한국과 영국의 여성소설과 여성소설가의 등장배경 비교연구

Abstract

This research is originated from the common phenomenon that women contributed to the popularization of novels in Korea and Britain in the 17th and 18th century even though they were not given chances to get public educations and social careers. The modern novels of Britain emerged after the middle of 19th century concerning realism and modernism, and the development process of modern novels in Britain was different from Korea’s. However, it is similar that women novelists had appeared about the 17th century and their novels were popularized in the 18th and 19th century. In addition, modern novels of Korea and Britain have been formed concerning the intentional exclusion of women novelists after the 19th century. The purpose of this paper is to find the theoretical basis of the history of women’s novels, by investigating why women writers chose novels as a new genre in pre-modern times, how women contributed to the popularization of novels, how women’s writings gave effects on the rise of modern novels, and why a lot of women novelists disappeared in the literary history of pre-modern times. The women of Korea and Britain in the 16th and 17th century had been placed in similar historical and social situations. At first, they used ethnic languages when they read books and wrote letters, journals and novels, not the official languages of Chinese or Roman/Greek. Secondly, the collapse of social status had been under way, caused by East Asian wars in Korea and colonial policies in Britain. Women had been restricted from having public educations and social careers, so they had to get some opportunities to raise their cultural level through reading books and novels, or through home schooling. As a result, women readers and women novelists increased, starting from the late 17th century. Women’s activity of reading novels was to escape from the private relationships at home and to try public communications by sharing the stories that happened outside with the public. Most of all, women’s activity of writing novels included very significant meanings that women shaped their own ideas and desires through fictional characters and stories, and the activity was ultimately designed to start the social career by spreading their novels in public. In the early modern period, men novelists scathingly criticized women’s novels and tried to extend the scope of their influences under the new literary project that modern novels should be advanced by new and experimental writing methods. The project was successful, and realism novels and modernism novels took the position of popular women’s novels in Britain. As a result, the number of women novelists and the printing rate of women’s novels decreased. The history of modern novels in Korea is not much different than in Britain because Korean modern novels were placed in the effect of Japan’s colonialism which was imitating that of Britain. We can envisage the scene where a lot of women novelists were disappearing even though they contributed to the popularization of novels, and they used pen names for their novels before the 19th century. However, some women novelists in Britain continued their fame and played important roles as good rivals to men novelists who wanted to imitate women’s sensitivity, sentimentalism and the detailed description of inner mind. In Korea, the first modern woman novelist emerged in the early 20th century (1917), and in Britain, modern women novelists emerged in the middle of the 19th century, after the appearance of Jane Austin and the Bronte sisters. Through the comparative study, I found two kinds of theoretical bases of the history of women’s novels. One is that the formation process of women novelists showed that the release of women’s social roles and careers was the last step of the collapse of social hierarchy. The second one is that the formation process of modern novels has a connection with women’s novels, and modernity is not discussed without feminism.