한국영문학 속의 비교문학, 비교문학 속의 한국영문학

Comparative Literature within Korea's English Studies, Korea's English Studies within Comparative Literature

The crisis of English studies and education in Korea stems from the confusion of both scholars and students about center and peripheries. Doing English in Korea, 'I' is no doubt geographically located in Korea. 'I,' however, tends to look upon his unconsciously colonized self as the other of Anglo-American subjectivity, with English operating as the geographical center, not peripheries, of the 'I' located in Korean territory and culture. This paper proposes to introduce the idea of comparative literature into the curriculum, comparative literature here being confined and geared to the comparison between English and Korean literatures and cultures. It is apparent that no matter how 'I' struggles to approach English arguably from a nationalistically-oriented mind, the object of Korea's English studies cannot be changed from English to Korean literature. When included in the curriculum, however, comparative literature as a subject expands the object from one to two, say, from English to English and Korean literatures, two literatures and cultures equivalently competing with each other for symbolic hegemony at least in an educational point of view. The comparative analysis of Doris Lessing's "Our Friend Judith" and Oh Jung Hee's "Paroho(破虜湖)" is presented as a case study in which Freud's male-centered psychoanalytic idea of "uncanny" is both accommodated and defied, defied partially by Lessing, and, defied much in a larger scale by Oh Jung Hee. Comparative literature can be a new point of departure to cope with the problems deeply rooted in Korea's English studies and education.