Taoist Elements in Emily Dickinson’s Poems

Lee, Hong-Pil(이홍필) 한국동서비교문학학회 2006 동서 비교문학저널 Vol.0 No.15

문학의 고고학-쉐머스 헤이니의 『어느 자연주의자의 죽음』

이홍필 ( Hong Pil Lee ) 21세기영어영문학회 1994 영어영문학21 Vol.9 No.-

세계속의 자아: 『인생연구』의 "인생연구"시편

이홍필 ( Hong Pil Lee ) 21세기영어영문학회 1996 영어영문학21 Vol.11 No.-

Joe Christmas and Power: A Structuralist Reading of Light in August

이홍필 ( Hong Pil Lee ) 21세기영어영문학회 1995 영어영문학21 Vol.10 No.-

Nature, Consciousness, and Wordsworth`s Imagination

이홍필 ( Hong Pil Lee ) 21세기영어영문학회 1993 영어영문학21 Vol.8 No.-

로월의 「스컹크시간」--『인생연구』의 완결편

이홍필 ( Hong Pil Lee ) 전남대학교 인문학연구소 1998 용봉인문논총 Vol.27 No.-

로버트 로월(Robert Lowell)의 일부 연구가들은 『인생연구』(Life Studies)에 등장하는 작품들이 각각 다른 시기에 창작 · 발표되었으면서도, 시집 전체의 구조상에 있어서는 완결성을 갖추고 있다고 지적한다. 동일한 시각에서 본 연구는 이 시집의 최종 작품인 「스컹크 시간」을 분석한다. 이 작품이 구조적인 측면에서 뿐만 아니라 주제면에서 있어서도 시집 전체를 집약하는 동시에, 로월의 실존적 자아관을 형상화시키고 있다는 관점에서 접근한다. 『인생연구』는 4부로 구성되어 있다. 1부는 문명속에 내재된 와해작용을 과거와 현재를 예시하면서 재현시키고 있다. 2부는 산문으로 된 로월의 자서전으로 자신의 소외와 절망을 추적하기 위해서 부모의 갈등을 정검하면서, 그 갈등의 피해자가 시인 자신임을 부각시킨다. 3부는 조오지 산타야나(George Santayana), 델모어 슈어츠(Delmore Schwartz)같은 현대 작가들의 초상을 스케치하면서 로월 자신의 투옥과 정신병원 체험을 복선화시키고 있다. 4부의 전반부는 가족내의 갈등 상황을 묘사하면서도 자신이 가족 구성원들과 화해를 이끌어내는 과정을 묘사한다. 또 4부의 후반부에서는 로월 자신의 정신병원과 감옥 체험을 회고하면서 세계와의 화해를 암시하고 있다. 요약하자면, 인생연구는 종장으로 근접해 갈수록 문명 · 사회 · 문화 · 가족둥의 외부적 세력으로부터 로월 자신의 사적인 문제로 수렴되어갈 뿐만 아니라, 이러한 세력과 화해를 시도하고 있다. 『인생연구』는 로월 자신에 관한 연구, 즉 자신에게 절망과 소외를 감내시킨 세계 속에서의 자신의 초상화를 그려보려는 시도라고 할 수 있다. 그리하여 『인생연구』의 최종 작품 「스컹크 시간」은 이러한 문맥에서 분석될 수 있다. 이 작품의 전반부는 시집 전체의 구도처럼 문영, 문화, 가족등에 대한 포괄적 기상도 혹은 지형도이며, 후반부는 이러한 전체적 세계 상황하에서의 로월 자신의 근영을 투사하고 있다. 말하자면 이 시집 전체의 요약이자 결론이며 로월이 스스로 그려낸 가장 진솔한 자기 초상화이다. 이는 일점 은폐도 없이 과거의 고통들을 용기있게 재경험함으로써 수확되는 성숙한 자아의 표현에 다름 아니다. 다시 말해서, 로월은 외부세계가 고통스럽다는 것을 잘 알면서도 그것으로부터 자신을 도피시키려 하지않고, 오히려 그 속에서 자아를 확인하려 한다. 이 작품의 최종연이 함축하고 있는 것은 세계와 자아를 대립에서 공존으로 상승시킬 수 있음을 보여주는 것인데, 이는 자아가 세계와 간단없는 대화를 통해서 성취될 수 있음을 시사하는 것이다.

