Earticle

초록

영어

Kim Namch’ŏn’s 1939 novel of manners, Taeha (Scenes from the Enlightenment), offers a snapshot of Korea at a crucial point in its modern history, the beginning of the Japanese colonial period. The town in which the novel takes place is an ideological battleground as old clashes with new. In terms of the social order, the old guard of the yangban aristocrats clings desperately to the last threads of its status and prestige, but the yangban must u ltimately a dmit d efeat a nd m ake w ay f or t he r ise o f t he c apitalist. Ideologically as well, different philosophies clash, with traditional shamanism and superstitions being denounced by the new enlightenment thinkers and Christian proselytizers. Yet there is one clash that the author deals with only in the subtlest of terms: the clash between the Korean people and the Japanese colonizers. Although this has been seen as a weakness in the novel’s historical consciousness, Kim Namch’ŏn’s depictions of the clashes between old and new cultures are nuanced; neither side is portrayed as being wholly right and effective. While it i s clear that the new is winning out over the old, the picture that we are left with is not a stark black-and-white image but a much more nuanced understanding of this tumultuous transitional period.

목차

Abstract
 INTRODUCTION TO THE WORK AND ITS AUTHOR
 THE FALL OF THE YANGBAN
 THE RISE OF THE CAPITALIST
 AN ATTEMPT TO BRIDGE THE GAP
 CHRISTIANITY, THE NEW RELIGION OF ENLIGHTENMENT
 THE OLD BELIEFS OF SHAMANISM AND SUPERSTITION
 THE REALITY OF COLONIAL RULE
 CONCLUSION
 REFERENCES

저자

• CHARLES LA SHURE [ An assistant professor in the Department of Korean Language and Literature, Seoul National University, Korea. ]

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