근대성의 과제와 교양으로서의 문학 - 서양 현대문학을 어떻게 읽을 것인가

Abstract

This essay elucidates what the experiences of reading modern Western literature mean to us. It considers the questions as to whether we Korean people, as others to this ’foreign’ literature, can read it in any different ways from those of most Western readers. It focuses on modernism especially, as modernism is the dominant mode of Western literary productions in the 20th century. Modernism being one of the most significant literary reponses to modernity as a social project, this essay also tries to iscern both virtues and limitations of the latter in the ’postmodern’ western society, as well as reflecting on its relevance to our own society which has experienced a very rapid and drastic changes of modernization.