The Literary Value of Sin Ch'Ae-ho's Dream Sky: A Marginal Alteration of Dante's Comedy

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ACTA KOR Z A N A

VOL. 15, NO. 2, DECEMBER 2012: 311-340

THE LITER RY V LUE OF SIN CH AE-HO S

RE M SKY A M RGIN L ALTERATION

OF DANTE S COMEDY

By S NGJIN P RK

The issue of canonicity has been widely discussed, pardcularly since the spread of

cultural influence from the European great powers to the peripheral areas. In the past,

the classical canons suppressed differences in locality, gender and generadon. What

matters now is to recognize the changeability, rather than the constancy, of canonicity

which this árdele intends to observe in the historical and cultural processes of the

marginal alteradon of a Western canon in modern Korea. Indeed, we need to imaginehow a canon exists; it is premised on the dichotomy of center and periphery, yet with its

blurring reladonship, it repeatedly both negates and maintains itself so as to be

highlighted through its literary value. This article takes Sin Ch ae-ho s novel Dream Sk^ as

a good example with which to discern the minute crack of alteradon in • the

configuradon of the canon and to scrutinize how it is shown in the peripheral literature.

As a novelist as well as a historian and a revolutionary seeking nadonal independence.

Sin Ch ae-ho always thought about the importance and possibility of social pracdce

through literature. His acdvity as a literary writer pardy derived from his understanding

of the Italian writer Dante Alighieri; he adored Dante as an enlightened intellectual and

recognized his Divine Comedj as the record of his salvadon, and in writing Dream Sky he

took it as his own pointer for resisting Japanese imperialism. This árdele aims to re-

evaluate Dream Sky as an aesthedc reconstruction and thus to concentrate on textual

analysis, whereby I expect to re-highlight its ability to pracdce marginal alteradon and

the work of the dialogical imaginadon.

Keywords: alteradon, universality, metamorphosis, struggle, allegory



312 Ada Koreana Vol 15 No. 2 2012

1. W Y OF RE-EVALUATING T H E W RITER

SIN CH'AE-HO

My premise is that the literary value of a text is not located only in the text but

also decided and changed according to the context in which the recepdon of that

text occurs. We need to imagine that the uterary value of Dante Alighieri's Divine

omedy is not fixed in any specific space-dme and cultural context, and if there is a

omedy of Italy, there may also be a omedy of Korea. T.S. Eliot observes that

Dante's language is easier to translate than Shakespeare's language; in other words,

in translating Dante, one can preserve much of the original meaning, which allows

the reader to enc oun ter D an te's language intact.' H ere the clear direct visuality,

which Dante's allegory offers, abolishes the distance between language and reality

(EUot, 22).

We might suppose, then, that Dante appealed to Korean readers more

strongly or uniquely than other Western writers. If they read Shakespeare, for

example, they might have developed a stronger and more obvious cultural

infatuadon with the West, in that they would be more conscious of learning about

and adopting modern Western civiüzadon. By contrast, Dante's most prevailing

infiuence on them was to encourage them to indulge in Hterary pleasure while also

raising a desire to learn about Western modernity.

I suggest that, unlike the recepdon of other Western writers, that of Dante in

modern Korea was pursued through a reciprocal, horizontal arid conversadonal

reladonship with the receiver. What made Dante's literature universal was its

power to endlessly alter its own language, rather than succumbing to the

hegemony imposed by an imperialist language.^ Although we cannot deny that

Dante's writings were regarded as a symbol of Western enlightenment, and, as

such, as a key factor in Korea's process of modernizadon, his literature can also

be understood as a creadve counter-force, an object of powerful resistance to the

homogenizing infiuence of modernity and the modern nadon-state system (see

Park, Sangjin 2007).It is for this reason that I turn to the modern Korean writer Sin Ch'ae-ho,

who strove to discover literature's potendal for resistance to the totalitarian social

and p olidca l system establishe d by Jap an ese imp erialist rvile, and further to

overcome the homogeneity promoted by the nadonalist tendencies in East Asia at

' Eliot observes that in the omedy we can fmd the logic of sensibility ; bo th log ic and

sensibüit) ' here indicate hum an abilities that have decidedly allowed Da nte the position of a

writer and us that of 'writerly' readers (Eliot, 32—35).

2 O n Dan te's linguistic experimen t to establish a de-centering language, see his usage ofvernacular Italian in the Divine omedy and his discussion of it in De Vulgari Eloquentia.



