• Cross-Cultural Studies
• /
• v.45
• /
• pp.85-107
• /
• 2016

Cho Ji-hoon was a leading figure on the discussion of recognition on Han Yong-un, particularly the post-liberation period. During the Japanese colonial era, he addressed Han Yong-un as the representative of national poet, and evaluated Han's poems as the models of rebellious nationalistic poetry. Such evaluation by Cho set the precedent of basic perspectives and methodologies on how to recognize Han Yong-un in the present day. This paper analyzes three studies on Han Yong-un, conducted by Cho ji-hoon. We also examine how Cho created his logic of recognizing Han as a national poet, and his poems as nationalistic poetry. Accordingly, this paper has separated recognitions on poet studies and work studies, and further explored how each recognition has consistency with Cho ji-hoon's historical and literary perception. As a result, the following has been concluded: the basis of Cho ji-hoon's recognition on the life and works of Han Yong-un was premised on Cho's understanding of the world from a standpoint of history of ideas, the concept of nation was regarded as an absolute value that binds disparate ideas together, and the combination of nationalism and poetry has been expressed through the logic of nationalistic poetry and the notion which equalizes the poet to a classical scholar. It was further concluded that such equalizing logic contains some logical contradictions derived from integration between universal rights and national sovereignty, and nation and Buddhism. Therefore, it can be said that other possible interpretations on the role of a poet were not fully discussed, but remain bounded. Last but not the least, this paper critically tries to perceive Cho's recognition on Han Yong-un, and accentuates the necessity of new interpretations of Han's poems, apart from those based on nationalism.