A Study on the Buddhist Ecological Poetics in Thomas Hardy's and Se-Yeong Oh's Poetry

The purpose of this paper is to examine the ecological poetics in Thomas Hardy’s and Se-Yeong Oh’s poetry as an alternative to overcome the contradictions and absurdities of the modern times in the Buddhistic perspective. Buddhistic imagination is one of the important elements forming Hardy’s and Oh, Se Yeong’s poetic world. They have a deep concern about all beings in conflicts in a modern industrial society and also hope to realize the harmony and reconciliation among them. In particular, they feel other’s pain as their own one, not as an individual apart from others but as one originally identified with them. The Buddhistic ecology stresses that all beings interdepend and interpenetrate in complete harmony with one another. The pursuit of the aesthetic in terms of this perspective can be understood as the process for searching the alternatives to overcome the contradictions and absurdities of the modern times. In this vein, Hardy and Se-Yeong Oh try to overcome the divided aspects of the modern times through the recovery of the interdependent relationship between ‘self and other’ and between ‘human and the world.’ Their focal concern is the respect, sympathy, solidarity consciousness for all beings based on harmony and union in the interdependent circulating structure of ecosystem. Consequently, the poetics of Hardy and Se-Yeong Oh has a significant meaning as a practical discourse which aspires to get over conflicts and confrontation of their times and which hopes to realize the harmony and unity in the future.