This studies the process of changes in poems of Kyudong Kim targeting all the poems of his. The poems of Kyudong Kim, from the early poems to the late poems, show a constant poetry spirit which is the spirit of denial of reality while repeating ...
This studies the process of changes in poems of Kyudong Kim targeting all the poems of his. The poems of Kyudong Kim, from the early poems to the late poems, show a constant poetry spirit which is the spirit of denial of reality while repeating the poetic renewal to write a better poem.
The previous studies evaluated Kyudong Kim's poems as the dramatic conversion from 'modernism' into 'realism' and defined his poetry world as 'overcoming modernism'. However, this study paid attention to the 'spirit of denial' contained in the 'modernist' poetics and aimed to clarify that the poems of Kyudong Kim have a consistent 'critical consciousness about reality'. Also, this study considered his efforts to write a poem close to the lives of the people paying attention to the social utility of poems in the aspect of changes.
"The New Essay on Poetry" released by Kyudong Kim in 1959 is a book containing his poetics intending to raise the new wind opposing the existing literary circles holding the flag of 'modernism'. The modernist poems he argued through this book are the poems containing the spirit of denial to the contradictory reality on the basis of the historical consciousness of poet, which further contain the hope for the future and the will to overcome. In addition, they are the poems made by the unification, organization, and order on the basis of the scientific way of thinking.
The poems of Kyudong Kim created on the basis of this on poetry in the 1950s constantly reveal the recognition of negative reality, which is the war, while showing the characteristics of modernist poems including 'the importance on visual images', 'frequent use of words of foreign origin', 'critical recognition of city civilization', and 'expression of existent anxiety and sense of deorientation'. In addition, Kyudong Kim also created the works using the experimental techniques influenced by the surrealism, the unconscious, psychoanalysis of Freud, and so on, which still show the critical recognition of reality though utilizing the modernist techniques. Moreover, he further shows the efforts to explore what the fundamental cause for this hopeless reality is, and reveals the hope for the future and will to overcome even in the extremely horrible situation, which is the war.
Kyudong Kim declares in the preface of "Hero in the Death" published in 1977 that he will reflect on his past when he inclined to the modernist creation methods and will write the poems that will give strength and hope to the people. However, there are the poems that failed to escape the influences of modernist creation methods and the poems reflecting the reality of lives of the people mixed together in "Hero in the Death" to show the appearance of transition period. This collection of poems contain many poems revealing the internal consciousness, psychology of anxiety, and fear of narrator generated because of the negative reality, which are not particularly different from the poems with modernist tendency that he had pursued in the 1950s. In addition, the efforts to apply the experimental technique of modernism to poems are still shown. On the other hand, he also makes the efforts to come closer to the lives of the people in a more concrete way by considering the utility of poems seriously, singing hope in earnest, and revealing the absolute trust in the power of the people.
Also in the beginning of the 1980s, Kyudong Kim's endeavor for the poetic renewal continues. His poems in this period develop the poetical idea from the concrete reality and daily life thinking of the reality of Korea, lives of the people, and issue of unification through the act to pull the stroller and considering what a poet should do for the people groaning because of the high-handedness of dictatorship and the unified world while cooking rice on behalf of his wife. The high-handedness of dictatorship and fixation of division increasingly intensifying arouse the sadness and anger of Kyudong Kim, and he also makes his voice of anger that the anti-people, anti-unification, and anti-democratization power must be punished. The rough, not refined voice of his appearing in these poems effectively function in expressing his sadness and anger.
"To Elm Tree", which was published when Kyudong Kim was 80 years old, was released in 14 years showing that his constant self-reflection continued also in his old age. He made endeavor to settle the issue of division for life, which was even intensified in "To Elm Tree". Kyudong Kim reveals his longing for hometown and wishes for unification through the natural objects symbolizing his hometown, and keenly expresses the pain due to division through his poems where 'mother' appears as an important poetic material. Also, he criticized South Koreans for not justly treating North Koreans as the same Korean people and the social conditions where people have more interest in their own interest or safety than in the conquest of the issue of division. In "To Elm Tree", you can often see the poems containing the truth of life on the basis of the concrete life experiences, which show that his poems have come to maturity where life becomes poems and poems become life. Kyudong Kim said that you need to study to write difficult poems, but you come to write easy poems on the basis of sincere life. It can be said that the poems in "To Elm Tree" are the easy poems based on sincere life.
Kyudong Kim criticized the negative reality during life on the basis of the spirit of denial to reality and wrote the poems to making resistance to it. To him, the things that had caused the negative reality were the war and the anti-democracy, anti-people, and anti-unification power. He created 'easy poems' based on sincere life in old age to make us realize what the truth of life is while leaving the poems still with live critical consciousness on reality.
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