김환태의 日本九州大學학위 논문에 나타난 월터 페이터의 심미주의 예술관

A Study on the Critical theory of Walter Pater in the Kim Hwan-Tae's Ggraduation Thesis of Ku Ju Imperial University

The literary critic Kim Hwan Tae majored in English Literature at the Kyushu Imperial University. It was there that he began to formulate his views on literature and literary criticism. His well known graduation thesis, “Matthew Arnold and Walter Pater as Literary Critics” leaves unsolved the ambiguity of why he chose such a topic for research. However, it is a well-known fact that the Japanese literary world of the nineteen thirties was influenced greatly by western literary movements, and it is clear that his literary and critical theory was formulated as a direct result of his research of Arnold and Pater, his literary disposition, and 1930' literary situation. Kim Hwan Tae emphasized the following three point for the Pater's Criticism. First, It is the aim of all true criticism ‘to see the object as in itself it really is’, special impression of beauty or pleasure. Second, He emphasized Impressionism and Creative criticism. Third He emphasized the love of art for its own sake.