“일상의 형이상”: 찰스 라이트의 「흉터 조직」

“Metaphysics of the Quotidian”: Charles Wright’s “Scar Tissue”

This study aims to give a close reading to Charles Wright’s “Scar Tissue” by examining what his landscape represents and how his lines express the rhythm corresponding to longing and despair. Landscape is as spiritual as ordinary in his poetry. His lines are close to prose and still remain verse lines. By using what he calls the super-line and the half-line, he makes the long line “sinuous” or “dropped” to delve into possibilities of vision. For Wright’s vision does not disappear but stays “just out of reach,” and inevitably inflicts harm upon his mind. His quest is revealed by landscape’s image, not by its symbol or allegory. Wright shows a shadowy disposition against final transcendence, while consistently aspiring for spirituality. The vision, glimmering on the verge of vanishment, leaves a deep scar and becomes the right place for a skeptical transcendentalist. His landscape can be referred to as “metaphysics of the quotidian” as it is more than what it looks like and yet keeps its austere and immediate dailiness.