김종삼 시의 기독교적 상상력

Abstract

This study attempts to investigate the Christian imagination and the way religious self-consciousness is aesthetically expressed in Kim Jong Sam’s poetry. This study focused on the Christian imagination in Kim’s poetry because major images evolve around Christianity and his Christian imagination seems be closely related to his aestheticism. Once established on Korean soil, Christianity became widely accepted and ingrained in the Korean culture within a short period of time in the aftermath of modernization. At first, Christianity was perceived as part of foreign culture. It is not until the 1930s when Christianity took roots in Korea poetry. As Christian poets such as Jeong Ji-Yong, Yun Dong-Ju, Bak Du-Jin, Bak Mok-Wol, Kim Hyun-Seung made their names, the Christian poems formed a spiritual foundation in Korea’s poetry. Previous researches have mostly concentrated on a few poets or the religious aspects of the Christian poetry. To a step further, the study of Christianity and modern poetry should delve into poetic thinking and imagination of different Christian poets and work to interpret poetry on a higher level of aesthetics. This study aims at finding the connection between religious and aesthetic aspects of Kim Jong Sam’s poetry and at the end, unveiling what the poet truly yearned for. This study focuses on 3 aspects to explore elements of religion and aesthetics in Kim’s poetry. First, this study examines how religious self-consciousness is structured within the framework of religious imagination. Images should be analyzed to understand the poet’s mentality. Thus, through systematic structuring of major images and exploring semantic changes in Kim’s poems, this study attempts to find religious characters hidden in the poet’s subconscious. Second, this study focuses on how Kim’s religious self-consciousness is replaced with his aesthetical self-consciousness. Kim’s religious self-consciousness does not stop at acceptance, but goes further to seek aesthetic self-redemption through its conflict with aesthetic self-consciousness. This implies that the two not only are at odds, but also shares some interchangeable commonalities. This study looks at such aspects and how they are connected. Third, this study explores how Christianity transforms aesthetically and takes shape in Kim’s poetry. For this, we need to look at the role of the aesthetic replacements in his works and what they stand for. This study analyzes the role and meaning of aesthetic replacements and their substance through associating each with Christianity and aestheticism. While the aesthetical principles found in Kim’s poetry is based on religious self-consciousness, they are, at the same time, the product of self-determining perception of Christianity. A literary work is often said to be the embodiment of its author’s state of mind. A poem, in particular, reflects its poet’s state of mind through various techniques and imagery, rather than through narration or explanation. As such, expression and substance are inseparable. Exploring the connection between the two in poetry would be considerably useful in getting to the bottom of the complex dynamics surrounding the deity and in understanding the poet’s imaginative world. In this study, the Christian imagination in Kim’s poetry is spatially divided into two; the real world and the religious world. Images symbolizing the two different realms are ‘fire’ and ‘water.’ The image of ‘fire’ denotes experience and memory of the real world such as death and war. The image of ‘water’ is the opposite of ‘fire’ and is equivalent to ‘alcohol’, which makes you become oblivious of your pain through illusion and intoxication. ‘Water’ and ‘alcohol’ are also connected to ‘music’, a major image of Kim’s aesthetic self-consciousness. This study attempts to show how his religious self-consciousness evolves with regard to its aesthetic self-consciousness. Discussion in this study is expected to unearth artistic quality of Kim’s poetry long buried under its substance of Christianity.