by Seo Jeong-ju when he was 23 years old, he mentions a maternal grandfather, who “never comes back from the sea.” The grandfather means an adventurous character who chooses “not to come back from the sea,” not a misfortunate person who died in the sea and never came back from the sea. The speaker having “thick hair” and ‘big eyes’ like the maternal grandfather makes us to have a hunch that he would also never come back from a new world. In another poem published when he was 24, the poet aspires to reach the sea as a space of everlasting joy, escaping from this world like a burning desert. Sea in his early works represents an absolute space or a symbol of eternal joy that exists beyond filthy reality. The absolute image of sea reaches to the climax in "Bada(Sea)", where the speaker calls us to break painful bondage of reality and escape to a new world. He urges us to escape to an unknown world from reality, as there are a number of new worlds filled with passion and agony wherever we go. In "Haengjingok(March)" written when he was around 26, we encounter a bit different sea. In the poem, sea is not a horizontal space leading me to a new world, but a “remote” vertical space. The remote sea represents a sign of separation that isolates vulgar reality from other worlds. The speakers hears painful bell sound hitting the vertical sea. Such a symbol of vertical sea appears in a different form in "Chucheonsa(A Poem about Swing)". The first verse of this poem sings about the movement of a vertical force. In verse 3, the vertical movement turns to a vertical one. Verse 5 ends with a wish for vertical rise, which is a movement moving toward the opposite direction of gravity, soaring above reality. This is to go beyond obstacles of reality and reach the absolute world, going through sufferings of ‘lightning’ and ‘tsunami.’ This firm resolution to pursue the absolute world is apparent in "Monolog in Flower Bed". This resolution does not appear any more. Since he became 40, he took a philosophical view of life and wrote poems, internalizing it deep down in his heart. In "Gyeokpowoojung(It Rains in Gyeokpo)" written at the age of 60, his pursuit for the absolute world represented by sea which is apparent in his early works reappears. He suggests that this absolute state can be achieved through painful self-control. This reflects that his nostalgia for the absolute world as apparent via sea in his early works still remains in his heart.