Lee Chan is a poet who reveals various aspects of his contemporary Korean poetry literature, and his changing name implies that his poetry went through ongoing variations like a stream of modern Korean history. In the period of Japanese imperialism, h...
Lee Chan is a poet who reveals various aspects of his contemporary Korean poetry literature, and his changing name implies that his poetry went through ongoing variations like a stream of modern Korean history. In the period of Japanese imperialism, he acted as poet in his personal name comprising Chinese characters (‘李燦’), but was compelled to adopt a Japanese name called ‘Aoba Gaori (靑葉薰)’ when publishing his drama in 1940, and acted in a Korean name called ‘Lee Chan’ as revolutionary poet from the migration to North Korea in 1945 till the end of his life in 1974. In succession to a tradition of the Korea Artista Proleta Federatio (KAPF), the literature world of Lee Chan takes an indispensable part of North Korea`s history before the rise of discourses about independent art and literature of Korea. This paper focused upon the poetic world of Lee Chan who sought to embody his ideological progress in step with historical flow, so that it could investigate various aspects of Korean poetry literature before and after the 1945 Liberation of Korea. In addition, this study could discuss potential effects of Lee`s ideological conversion and pro-Japanese activities on his poetry, and address his poetry to identify any historical aspects of his poetry literature before and after the 1945 Liberation of Korea. Lee Chan, a modern Korean poet who appeared in the late 1920`s and dedicated himself positively to literary creation activities, is now highly evaluated in the history of North Korean literature. Despite ideal tendency and failure to reveal any concrete minds of reality, the proletarian poems of Lee Chan (‘李燦’) who demonstrated proactive and positive determination to find something meaningful for his fatherland were consistent with a mainstream of his contemporary nationalist campaigns. He intensively revealed his critical minds about social class and national liberation along with so-called `Proletarian Literature Group` poets who acted from late 1920`s to 1930`s. He went through a series of ideological careers such as `nationalistic leftist ideology`, `pessimistic sentimentalism`, `evasive romanticism` and `modernistic orientation` before `abruptly converting to pro-Japanese literature.` However, he `re-joined leftist literature group immediately after the national liberation`, which demonstrated his ideological progress again. As Lee Chan was named variously in his lifetime, his poetry was vulnerable as a scapegoat to colonial history. Targets of his poetry were also expressed as changed beings in a good step with his own circumstances or psychological situations. Particularly, Lee Chan created a fictional lady in his poetry, calling lamentably her (as a target of yearning and sadness). And this sentiment was immediately refined and cleansed into an attachment. Despite long ways of wandering, Lee Chan`s poetic spirit ended up with finding a final destination in `northern region` as his hometown. As for Lee, `the Spring of Northern Region` meant `the very woman` he called lamentably, `a Utopian world` he determined to find out in his young days, and `the lost flower garden` of Korean nation. Thus, we can discuss and find out various aspects of modern Korean poetry literature in the name of `Lee Chan` before and after the 1945 Liberation of Korea.