이어령 비평의 미학적 정치성 - 논쟁사의 맥락에서 -

Abstract

Existing research on Lee O-young’s criticism centers the logic of critics’ struggle for recognition in the mid-1960s, when they emerged as the subject of literature in the new era by otherizing postwar critics. This approach focuses on the influence of writing a history of national literature, which came to form the mainstream. In short, the view which has served as an agreed-upon way to evaluate Lee’s criticism, was that he was a pioneer of participatory literature in the 1950s, but turned to the pure literary camp in the wake of the “rebellious poetry debate” in 1968. In this paper, I reconsider the status of Lee’s criticism by going beyond this critical historical context. Contrary to the previous evaluation that Lee turned from a proponent of participation to a purist, it is reasonable to say that Lee’s literary theory ultimately maintained internal consistency. Lee O-young’s “literature of participation” did not belong to pure literature and was different from propaganda literature. His literary theory corresponded to Rancière’s “aesthetic art system.” He insisted on the “being-life of literature” when the prevailing order of the literary order was pure literature, and when the prevailing order of the literary order was being reorganized with focus on the instrumentalization of literature, he insisted on “literature that resists life.” Lee believed that literature should be wary of becoming fossilized by stopping at either pole of the “ethical image” and “representative art” systems, and that a pendulum movement should continue between the two. For Lee, literature had to be brought to reality as a thoroughly literary experiment, and end just before it became non-literary. As such, Lee O-young’s “participatory literature” consistently meant participation in the reality of literature through language, and he tried to intervene in the community through “aesthetic politics.” His literary theory, which tried to face reality in a literary way, may have been too premature to be accepted in the real-world context of heavy political pressure. However, as the limitations of national literature theory as a counter-discourse are being revealed, the significance of Lee O-young’s critical review theory in this paper is sufficient.