In a poetic career spanning forty years from the 1970s until his death in 2007, Oh Kyu-won displayed a diverse set of poetic tendencies while constantly seeking to renew his methods of composition through his writings on poetic theory. He is also know...
In a poetic career spanning forty years from the 1970s until his death in 2007, Oh Kyu-won displayed a diverse set of poetic tendencies while constantly seeking to renew his methods of composition through his writings on poetic theory. He is also known as an accomplished educator for his commitment to the teaching of poetic composition as a professor in the creative writing program at Seoul Institute of the Arts, which began in the 1980s. This thesis sets out to examine the relationship between Oh Kyu-won’s literary activities and his work as an educator of creative writing. I first consider his ambivalent attitude towards the creative writing department as an institution in relation to his social criticism of the 1980s, and then explore how the creative writing instruction system which he created at this time affected the development of his ‘living image’ poetics during the 1990s.
The concerns that Oh Kyu-won expresses about the institutions of creative writing and higher education while employed in the creative writing department during the 1980s are an element of the self-criticism he displays in his middle-period poetry, in which he had earlier composed poetry critiquing consumer capitalism while working in the marketing department of the Amore Pacific makeup company during the 1970s. The effect that his work in the creative writing department had on his later poetry and poetic theory can be recognized with reference to Mark McGurl’s theory of ‘autopoetics,’ the self-(re)production mechanism of the creative writing program as a system. The change in Oh Gyu-won’s poetry during this period, specifically the formation of his ‘living image’ poetics, is difficult to explain through the characteristics of individual poems or works of poetic theory, but can be more fully understood when examined together with the characteristics of the creative writing department as a system.
In Chapter 2, I examine the relationship of the creative writing department to consumer society and consider Oh Ky-won’s thought on the creative writing department in the context of his middle-period poetry’s self-criticism and his ambivalent attitude towards popular culture. Oh Kyu-won also displays an ambivalent attitude towards higher education and the creative writing department as institutions. As a part of the larger institution of higher education, the creative writing department contributes to the institutionalization of literature. In addition, in the sense that the creative writing department commodifies literary works and the experience of writing, it can be viewed as a part of consumer society. From Oh Kyu-won’s perspective, this sort of institutionalization and commodification constrains the autonomy of literature as an art and degrades the literary imagination, which is capable of realizing a system of values that confronts the existing reality. However, Oh Kyu-won also argued that the university and the creative writing department have an obligation to protect the autonomy of literature and art. Thus he maintained a self-critical attitude towards his own work in the institution of the creative writing department. Next I analyze the relationship of Oh Kyu-won’s interest in the social role of literature, a core interest of his middle-period, to the student movement, which formed a part of the 1980s social movements, and the poetry of his students, which dealt with social issues as well. Here Oh Kyu-won can be seen criticizing student passion directed towards radical literary ‘practice’ or ‘literature as activism’ because it damages the artistic value of the poem, but he also compliments the literary value of works for sharp perceptions of reality based in observation and the senses. This relates to his later recommendation to students to use ‘description’ based on observation as opposed to directly expressing thoughts through ‘statement,’ and also to his interest in the establishment of a new system of perception through ‘description’ rather than representation of reality in his own later poetry.
In Chapter 3 I employ McGurl’s concept of autopoetics to examine how Oh Kyu-won created his own system of creative writing instruction through research on creative writing education and experience as an instructor, and later in the textbook Methods of Modern Poetic Composition (Hyeondaesijakbeop). I show that the 1980s, which has been left as a gap in previous periodizations of his poetic theory, was in fact a period of intensive research on creative writing education. Oh Kyu-won’s research during this period primarily took three forms. First, after receiving a grant from the Ministry of Culture and Education in 1985, he undertook an extensive study of the pedagogy, curriculum, and administration of creative writing departments. Among the various projects of this period of exploration into creative writing education, the result of this research, a study titled A Study for the Development of the Educational Program of Creative Writing Departments at Technical Colleges (Jeonmundaehak Munyechangjakgwa Gyoyukgwajeongui Gaebalyeongu), is particularly important. The fact that Oh Kyu-won had conducted this study is mentioned by several previous researchers, but because the its exact source was unknown, my analysis of it here is the first time it has been examined directly. Second, after the above thesis was published, Oh Kyu-won began research on ‘poetic discourse,’ attempting to systematize the characteristics of poetic expression. A great deal of this research was edited and gathered in Methods of Modern Poetic Composition. Third, during this period Oh Kyu-won focused less on the work of other poets than on that of his own students, attempting to classify the problems they displayed. The central issue for Oh Kyu-won during this period of research was whether or not creative writing education is in fact possible. Here he argues that ‘creativity’ cannot be the direct object of education, but his exploration into how creative writing education as a whole can be made possible lead him to the concepts of ‘composition theory,’ which later became his research on ‘poetic expression,’ and the ‘composition process,’ through which his students creativity could be fostered. The creative writing education system that Oh Kyu-won establishes in this process thus centers on the dynamics between an unteachable ‘creativity’ and a teachable ‘composition theory’ and ‘composition process.’ In Oh Kyu-won’s creative writing textbook, Methods of Modern Poetic Composition, his theory of ‘poetic expression’ takes full shape, and his explorations into the ‘composition process’ of his students results in the detailed studies of examples of student poetry(saryeyeongu) which are an important feature of the text. Here ‘creativity’ is regarded as the essence of poetry or literature and becomes connected with a sort of ‘new perception’ or ‘realization,’ but still cannot be the object of direct education.
In Chapter 4 I explain Oh Kyu-won’s ‘living image’ poetry and poetic theory as a product of the autopoetic process established by the creative writing education system Oh Kyu-won created through his education research and creative writing textbook. First, I identify the points at which the boundary between Oh Kyu-won’s educational or composition theory and his poetic theory begins to blur in relation to his ‘living image’ poetics. For example, I show that the imperative to ‘change perspectives’ from his ‘living image’ poems was also advice that he gave students. In addition, I connect the origin of his ‘living image’ poetics’ methodology, which involves eliminating ‘poetic statement’ and ‘metaphor,’ to his assertion that observational ‘description’ is a more effective composition strategy for young students than contemplative ‘statement.’ Next I link the educational nature of the ‘living image,’ - which leads the reader, like a student, towards a new ‘poetic imagination,’ - to his concerns about the teachability of ‘creativity,’ ‘new perceptions,’ and ‘realizations.’ This educational character can also be found in his poetic theory written on the ‘living image.’ Just as the workshop method(happyeong or gangpyeong) used in the creative writing classroom and the study of specific student works consist of a process of pointing out the problems in a work and undertaking its revision, in his ‘living image’ theory Oh Kyu-won reveals the revision process of his own poems and engages in happyeong with readers and critics. Finally, I explain a change in Oh Kyu-won’s attitude toward the creative writing department as an institution, which is apparent in his late poetry, focusing on his exploration of a new system of perception in which the system, rather than the subject, takes the center position.