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영어

The aim of this paper is to examine ‘Avant-garde Metaphor’ that has driven a change in Kim Soo Young’s literature since the April 19 Revolution. While this paper builds upon the existing discussions that the poet has been significantly influenced by avant-garde literature such as Surrealism, it seeks to explore how it developed further in the later period. For that purpose, the paper singles out ‘reaction’ and ‘impropriety’ as keywords that dominate the literature of the poet in his late period and analyzed the avant-garde spirit embodied within. In this regard, this paper intends to call these concepts ‘avant-garde metaphors.’ The existing studies failed to reveal a link between the meaning of ‘reaction’ unfolded in his poem, Grand Root, avant-garde characteristics of his ‘avant-garde’ concepts, and the meaning of ‘impropriety’ suggested in the discussions, as they treated them separately. This study develops the premise that the very concepts of ‘reaction’ and ‘impropriety’ are founded on the avant-garde in terms of art history and Kim Soo Young created his own ‘avant-garde’ concepts based upon it. Hence, the paper stresses that while the concepts of ‘reaction’ and ‘impropriety’ originated from the avant-garde, they also play an important role in forming his unique ‘avant-garde’ concepts. It is a precondition of Kim Soo Young’s ‘avant-garde’ concepts that the avant-garde characteristics of literature are indivisible from the issue of political freedom. Again, it is fully reflected in his concept of ‘reaction’. He sets and mobilizes political contexts including dirty history and tradition, ideologies, foreign influence, etc., on the antipode of ‘reaction’ and at the same time, unveils his will to literally overthrow them. It is deemed to be arising from the understanding of Dadaism and Surrealism from the viewpoint of art history and knowledge. Therefore, the concept of ‘reaction’ presents the spirit of Kim Soo Young’s own avant-garde to overcome the political frustration of the May 16 coup. In other words, his ‘reaction’ spirit stemming from anti-artism of Dadaism does not just cease at poetic technique but also can be seen as the result of an attempt to recover the social-transformative functions of literature. The notion evolves even more with the concept of ‘impropriety’. Sometimes, Kim Soo Young used an expression such as ‘avant-garde impropriety’, which accentuates the fact that the very concept is underpinned by the spirit of avant-garde that refuses the existing order and the established power. In the sense, it can be viewed that the concept of ‘impropriety’ may also imply avant-garde metaphor. Closely intertwined with the violation of social taboos, ‘impropriety’ is adopted as a metaphor that represents the confrontational status between literature and society. The concept can be said to be a case in point: the avant-garde spirit transforms itself against the social context of Korea. As such, as Kim Soo Young broached metaphors reflecting avant-garde spirit through ‘reaction’ in his poems and ‘impropriety’ in his writings, it can be said that it ushered in the possibility of independent avant-garde literature in Korea.