Kim Jong-sam has constructed an independent sphere of modernity in the post-war Korean world of poetry via temperate description and image juxtaposition and kept his distance from the main current of poetic world which is bisected into the traditional...
Kim Jong-sam has constructed an independent sphere of modernity in the post-war Korean world of poetry via temperate description and image juxtaposition and kept his distance from the main current of poetic world which is bisected into the traditionalism and modernism in the 1950s and the pure and participatory poetry in the 1960s.
On the assumption that the modernistic consciousness of aesthetic of Kim Jong-sam's poetry was placed in 'juxtaposition'―his main technique of image-making, the investigator organically examined the discontinuity of juxtaposition technique on the strata of world view, aesthetic consciousness, and technique, in relation to intellectualism's discontinuous world view which was accepted as a theoretic background of Korean modernism in the 1930s and 1950s.
Discontinuity is a dominant characteristic in Kim Jong-sam's world of poetry and a core concept which consists of the depths of specific space of aesthetics. Kim Jong-sam's aesthetic consciousness has a remarkable characteristic in relation to Hume's discontinuous world view. The disintegration of continuous world is realized with inorganic imagination which includes gap and severance of reality. The separation consciousness of the self and the world is presented as non-identical aesthetics which makes the distance between the subject and the object longer. In order to secure an objective distance from the negative reality, a poetic subject constructs a space of human absence in which the human emotion is suppressed and realizes a new aesthetic order which overcomes the discontinuity via the juxtaposition of subconsciousness-projected images of the subject.
Kim Jong-sam's poetic juxtaposition of the discontinuity is a passage of aesthetic image-making of discontinuous world view. All the modalities of poetic juxtaposition structure is classified into three on the basis of the disposition of meaning of juxtaposed clauses:①the juxtaposition of space with which vision and reality/peace and violence are arranged heterogeneously;②the juxtaposition of time which destructs the metric nature of linear time;and ③the juxtaposition of existence which is realized as the external distance between the self and others/the external distance between others and others/the internal distance between the self and the self. Recognizing the world discontinuously is a modality which is identical with Hume, but Kim Jong-sam has a peculiar point of discrimination―the discontinuous world view of binary opposition. He views the world as a dualistic oppositional structure and embodies it as a juxtaposed structure of binary opposition―reality and vision/isolation and longing/violence and peace/death and childish innocence/poverty and purity/life and death/deficiency and nostalgia/the mundane world and the holy place/reality and music. The former is images which have negative disposition of meaning, but the latter is images which have positive disposition of meaning. The former is the world the haves and the strong dominate, but the latter is the painful world of the have-nots and the weak. When a poetic subject expresses a dualistic opposition, the discontinuity deepens. On the other hand, when the world of identical clause is arranged without confrontation, the continuity strengthens. When the discontinuity of the world is structured with the denial consciousness of reality, the consciousness of running away, and a gap with the world of absoluteness, the discontinuity of juxtaposition deepens. However, when the continuity of the world is restored with the consciousness of pity, the consciousness of calling, and the consciousness of kind, the continuity of juxtaposition strengthens. Within the discontinuous world view of binary opposition, continuity and discontinuity are unified dialectically.
In addition, within the juxtaposed structure, continuity and discontinuity are unified in a form of severance and generation. It realizes comprehensiveness by accomplishing superficial severance and producing generation in a blank space. If superficial severance reflects the world of discontinuity, generation in a blank space secretly implies the new world of continuity. Appeared are disturbance and shock derived from the severance of images, but concealed between lines is 'the third meaning' newly generated through the modification of meaning. In this dialectic process, the third meaning, Kim Jong-sam intends to, is presented as the realization of visionary world which reflects reality/the longing for peace and purity/the aesthetic realization of the absolute world.
Kim Jong-sam's poetic juxtaposition of discontinuity makes poetic structure a resonance tube of clash, confrontation, and connection of images, thus endlessly generating the relationship of mutual reflection and realizing a peculiar aesthetic space in which multi-vocal resonance spreads out. Juxtaposition produces not two-dimensional plain but three-dimensional space, thus making one look at the vision in which the pain of reality permeated, poverty-projected beauty, and the childish innocence obscured by death solidly. As a result, his poetry leaves an bitter aftertaste behind beauty and sordidly exposes the barrenness of reality in a hazy vision. The technique of image-making which engraves in relief beauty on the shadow of reality produces a tight tension via the contrast between light and shade, thus making one look at 'beautiful shivering', he constructs, with rankling. The beauty of Kim Jong-sam's poetry is 'the beauty which has contents' that reflect the pain of reality.
Kim Jong-sam's poetic world is 'the poetics of mirror.' The subjective ideal exists only with 'the truth of reflection', which fragmented images interactively project. With this, his denial consciousness of reality appears not with the voice of resentment which is remarkable in the participatory poetry in the 1960s. It reflects the consciousness of kind, the consciousness of pity, and the consciousness of crime, only with an image and does not proceed to the intention of change. As a result, there is no dynamics but silence in his poetry. And one can feel not resentment but sorrow. Belonging to neither pure poetry nor participatory poetry, he realizes a peculiar poetic world through 'the aesthetics of mirror' by taking nutrients from both circles. That he leaves an afterimage which can be tasted for a long time regardless of the distance of the times is the achievement of this aesthetics.