세계문학의 가능성에 대한 시론

이홍필(Hong-Pil Lee) 한국동서비교문학학회 2014 동서 비교문학저널 Vol.0 No.31

From about the 17th-century forward, the northeastern Asian countries China, Japan, and Korea have imported western cultures and technology through different routes. But each of them showed their own distinct attitudes toward strange western cultures, thereby breeding interesting standpoints: acceptance and resistance. The attempt to define comparative literature or universal literature as a concept has not made a huge progress from its starting point. As early as the 18th-century, it was Goethe that attempted to create world literature (Weltliteraur) as a concept, but he started it with its limitations. In the 21st-century perspective, his original concept makes little sense, because it developed only with western European-oriented literatures, most of which not only originated from Greek and Latin literature but influenced each other among themselves as well. Toward a possibility of world literature or comparative literature, however, let me suggest Merleau-Ponty’s thesis. His etre-au-monde elaborates a theory of the human subject which results from a complementary operation between the subject and object rather than from a dichotomous division. The thesis Illustrates not only the possibility but the inevitability of the subject’s coexistence with others and with the external world. Merleau-Ponty’s existential meaning is a shared meaning between the human subject and the world. On this basis, we might construct a concept of world literature or comparative literature.

월트 휘트먼과 죽음

이홍필(Lee, Hong-Pil) 한국동서비교문학학회 2008 동서 비교문학저널 Vol.0 No.18

Death is one of the most frequent themes both in western and oriental literary works. In western world where Christianity has been the dominant religious tenet, a number of literary works of art have dealt with death in terms of otherworldliness. For example, John Donne, the seventeen-century British poet, vividly personifies death in his poetical works; Emily Dickinson, the nineteen-century American poet, presupposes the advent of death, its weight and the life after death. Yet oriental literary writers have not paid much too their attention to death as much as western writers. Such a tendency comes from the belief of oriental thinkers: death is a cycle of a huge stream in the universe. The Hindu followers and ancient Chinese thinkers took it for granted that death is a natural phenomenon. Considering death not as a coda of life but as a process, they did not express fear or dread toward death. Although Walt Whitman was born into puritan society, his attitude toward death seems to come close to that of oriental thinkers. He wrote a number of poems about death from his early career of poet, interpreting death as a process of large cycle: his recognition of death as a natural phenomenon culminates in “The Sleepers.” This essay seeks to examine his works on death with special focus on “The Sleepers.”

뉴 크리티시즘 다시 읽기

이홍필(Hongpil Lee) 한국동서비교문학학회 2016 동서 비교문학저널 Vol.0 No.37

This paper examines the western literary theories and experiments which have been imported since the period of Japanese colonial rule over Korea, particularly the New Criticism. A number of literary theories manufactured in Europe have been accepted in uncritical terms. For example, New Criticism, originally sprouted by British critics but revised in American literary soil, was misunderstood at the time of its import. Professor Yoonsik Kim points out that the very theory was introduced by a well-known professor cum critic, Chul Baek, who stayed in the US as a visiting scholar for about a year in the 1950s. However, his introduction and understanding of New Criticism was not only superficial but partially misunderstood as well. It was Professor Jong-Gil Kim Who clearly understood that very theory and further analysed the Korean poetries of the 1950s and the 1960s in terms of New Criticism. Accepting the theory, however, Professor Jong-Gil Kim warned us of a critical attitude when we import foreign-made literary theories. In a number of cases, he says that the western literary theories imported after the period of the Japanese colonial rule of Korea have been misunderstood and misapplied. Now we live in a global era in which we cannot avoid exchange between many distinct cultures and their characteristics. But we have to bear in mind that we should accept foreign-made literary theories in terms of a critical spirit with our cultural own backgrounds in mind.

동서양의 이중 대위법

이홍필(Hongpil Lee) 한국동서비교문학학회 2015 동서 비교문학저널 Vol.0 No.32

Cathy Song was born and brought up in Hawaii as a granddaughter of labor immigrants of Koreans in the early 20th century. Her father was Korean and her mother Chinese, and their traditions account for a large number of her poems. As Richard Hugo points out, she keeps silent even when we are able to easily find anger and grievances her family members must have carried. Her grandparents were victimized by a violence in the particular historical powers, and the aftermath continued to run in their descendents, including Song herself. Dealing with the past of her family, however, she manages to transform it into a peaceful and calm expression through her own poetic narratives. In a number of her poems, she talks about the cultural heritages of East Asian countries, most of which are treated in aloof poetic terms. Raised with an Asian cultural background, she was educated in America and learned to write in English. But it seems that she also learned to know how to breed a harmony from distinct cultures. Through a well-controlled poetics, she has been successful in building her solid, calm world, a rare voice in contemporary American poetry. For example, “Beauty and Sadness” expresses such a mature poetic world. She maintains a singular poetic narrative to turn the world of victims and the oppressed into that of peace and calm. It is not a difficult concept that the salient strength of her poetry consists in this very respect.