In this paper, the cultural discourse of Im Hwa is on the focus. It is based on the presupposed that the cultural discourse of Im Hwa was established in the subjective perception system of the writer who recognizes 'the society' and 'the art.' Therefo...
In this paper, the cultural discourse of Im Hwa is on the focus. It is based on the presupposed that the cultural discourse of Im Hwa was established in the subjective perception system of the writer who recognizes 'the society' and 'the art.' Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the epistemological network of meaning in which Im Hwa had perceived and presented the society and the art. Most of existing studies have approached to Im Hwa's literature on the basis of the realism theory, focusing the aspects such as the reflection of real life and the contrast of foundation and upper structure. This kind of studies is meaningful in that Im Hwa came to be noticed as a thinker in the link with renaissance of study on KAPF since the abolition of prohibition. But it was not sufficient to take a view of the writer's consciousness and perception system implied in 'the realism.' Moreover, not distinguishing the concepts of 'literature' and 'culture,' it could not explain properly the spot where Im Hwa's literature discourse was colliding. Therefore, in this paper was investigated the composition pattern of Im Hwa's literature discourse, as well as the internal congruence of Im Hwa's literature discourse.
As proved with the multiple definitions, the concept of 'culture(Kultur)' is very hard to define. So, in this paper was selectively adopted the assertions of Georg Simmel, Stuart Hall, Raymond Williams etc. The concept of culture that is noticed in this paper is 'the subjective culture(spiritual culture), the objective culture(material culture) and the cultural contact transformation.' On this basis, this paper has dealt with the pursuit of 'life,' the institutional recognition on language and journalism, and the historical/social recognition on the formation process of modern culture in the Im Hwa's literature discourse.
In ch. 2, the structure and the characteristics of Im Hwa's culturology is searched on the bases of <the Water Controversy> with Kim Nam Cheon in 1933 and <On the Romanticism> and <On the Realism> since 1934. Im Hwa criticized Kim Nam Cheon's 'the Political Practice' and advocated 'the Cultural Practice.' Kim accepted most of Im Hwa's criticism and showed a positive response to the unification of art and society. But, in his discourse, 'the subjectivity' was confined to 'the writer's sensitivity' and did not mean the general recognition of subjects that represented the society. Therefore, the society that Kim had perceived was the objective entity that existed outside the consciousness of the subject. As a result, it can be said that <the Water Controversy> was caused by the conceptual difference between Kim who understood the culture as a general art and Im who perceived it as a social environment that is composed of historical and class conditions.
This kind of Im Hwa's cultural recognition was linked to the emphasis on 'dream' of self in <On the Romanticism> and changed to the pursuit of 'life' since 1937. Im Hwa's concept of 'life', which was a contrasting concept to 'fact' as the object culture of his contemporary era, meant the 'real life' recomposed by the subjectivity of the subject. Through this, Im could perceive the redistribution process of cultural history by Japan, and came to emphasize 'the subjectivity of Choseon' in the relationship with the concept of 'people.' In Im Hwa's <On the Full Scale Novels> and <On the Productive Novels>, there can be found the culturological structure that emphasizes 'the life' and 'the idea' in contrast to 'the fact.' These imply that the plot of Im Hwa's culturology was to pursue the subjectivity of the subject through the interaction between the subject/object cultures. But, since 1937, the subject culture and the object culture were divided. In this process, he came to have the idealistic characteristic through the transcendence of objective culture.
In ch. 3 was searched the recognition of language and journalism in the plot of Im Hwa's culturology. For Im Hwa, the language was a social product and a medium to enable the social presentation of human subjects. More concretely, he comprehended it in its functions as a spiritual index of the people and as a system of modern culture at the same time. Im Hwa pursued the two altogether while imagining the modernization of Choseon. That is, he evaluated the status of 'Choseonese Language' as a basis to establish the subjectivity of Choseon, and at the same time he raised the necessity of its 'translatability' and 'arrangement of literary composition' as a part of modern culture. But, in the bilingual situation at the end of Japanese occupation, Im Hwa noticed its aspect as the spiritual index and advocated the cultural interchange based on the subjectivity of Choseon.
In his consciousness on the journalism, there coexisted the aspects as an environment to produce and circulate the modern culture and as a criticism of the culture. At the end of Japanese occupation, the journalism tended to be commercialized and industrialized. Against this trend, Im Hwa emphasized the critical function of journalism. Like his emphasis on the function of language as a spiritual index, it was also resulted from the plot of Im Hwa's culturology that emphasized 'the subjective culture.'
In ch.4, it is searched how Im Hwa saw the formation process of modern Choseon in his description of literature history. For Im Hwa, the modern culture was an aggregate of spiritual and material elements. It is revealed in that he dealt with 'the practical study' and 'the Gabo Renovation' in both articles of 'material background' and 'spiritual preparation.' And, it is formed through the 'acculturation' between ‘a nation state'. This process can be described as a negotiation and collision between 'Western universality' and 'Choseonese peculiarity.' Im Hwa's description of literature history was carried out in this kind of view. Therefore, his concept of 'transplant' came from the idea of 'cultural contact transformation' that Choseon accepted the western culture as a necessary device to proceed from the peculiarity to the universality. It can be seen in his <Method> where he perceived 'the tradition' as 'what is made by the necessity' and 'the literature of transitional era' as the re-discovery of secular-language tradition.
While focusing on the plotting pattern of Im Hwa's literature discourse, this paper tried to conceptualize the colliding point of the discourse with 'the subjective culture' and 'the objective culture.' Even though Im Hwa's literature discourse had a plot that 'the subjective culture' and 'the objective culture' were aggregated interactively, it ultimately transcended the objective culture. So, his discourse has the recognition of modern objective systems and at the same time the idealistic characteristic that transcends it. It is meaningful in that it accomplished a resistant effect to the imperial strategy of Japan in the area of cultural history at the end of Japanese occupation.