• Sijohaknonchong
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• v.25
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• pp.49-73
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• 2006

The poetic theme is a unified principle of which a poet writes poems out in his work. Theme is a poet's central thought expressed in his works. And it was described on the basis of writer's view of the world and life. In this study, I divided the themes of modern Sijo into three kinds according to the materials for a poem. Especially I am interested not so much in the poems taking outer problems of human life for the subject of a poem as in poems dealing with fundamental problems of human life such as self-consciousness, death, God's presence. Firstly, in modern Sijo which deals with poet's self-reflection and self-consciousness as a poet, poets examine himself. And he intends to write poems more severely. The more poet reflects self-consciousness, the more earnestly he tries hard to write good poems. As a poet. he feels complication between real-self and ideal self, so he tries to conquer the shame made in the gab of them. And he takes writing poems into his divinely appointed work in life. A kind of meta-Sijo is written in this circumstances. Secondly, there are modern Sijo, which shows deep concerns in death problems of human life. Thanatopsis expressed in modern Sijo is connected with poet's personal experiences. In most cases, poet describes fragmentary thoughts, sorrows and agony after death of his intimate persons. In Sijo, however, poets don't dig Into the death problem deep enough because of the characteristics of genre. But it is very significant work to take various materials of death into poetic themes in Sijo in that it makes us to reflect of human attitude of life. Thirdly, the poetic themes of dealing with fundamental problems of human and God are expressed in Sijo based on Christian view of the world. In such a poems, poet complains to God who looks in illogical human situations as a spectator of vulgar realities of life. But ultimately. poet expresses deep affirmation and obedience of God in his poems. So he manifests Christianity by the poetic paradox. Such poems change over the theme of modern Sijo the superficial Problems of reality to the deep situation of life.