이찬 시 연구:시간과 공간 인식을 중심으로

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to reveal the poetic characteristics of time and space perception in Lee Chan's poetry. The time and space is the base of existence consciousness and perception of life and closely associated with human beings' life. It provides an important moment for considering poet's world view and existence mode. The time and space embodied in Lee Chan's poetry is exposed to colonial society in the end of Japanese colonial period. Moreover, by accepting the turbulent period of Fascism, liberation, and the division of Korea as it is, it shows uncommon characteristics. Such social and political life experience manifests itself through the image of time and space in his poetry. At this point, this study attempts to investigate the characteristics of Lee Chan's poetry and its aims through his perception projected in the image of time and space. The time and space embodied in his poetry largely consists of two compositions. First is the problem of consciousness of loss of world and poetic self which is the result of recognizing tragic colonial society. Second is the problem of self conquest to cope with irregularities of colonial society. In detail, the former is about the awareness of alienation, estrangement, and negative self, and the latter is related to evasion, wandering, and transcendental consciousness. When the former acts as a cause, the latter appears as its coping way. The two compositions become the basis of Lee Chan's poetic thinking and forms inseparable relationship with his poetry. Lee Chan's time perception is divided into two categories: experiential time in the past seen from the present time and realistic time seen from the past time. It covers that negatively perceived reality denies the experiential time in the past and as the past time already experienced is negative, the present and the future would be negative. In time perception of Lee Chan's poetry, the time attribution of two categories becomes the basis of his poetic world by interaction. Consequently, the time of past, present, and future forms an inseparable relation by mutual permeation. Most time perception in Lee Chan's poetry brings about the tragic perception of the loss of world and self by acting his experiential elements related to the contradiction of Japanese colonial society. Moreover, 'scars' are deeply carved in the bottom of loss consciousness due to the failure of the Korean 6·10 movement against Japanese imperialism, ideologic collapse, and imprisonment. The 'scars' are changed in various poetic forms and appears as his negative world view and tragic self consciousness. The 'scars' are involved in his poetic consciousness through the 'memory'. In other words, his experiential time in the past does not disappear but reemerges in his real time. The connection of tragedies and the perception of continuance is the nature of time perception in Lee Chan's poetry. The space perception embodied Lee Chan's poetry has negative attribution as an intention to cope with colonial society. While his time perception seeks to evade from the present or remove the lacking perception of reality by breaking off negatively continued time, his space perception involves an intention to evade or transcend from reality through space shifting. In detail, an intention is latent to shift from negative space of reality to fantastic space. From this view, the space perception embodied in Lee Chan's poetry can be divided into two categories of a return to reality: evasion space and transcendental space. In Lee Chan's poetry, the nature of evasion space, first, aims at the fantastic world out of real space. The intention contains the attribution of wandering that repeats 'leaving' and 'roaming'. The evasion consciousness is caused by his perception that the world is a lost flower garden and a snowstorm field. These flower garden and snow field are a vast wasteland where human beings cannot live humanly and mean negative space without peace and freedom. The confusion of identity and crisis consciousness toward the real space of colony touches off his intention to evade. Also, internal and external space perceived as the place of evasion means an ideal land, the antipode of negative real space. Then it works as a kind of self-defense mechanism to withstand realistic sufferings of colonial society. On the other hand, evasion consciousness in Lee Chan's poetry raises a return and a tragic transcendental intention through the re-perception of the reality as a reflective result. Although his evasion space partially acts as self-defense mechanism, it is not connected with self-purification and conquest in the true sense and revealed as self-surrender. His consistent nihility and death consciousness in the journey of evasion originates in this sense. Then he attempts to search for another space, which can be the step of self-renunciation. A return to the reality or the step of transcendence of tragic existence signifies a change from 'self-defense wandering' to 'an attitude toward compromise with reality'. In other words, he shifts his eyes wandering in the 'distance' of the outside to the inside which is his true world. The aim at the inside can be seen as aim toward pure art or a change in perception of humanism through self-compassion. However, Lee Chan tried to find out an exit in the reality by projecting his apostatized self rather than perceiving world and self again. The unstable psychological status originated from a wrong view that seams discordant relationship between world and self by force. Lee Chan attempted a variety of poetic spurt for tragic reality perception and intention to cope, focusing on the failure of the Korean 6·10 movement against Japanese imperialism and the experience of colonial society. Such series of writing poetry is the process of overcoming realistic scars and intense expression of poetic consciousness for poetic sublimation. It is Lee Chan's another different aspect which can take a unique position in the division or unified literary history.