시인 李陸史와 중국 현대문학

Abstract

The poet Lee Yook-Sa(李陸史, 1904-1944) is called a representative national resistance poet, with representative works including “Green Grapes(靑葡萄)”, “Peak(Jeoljong, 絶頂)”, and “Wilderness(Gwangya曠野)” considered paragons of resistance poetry filled with national consciousness. Yook-Sa studied at Peking University in China from the fall of 1926 to the spring of the next year and received a six-month education at the Chosun Revolutionary Military & Political Leaders' School at the suburbs of Nanjing from October 1932 to April 1933. While studying in China he became interested in modern Chinese literature, striving to introduce and translate it. In June 1933 he became the first Korean literary figure to meet Luxun(魯迅). The meeting with Luxun awakened a stronger sense of ‘literary engagement’ for Yook-Sa. Through literary criticisms on Luxun’s work, he was able to develop a perspective on the artistic independence of literature while establishing the idea of unifying art and politics. He also sought artistic completion by introducing and translating Xuzhimo(徐志摩)’s poetry, and succeeded in unifying the art and ideology of poetry. He was unlike his contemporary Jang Hyuk-ju(張赫宙), whose travels and residence in Japan gradually led to a literary life that catered to Japanese colonial policies. Yook-Sa, who studied and traveled China, continued fighting for national liberty and threw his being into writing resistance poetry. Furthermore, Yook-Sa was rooted in ‘Joseon tradition’ or ‘that which is Asian’ as a means of finding ‘consciousness of self.’ As a fighter for national liberty, his travels to China were essential in gaining a stage for revolutionary activity. Another perspective is that his studies and travels in China were not unrelated to the idea of ‘China’ as a spatial expression of Asian cultural tradition.