@article{oai:twcu.repo.nii.ac.jp:00017865, author = {池, 明観}, journal = {東京女子大學附屬比較文化研究所紀要}, month = {}, note = {Kim Chi Ha was born in 1941 and entered Seoul National University in 1959, majoring in Aesthetics. He wrote poems and essays in campus publications and the first anthology of his poems, "The Yellow Dust Road, " appeared in 1970. He was often hospitalized because of consumption and often imprisoned on the basis of his critical writings. In particular, he had to spend five and a half years in prison from 1975 to 1980 on charges of being a communist, mainly because of his memo for a poem which was written secretly during a previous imprisonment. It can be said that he spent the prime of his life in prison. For a long time he was forbidden to write and it was forbidden for his writings to be published. Recently, "Big Story, South" and "Meals," an anthology of his speeches, were published. Last summer, several interviews with him appeared in magazines in Korea which seemed to show that Kim Chi Ha has more interest these days in a "life movement" emphasizing a culture of life. It is questionable whether movements to protect and enhance life can occur without political struggles with the ruling powers, but in this essay, I would like to deal with his literature and the thoughts revealed before he began to focus his attention more on life problems. That is, I will deal mainly with the period before he was released from prison at the end of 1980. On Thoughts About the Minjung Kim Chi Ha expressed the hopes for reconciliation between the people of all classes as the dream of the oppressed. The story of Chang I1 Dam formed in his prison memo finishes with an event in which the head of Chang, which is resurrected after he is executed as a revolutionary, leaps up and connects itself to the body of his betrayer. This shows that Chang I1 Dam saves even evil people and afterwards a new era filled with a new spirit comes to prevail in the world. This is the dream not only of the Korean people but also of all Third World peoples. In this sense, the Minjung story in the Korean context takes on a universal meaning. The Satire of Poetic Violence Kim Chi Ha points out that modern Korean poets have been influenced by Western poems, being unable to share a common mind with the Korean people. Thus, they were disconnected from the literary traditions of the Korean people and, in particular, the caricatures and satires made by the people's resistance. Kim Chi Ha, however, found these in one of the modern poets, Kim Soo Youg, but the latter directed these forms against himself rather than against the ruling powers and so destroyed himself. The forms of caricature and satire by the people are a poetic violence against the establishment. People are filled with "Han," Which is the congealing of sorrows inflicted upon them by the ruling powers and which will explode someday. Also, the beauty pursued in the literature of the people is not what is beautiful to the bourgeoisie but rather is ugly according to the standards of brougeoise literature. Kim Chi Ha says that ugliness in art is a challenge to the ugliness of reality. The art of ugliness is fond of distortions, exaggerations, comedies, and parodies. That is why Kim Chi Ha's literary world is filled with so-called grotesque-realism. He inverted the order of daily life by taking marginal people into the center of his literary world, which is like a people's festival, and by making those who are despised into sacred characters. Religious Existence Analyzing Kim Chi Ha's poetic world, there are three stages; the one before "The Yellow Dust Road, " the world of this anthology, and the stage after it. In the first stage, his problem was the struggle between the soul and the flesh, while in the second it was whether he could close his ears to Abel's cries or if he had to cry with them. The third stage is concerned with his political struggle, that is, with the question of whether he would sacrifice himself to fight for democracy and social justice for the people or if he should keep silent out of fear of imprisonment and torture. During these struggles, Kim Chi Ha often longed for the peace of death and then for resurrection. Religious Consciousness of History - A Hope for the Messiah In Kim's prison memo, Chang I1 Dam is a character of Jesus, a lumpen-proletariat revolutionary. Kim Chi Ha thinks there is masochistic vision of liberation among those who are oppressed. When Chang's head connects itself to the body of his betrayer, there emerges a life of koinonia in which selfishness is destroyed and self-purification is realized and we are united into one. It means that the beast in the self will be killed and the bottom will be replaced by Heaven. In this koinonia, not only oppressors but oppression itself is abrogated and then the "Han" of the people can be relieved. This idea in Kim Chi Ha's writings is connected to Christianity on the one hand and with Tonghak, a native religious thought, on the other. Kim Chi Ha's thoughts are radical and revolutionary, but they are very much religious. It can be said that his thoughts are the dream of salvation coming from the suffering, marginalized region of the present world civilization.}, pages = {1--22}, title = {金芝河の文学と思想}, volume = {46}, year = {1985} }