This paper aims at finding a relationship between Oh Jang-hwan's poetry and Baek Seok's poetry, clarifying Oh Jang-hwan poetry's thematic consciousness, and characterizing the inner logic of Oh Jang-hwan's early poetry. This kind of work helps finding...
This paper aims at finding a relationship between Oh Jang-hwan's poetry and Baek Seok's poetry, clarifying Oh Jang-hwan poetry's thematic consciousness, and characterizing the inner logic of Oh Jang-hwan's early poetry. This kind of work helps finding out the logical reasons for the complex aspects of Oh Jang-hwan's early poetry. A desirable poem for Oh Jang-hwan is the one that reveals a poet's emotion, opinions, and visions. The 'sentimentalism' for him is the emotion that a true person has to feel when he confronts with the real life and the natural effect of the contents over the forms. On the one hand, Oh Jang-hwan's criticism for Baek, Seok is caused by this kind of reason. On the other hand, Oh tries to find Baek Seok poetry's good points, the characteristics of returning family and hometown and refinding a value of the present reality and the future directionality. The thematic tendency of Oh Jang-hwan's early poetry is perceiving the past with the present perspective and narrating the past with the vision for future. This kind of tendency is embodied in <Jongga [the head family]>.
However, Oh Jang-hwan does not reveal his commentary and critical attitude in the poems depicting the low class whom he empathizes or feels sympathy. This kind of tendency proves that Oh Jang-hwan's critical voice is not his own voice but an intentional one resulted by his poetic theory. The reason why he shows a critical attitude in his many poems in spite of this tendency is that he thinks criticizing the old customs, the false consciousness and the deceptive attitude of the Yangban [the upper class], human alineation of the capitalistic society, and the small businessmen is more important than sympathizing with the lower class. This kind of attitude tells that Oh Jang-hwan does not deny all aspects of the contemporary reality and tradition but negate them selectively differentiating between the objects of negation and the objects of empathy. The reason why the critical poems are more visible than the empathizing poems is that the object of denial is the structure of reality itself.