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A Study on the Difference of Literary and Historical Perception of North and South Korea on Lee Kwang Soo's Full-length Novel -Heartlessness, Pioneer, The wife of the revolutionary, The soil

  • Chunwon Research journal
  • Abbr : Chunwon Research journal
  • 2019, (15), pp.109-138
  • DOI : 10.31809/crj.2019.08.15.109
  • Publisher : Chunwon Research Society
  • Research Area : Humanities > Korean Language and Literature > Korean Literature
  • Received : June 30, 2019
  • Accepted : August 10, 2019
  • Published : August 31, 2019

Oh Tae-ho 1

1경희대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

This article is based on the evaluation of the history of North Korean literature on Lee Kwang Soo literature that changed from 'bourgeois rebellion' to 'bourgeois enlightenment'. The purpose of this study is to analyze the difference of literary perception between South and North Korea on Lee Kwang Soo's 4 novels. The change in the evaluation of North Korean literature on Lee Kwang Soo literature is a barometer showing the literacy rigidity and flexibility of North Korean literature. Since the mid-1980s, the evaluation of Lee Kwang Soo literature has changed from the object of exclusion to the object of reinstatement. Since the liberation and division, the criticism of the artist, who was named "the author of bourgeois rebellion," is transformed into a "bourgeois enlightened writer". This shows that we are moving toward restoring objective fairness. In this article, I examined the differences of the two Koreas 'perceptions about the aesthetic characteristics of texts, focusing on North Korean literary historical evaluations of Lee Kwang-Soo's novels. Specifically, we examined the specificity of literary historical viewpoints in North Korea centered on texts such as Heartlessness, Pioneer, The wife of the revolutionary, The soil. In addition, the aesthetic evaluation in South Korea was discussed together. Therefore, it revealed the difference of the microscopic interpretation of Lee Kwang Soo literature works of North and South Korean literature. This work is to identify the difference of literary perception between the two Koreas on the same text. And it corresponds to the work of pre-semanticizing the methods and perspectives of text studying the literature of North and South Korea in the coming peace system on the Korean peninsula. The critical evaluation of the history of North Korean literature is based on the distinctive realism of "subjective reality". South Korean researchers use a variety of evaluation criteria ranging from literary sociological characteristics to popularity, style and aesthetics. When these two perspectives are included together, it is possible to analyze and evaluate stereotyped Lee Kwang Soo literature. The position of North Korean literature in Lee Kwang Soo's long-story novel sets the point of contact with the South Korean literature but still shows the difference of perspective and viewpoint. It is also a part of the reality of the divided system of the South and the North over 70 years. The positive evaluation of the Pioneer and the critical evaluation of The wife of the revolutionary and The soil show that the perception of North Korean literature is different from the multilayered evaluation in South Korean literature. However, it is confirmed that the difference of view between the two Koreas regarding Heartlessness is narrowed a lot. It is presumed that there was a problem that the reduction of the literary outgrowth which occurred while limiting the tradition of modern literature to the class literature within the North Korean literature led to the diminution of the literary tradition. As a result, North Korea's history of literature has been described in a positive direction that records the lessons of literary tradition objectively and fairly.

Citation status

* References for papers published after 2023 are currently being built.

This paper was written with support from the National Research Foundation of Korea.