This article attempts to look at the constellation of Kim Hyun’s criticism from the overall composition and examine the overall direction of the criticism methodology that penetrates the details. To this end, this article is the premise of discussio...
This article attempts to look at the constellation of Kim Hyun’s criticism from the overall composition and examine the overall direction of the criticism methodology that penetrates the details. To this end, this article is the premise of discussion on two levels, that is the interpenetrating synthesis of foreign and korean literature studies, and the interpenetrating synthesis of literary theory(principle), literary history(step theory), and actual criticism(current review). Using Kim Hyun’s criticism as a medium, it proceeds in a way that captures important critical peculiarities through sequential review of early criticism, mid-term criticism, and late criticism. In this process, the discussion of a new level of interpenetrating synthesis of intrinsic criticism and extrinsic criticism is extracted to reach the central point of interpenetrating synthesis of autonomy and validity of literature.
In his early criticism, Kim Hyun is mainly in the psychoanalysis of Freud, Sartre, Valery’s theory of pure poetry, surrealist poetry and poetry are subjectively accepted to explore the world of individual’s inner imagination in korean literature. Kim Hyun regards signs such as language and customs as the reality of the unique imagination system of society, and adopts a method of approaching the imaginary system of society through the signs, so that literature was not limited to the domain of personal imagination from early criticism. We secure a literature view that is regarded as a sign to approach the periodic and social imaginary system. In literary criticism, Kim Hyun pursues the direction of expanding the theory of an individual’s inner imagination, which has affinity with psychoanalysis, into a connection with historical and social meanings, while emphasizing the historical and social role of marxism and affinity. It pursues a direction that combines the theory of anger or genre.
In his mid-term criticism, Kim Hyun mainly embraced Goldman’s developmental structuralism, Markuse’s theory of desire, Adorno’s critical aesthetic theory, Bachelard’s cultural complex, prototype, concept of material imagination and dynamic imagination, and Roland Barth’s structuralist literary theory. Based on the transcendental point of view of literature as a dream, the discussion explores the social role of literature in industrial and consumer society. If the direction of examining literature in relation to the historical and social meanings is called external criticism or the theory of validity of literature, Goldman’s methodology of ‘generational structuralism’ in the medium term criticism, Markuse’s desireism, Adorno’s critical aesthetics The external criticism or the theory of validity of literature set by Kim Hyun with a focus on such research is developed as ‘literature history’ in 『Korean Literature History』(Minumsa, 1973), while in later criticism where such inquiry accumulates 『Literature Sociology』(Minumsa, 1983) and systematized as ‘literature sociology’.
In his later criticisms after the 1980s, which focused on analyzing the structure of violence and desire, Kim Hyun mainly accepted Girard’s theory of violence, Foucault’s power- language theory, Geneva consciousness criticism, subject criticism, phenomenological criticism, etc. It develops around the perspective of deconstructing and criticizing violence through structural analysis. Kim Hyun's literary and sociological search for theories in the category of literary and sociology, in line with the direction of expanding the study of French literature to neighboring disciplines such as philosophy, anthropology, and sociology, reached the study of Michel Foucault through the study of Rene Girard. It can be seen as a persecution of problems of violence and desire, and of knowledge and power.
In Kim Hyun's criticism, if external criticism or the theory of validity of literature proceeds from the macroscopic domain to the microscopic domain with the direction of ‘era→ ideology→literary genre’, the direction of ‘literary work→image and imagination→work structure’ at the opposite extreme. The theory of autonomy of literature can be extracted from the microscopic domain to the macroscopic domain. Representative methodologies of this direction are ‘image analysis’ and ‘imagination study’, and Bachelard’s concepts of cultural complex, prototype, material imagination and dynamic imagination provide an important theoretical foundation. In addition, from the late criticism in which this inquiry accumulates, it is systematized into Geneva School’s consciousness criticism, subject criticism, phenomenological criticism, etc., to 『Geneva School Research』(Literature and Intellectual Company, 1987).