백석 시 연구의 현황과 전망

Abstract

Among reviews in the days when Baek Seok’s poetical works, The Deer was published, Park Yong-cheol’s writing is remarkable to appreciate deeply. He showed particular interest in the characteristics Baek Seok’s poetic dictions had and accurately understood the significance of use of dialects of Pyongan province as poetic languages better than anyone else. Also, he pointed out that the use of such poetic words is conscious resistance to “mixed-blood effect,” with which our language faced at that time, and the essential expression to protect the purity of language. Such appraisal draws much closer to the essence of Baek Seok’s poetry than mentions of Kim Ki-rim or Oh Jang-hwan, who focused on modernism. Afterward as we look at some fragmentary materials from 1940s or after the Liberation, it is clear that Baek Seok has been considered to be a major poet, but we cannot find specific critiques on it. Because he was engaged in literary activities in North Korea after the Korean War, he couldn’t be the subject for discussions in earnest in South Korea. At the turn of 1980s, studies on Baek Seok started in earnest, and his complete collections were published continuously. Lee Dong-soon’s collected works are significant in the aspect that it was the very first arrangement of his work; Song Joon’s works should be highly regarded as containing the sincerest poetic dictionary at that time by including the works created in North Korea after the division and presenting the original work’s marks; the complete collection of Kim Jae-yong features convenience for common readers to read easily by containing all of poems Baek Seok published in North Korea and prose newly discovered as well as typesetting them in a modern language writing. After that, the one that showed a new system of complete work of Baek Seok’s poetry was Koh Hyung-jin’s The Standard Collection of Poems by Baek Seok. My annotative work, The Original Poetical Works by Baek Seok and a commentary for all his poems, Meet Baek Seok, were published at this period of time. Around 1990, there were many texts which considered Baek Seok’s poems as realistic ones representing reality of people. At the turn of 2000, critics focused on newness of Baek Seok’s poetry and works which illuminated it relating to modernism or aesthetic modernity unfolded. The truth of Baek Seok’s poetry would be placed in a border line between such dichotomous oppositions. It is fortunate that the recent view that attempts to overcome such dichotomy of conflictual viewpoints and understand the two perspectives in a comprehensive aspect was introduced. Besides, the studies on the way of narration in Baek Seok’s poems have also suggested new vision to project the nature of the poetry of Baek Seok. Along with that, studies conducted by Koh Hyung-jin, Lee Soong-won and Lee Dong-seok achieved a fruitful outcome, raising the interpretation of Baek Seok’s poetry to a higher level. There was once an argument that Baek Seok’s poetry had been influenced by Tanaka Fuyuji, a Japanese poet. Yoo Jong-ho compared and reviewed Tanaka Fuyuji’s poems from the former period and Baek Seok’s early poems, and the two had affinity; he said that this influence is not a flow but instead, it’s important that Baek Seok overcame this stage and demonstrated transformation and growth. It’s needed to have review and interpretation in more objective perspective regarding such influential relationship. As tasks for research on Baek Seok’s poetry, a review on Baek Seok’s expression techniques by combining descriptiveness and compressibility and a consideration on the binary mode of expression are suggested. Also, regarding terms such as travel, trip and wandering, often raised as features of Baek Seok’s poetry, it is pointed out that clear distinction of their meanings is needed. Baek Seok observed scenery and customs from various places and made them his poetic materials, and he repeated to observe, meditate and explore, roaming about many places without settling in one place. Such poems by him can be referred to as ‘poems of expedition and exploration.’