The aim of this study is to clarify the genesis and the development of modem Korean children's literature during this period from 1910 to the early 1920s. The concept of children's literature that took form in this period has lasted. By mean ...
The aim of this study is to clarify the genesis and the development of modem Korean children's literature during this period from 1910 to the early 1920s. The concept of children's literature that took form in this period has lasted. By means of considering the process by which children's literature took its place as a unique domain, we can oberve one manifestation of modernity in literature. The texts for considering the character of each decade are "Sonyun(Young Boy)" (《少年》) and "Euorini(Child)"(《어린이》), in other words, the most important operative concept is 'communicative structure', the relation of author and reader and how that relationship affects the form of children's literature. Moreover, this writer considers the systemic circumstances which affected the children's literature of that time.
The appearance of children's literature was simultaneous with that of the modem view of the child. Before modem times, children existed as immature adults, lacking perfection. Rites of passage -- a comming-of-age ceremony or a marriage ceremony -- were highly important operative concepts in this society before modernization and industrialization. Children were treated as 'small adults', 'immature grown-ups'. They did not have any unique system or properties, but in modem times, an awareness of the particular nature of childhood appeared. Growth has taken the place of the rite of passage, contents of childhood are now positively determined.
This change of a view of the child was effected through the modernization of society. Japanese children's literature offers a theoritical basis for Korean children's literature, especially in the 1920s. Economic support and ideological influence from Christianity and Korea's indigenous ethico-religeous movement called "Chondo"(天道), the organization and odering of a modem education system, proliferation of new discourse in general, in literature, Enlightenment, racial consciousness, provide the systemic circumstances in which modem Korean children ' s literature attained full definition.
The character of children's literature around 1910 presents two aspects. One is that the authors wished to identify the reader. This reflects an abstract Enlightenment. Readers are addressed as 'Sonyun' by authors, and 'Sonyun' are all put as 'Uri(We)' in the same category. Therefore, authors projected their own ideologies and purposes on to their readers. This two-way relationship of author and reader appears to double communicative structure in the works. The other aspect is a this doubling process presents a form of oratory. The writer is both author and 'Sonyun', the reader is stimultaneously 'Sonyun' and the world. Thus the communicative structure is doubled. This results in a special form of oratory. Oratory works to the end that the author identifies 'Sonyun' as the reader, and the author and 'Sonyun' as the group subject -- 'Uri' -- in order to elucidate the story's idea. This form of oratory destroys the distance between the communicator and the receptor, so it conceals the contradiction and makes the formal equality.
In such a state where the author and reader are undifferentiated, serious children's literature cannot really appear. In the early 192Os, a concept and model of serious children's literature was organized with characters, which personify. The separation of author and reader and in which the author regards the child as object. Especially, the characteristic property of object as 'Euorini' was understood as 'Dongshim(chi1dren's mind)'. Thus, the relationship of author and reader appears to dual communicative structure. The form of story is a important way of constructing children's literature.