As a preparatory investigation, we examined the birthplace and the Catholic university course of the poet. And we could find out that his birthplace gave him ``The Northern Emotion` and his university course helped to give him insightful observation o...
As a preparatory investigation, we examined the birthplace and the Catholic university course of the poet. And we could find out that his birthplace gave him ``The Northern Emotion` and his university course helped to give him insightful observation of the emigrant`s hard life. His resistance we can find in his poetry was the result of his critical reflection on the emigrant`s wandering, their frustration, their separation from the native country and the plundering policy of Japan. Some of his poems resisted passively against Japanese rule exemplified by such poems as 「Beside the River」, and 「The Place was full of the Insects` Songs」. But as his poetry matured, his resistance became positive through the protest against Japanese barbaric rule over the Korean people exemplified such poems as 「A Dilapidated House」, 「O, the Idiot River」 and 「The Girl from the Chulla-do Province」. Of course, we must value more highly his active resistance than his passive resistance. And so, we must not examine his positive resistance poetry on the same plane with his passive resistance poetry. In future, if we affirm the political viewpoint is more effective in the study of Li-Young-Ak`s poetry, we must abandon non-political viewpoint which can not point out exactly the main features of the resistance of his poetry.