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A Study on the Motif of Metamorphosis in Donglee Kim’s Novels ：Focusing on Donglee Kim’s Historical Novels

  • Korean Language & Literature
  • 2012, (82), pp.423-449
  • Publisher : Korean Language & Literature
  • Research Area : Humanities > Korean Language and Literature

OH EUN YEOP 1

1이화여자대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

This paper is to investigate the ontological conditions for the motif of metamorphosis centering on the series of Silla in Donglee Kim’s Historical Novels. Donglee Kim has created the writer’s sole literary archetype by variously involving the self-references related to the meaning of the soul of Silla, as well as the canonical message. In “Madam Suro,” Kim maintained the canonical message and the fantastic mystery of Madam Suro’s story and song. At the same time, he sublimated the beauty of Suro by whom gods became moved in the artistic soul of the Silla nation. The belief that the artistic stage started with the beauty of Suro moves the order of the universe, and the wailful parting for the sake of artistic consummation are the elements that reveal the ‘soul of Silla’ or ‘spirit of Silla’ connected with the Silla nation’s unconsciousness that reveres beauty and sanctity. The appearance of Suro in which the soul of Silla is realized is like the process of transforming into a shaman. These aspects of metamorphosis are recreated as Donglee Kim’s own literary archetype in his other works, as well, through the theosophism and wonders by the shamans who keep alive the soul of Silla. Among others in the series of Silla, Kim shows vulgarization of those figures with sacredness and prodigiousness, as part of metamorphosis, by recreating the stories of the extraordinary people, e.g. “Seok, Talhae,” “Choi, Chiwon,” and “Ureuk,” based on the motif of an unfulfilled love. The components of “Seok, Talhae” attenuates the wonder; instead, they intensify the aspect of humanity that shows anguish between allegiance and love. “Choi, Chiwon” retains a minimum of the canonical message and adopts the technique of a three-fold story-within-a-story narration in which the story of ‘Ssangnyeobun’ is being deduced. In portraying the humane aspect of Choi, Chiwon who got enamored with Surang, Donglee Kim shows the unreachable beauty and the tragedy of the fated love via the Buddhist imagination. In “Ureuk”, the other side of the genius musician, Ureuk is magnified. Prince Ureuk of Gaya, who appears in the imaginary story of “Ureuk-jeon,” is accomplishing his love, which is impossible in reality, through music in a fantastical way. With regard to music, Ureuk fiercely continues to pursue the perfection of self and he is described as a hermit who transcends human limits and seeks the supreme bliss. Thus it becomes a melodious poetic text, rather than a historical novel. The soul of Silla that Kim pursues in the works set in Silla is related with the belief that the utmost of humans exerts influence on a world beyond the phenomenal world. When reinterpreted by means of the ontological conditions for the motif of metamorphosis, many of Donglee Kim’s works, which have been denigrated or disregarded, can be found as an essential pivot of the consistent aesthetic system penetrating Kim’s world of novels, not only are they related to one another with a systematic aesthetical principle.

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