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Forbidden Emotion: The Records of Censored Novels Monthly Report of Joseon Publication Police and Post/Colonial Sentimentalism
Cross-Cultural Studies
2019,
54(), pp.35-56
DOI : 10.21049/ccs.2019.54..35
Publisher : Center for Cross Culture Studies
Research Area : Literature
DOI : 10.21049/ccs.2019.54..35
Publisher : Center for Cross Culture Studies
Research Area : Literature
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This paper investigates post/colonial sentimentalism by examining the records of deleted novels that were published in the Monthly Report of Joseon Publication Police (September 1928 to December 1938), compiled by the Book Division in the Police Bureau of the Government-General of Joseon during the Japanese colonial period. Thus, it is important to note that this study revisits the possibility of sentimentalism, which has been negatively discussed and subsequently reviewed as a feminine gendered feature in the history of Korean literature, and a core element of the post/colonial subjects. In addition, the present study highlights the relationship of the emotional response to the idea of sentimentalism, which is seen to have formed a base of sympathy among the colonized people. According to the incidence and influence of colonial censorship, the empty spaces left by the removal of political and ideological arguments were filled with the development and creation of love stories as experienced between men and women; and the empire was most sensitive to the colonized people raising these love stories to sentimental love stories about the plight of the people and the status of class in that society. The hegemonic ruling power kept the closest watch on the fictional imagination of the post/colonial subjects, and to determine the content, the colonial government took extra measures into monitoring the translating of all of the literature that was produced by local authors at that time in the region. They particularly paid attention to the scenes in which female characters intervened as the most sentimental literary device, including when the women shed their tears. This was often comprised of feelings that were forbidden by colonial modernity, and the possibility of sentimentalism becoming the topic of highlight as a gendered strategy of the post/colonial subject.
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