현대시에 나타난 동학 - 김지하 시를 중심으로

Abstract

This study aims to trace Dong Hak as described in the modern poetry on the basis of Kim Ji Ha’s poems. In the extremely critical situation he got awakened to the precious value of life and realized that teachings on the value of life could be found in Dong Hak. This marks his first encounter with Dong Hak. His encounter with Dong Hak is meaningful in two respects. First, he contemplated Dong Hak from cosmic standpoint of view and expanded it into a philosophical domain, by which he brought to the present the Dong Hak ideas that were hidden in the history at that time. Second, while Dong Hak had been expressed only in such literary works as the novels or epic poems on the subject of Dong Hak Revolution or General Jun Bong Joon, he tried to describe essential aspects of Dong Hak in his lyric poems focusing on the core value of its ideology. For him Dong Hak was not simply a subject of literary works, but a principle through which he could understand the world, and so he applied this principle to his literary works. In Kim Ji Ha’s poems Dong Hak is expressed on the basis of “Si-Chun Joo”, one of the essential thoughts of Dong Hak. This is an awakening on the precious life or birth, which signifies that noble life is burgeoning out and is put into practice on the earth, eventually creating a cosmic harmony and balance. Now modern society is at a critical point where we have to get out of oppression and mastery structure caused by confrontational situation and advance into balanced and harmonized world. In this critical era Kim Ji Ha studied Dong Hak and expressed it in his poetic world. This can be interpreted as his earnest desire to lead the inharmonious modern society to the state of harmony and balance. The genuine value of his poems can be seen in this respect. On the other hand, from the point of history of literature his poetic works wrote a new history and rose on a new horizon in that philosophical thesis and literary imagination are lyrically combined in them. In other words, poetical, philosophical and practical values coexist in his poems. Therefore his poems sometimes sound like eloquent speech and sometimes are felt as real life itself. His poems have further risen to the different level upon his encounter with Dong Hak. The true meaning of Dong Hak implied in his poems can be found from this point of view.