심훈의 생애와 시세계의 변천

Abstract

This paper traced the life of Shim Hoon in the 1920s～1930s, divided his world of poetry into three parts, and discussed the meaning of such change. The first period was from the time of writing practice to 1923 when he stayed in China. It was an important period to understand the embryological ground and social/historical background of his poetry. The second is from 1923 when he came back from China to 1932 when he stopped all political and social activities and went down to Dangjin in Chungcheongnamdo Province. This was the time when Shim Hoon actively created his works. The last period is from the time he went down to Dangjin in Chungcheongnamdo Province and devoted himself to writing novels with the background of rural area to his death due to sudden illness. Such division of period is not limited to his poetry writing but includes his overall literary works. In the sense that the division of a writer’s literary period cannot vary depending on specific genre, this paper tried to have its ground on the general division of literary period and diachronically review the changing process of his world of poetry. Especially, as this paper is based on historical and biological way of following the life of Shim Hoon, the tripartite division of his life of poetry with the junctures of major events will serve as a critical point to understand the changes and meanings of the poetry of Shim Hoon. First, aims to look into the Sim Hun’s deeds and achievements in socialistic independence movement and literature while staying in Beijing, Nanjing, Shanghai, Hangzhou and other cities in China during the period between 1920 and 1923 and to make empirical discussion on how his activities in China affected his poetic world. In particular, political frustration and skepticism he experienced while in China brought a striking change in his poetry, which is believed to be the result of internalizing his critical recognition of factionalism found in socialistic independence movement that occurred most actively in Shanghai while focusing on these superficial changes. Sim Hun’s creation of Sijo(時調) was most active in the 1930s, late period of his literary activities. It seems that he actively selected a Sijo genre as a strategy to criticize the contradiction of colonial reality while ambiguously hiding from the surveillance of Japanese colonialists. That is, his Sijo presented the possibility of life aesthetics as a spirit to overcome the contradiction of colonial modernity with the underlying spirit of resistance to fundamentally surmount the colonial contradictions. In other words, Sim Hun’s Sijo in the 1930s was the well-planned poetic structure designed to reveal colonial contradictions in a way of ‘strategic natural hiding’ in a paradoxical manner just like critical awareness of reality hidden in narratives to enlighten farmers. In this respect, Sim Hun’s Sijo strategy should be evaluated as an active attempt of choosing a political will to overcome the contradictions of colonial modernity in a paradoxical style although his political nature did not appear on the surface at all.