KJCKorea
Journal Central

The purpose of this study was to explore the meaning of travel as expressed in the poems of Hwang Dong-Gyu. Also, this study was intended to look into the status of the travels as revealed in literatures and to shed light on the patterns of travels embodied in his poems while reflecting on the travels found in his poems. The poetic world of Hwang Dong-Gyu in the period spanning from 1980s to 1990s explicitly offers a window into the process by which the travels formed a structure, and through that, brings the themes even to deeper dimensions. If the travels that appeared in his early poems were confined to symbolic significance and emotional atmosphere, the travels that can be found in later periods intensively highlighted the sense of presence in the poems and effectively used the structure of travels to embody the themes. In <The Way to Bronx>, he reveals the sense of liberation from obsession when he considered the people suffering from even greater alienation than he experienced while he was plagued by depression during his stay abroad. In <Cheongryeongpo> and <Dasan Chodang>, he shows the scene of his spiritual freedom and enlightenment obtained through the human beings and objects at the sight while travelling during the exile to cope with the suppression in real world. In the <Aerial Burial>, a series, and the <Search for the Valley of Death>, the travels provide a turning point for recognizing the life and death from new perspectives. He realizes that the death and life adjoin each other closely and that one can live more vivid life based on acceptance of death. Finally, he discovers the solidarity between humanity and life through travels and sets out on the course for new positive affirmations. In the <Intolerable Insignificant Beings> and <Seduction of Fog>, etc., he realizes that loneliness of existence can be turned into rock-solid solidarity with the help from the people and objects encountered during the travels. The travels, expressed in the poems of Hwang Dong-Gyu, set the course for enlightenment, but show only pure euphoria towards the moments of being born again without limiting the objectives to such course for enlightenment itself.

Hwang Dong-Gyu, travel, the sense of presence, liberation, death, solidarity