Park: The Uterary Value of Sin Ch'ae-ho'sDteam Sky 313

that dme. It is possible to say that Sin Ch'ae-ho wrote his novel Dream Sky' under

the influence of the Comedj This is so because, although it is very difficult to findraw materials showing the influence of the omedj on the Dream Sky, Sin Ch'ae-ho

himself was deeply interested in Italy and Dante, and indeed we can see many

simüarides of structure and contents between the two works; in other words, even

though there is no direct influence-reladonship, we can infer their reladon from

the concept of recepdon. The discipline of comparadve literature focuses not so

much on what one receives as how one digests and reconstructs the origin of

recepdon, and what meanings one recreates from it in one's sociohistorical

context (Weisstein, 52-53). So I wiH concentrate in this árdele on textual analysis

of Dream Sky and evaluadon of its literary value rather than comparing it direcdy

with the Comedy. In this process, we wül be able to invesdgate the aspect not of

urdlateral recepdon but conversadonal alteradon that Dream Sky promoted, and

thereby examine its literary value in a more universal dimension. Finally, my

discussion win converge on the alterado n rather than the omedj in the subdde

of this paper: a marginal alteradon of D an te's Comedy.

What the term alteradon implies goes beyond a certain kind of adaptadon of

the Comedy; it may mean a new form of creadve work that Sin Ch'ae-ho produced

in response to the demands of the dme. There have been many attempts to

explain the dissonances between Sin Ch'ae-ho's polidcal ideology and his literary

representadon. These encompass recognidon of the nadonal incompetence ofKorea in his realism, nadonalism in his historiography, arguments for the struggle

against imperialism in his árdeles, and anarchist conversion to phantasmagoria in

his novels. One of the values of his Hterarj' text is that it aüows us to seek the

modern significance of the attempts to transcend the conflict between those

heterogeneous aspects. *

^ Series ofTanfae Sin Ch'ae-ho. ed. by The Club of Commemoration for Tanjae Sin Ch'ae-ho. (Seoul:

Hyungseol. 1995. vol. 2), 174-224. Hereafter cited as Series. In relation to this point, Choi Su-Jung's statement is worth citing: The characteristics of thestructure and phantasmagoria in Sin Ch'ae-ho's literature shows his individual recognition ofreality and his power of material imagination that were all possible from his features of literaryman and fighter at his time. As we see from his moderated representations, his literature is theresult of both ideological attitude and radical imagination. (Choi Su-Jung. p. 197). On the otherhand we can refer to the argument that his novels contributed to the development of modernKorean literature by vktue of their heterogeneous peculiarity in comparison with other novels atthat time. The literary writing of Sin Ch'ae-ho leads us to question what modern Korean literatureis. His recognition and practice of literature differs from the concept and writings that themainstream of modern Korean literature had hitherto produced. We need to consider that hisparticularity has the possibility of overthrowing the mainstream. On this kind of discourse, see LeeDong-Jae.



314 Acta Koreana Vol 15 No. 2 2012

At a time when the style of the modern novel was coming to fulfillment in

Korea , Dream Sky included modern reality in its mythological imagination, whichhad mainly appeared in the traditional Korean war novel or hero novel. That is to

say, in ream Sky Sin Ch'ae-ho tried to reconstruct the spatial structures and styles

of the traditional novel according to his own situatedness. The transcendental

space and time that we can observe in ream Sky can never belong to the modern

imagination but insofar as it inherited the structure of the traditional novel via his

ow n sensibility, it was able to rep res en t his co nte m po rar y reaUty successfully (H an

Keum-Yun, 153). '

It is difficult to verify whether Sin Ch'ae-ho possessed comparative literature's

concept of alteration; however, we can find the symptom of this concept in hisliterature. Sin Ch'ae-ho intended to express himself rather than imitate Dante,

which means that his aim was to show his particularity situated in a particular era,

or more precisely, his marginaüty and its irreducibüity. Therefore, the traces of

alteration in Dream Sky do not necessarüy obtain their meaning only by being

linked to Dante but have their own independent power and structure inviting

open interpretation.

Many papers on the history of modern Korean üterature have tended to

classify the works of Sin Ch'ae-ho as historical or biographical novels and to

define their aims as patriotism and enüghtenment. But this vision looks too simple,

at least if we note that his texts are too soHd and evocative to be defined as such.

It is true that his aüegories indicate such forms of national consciousness as the

national spirit, national striving, historical consciousness and resistance, but, on

the other hand, in order to evaluate his text properly, we need to scrutinize the

universaüzabüity of the meanings that these aüegories may produce. In other

words, the concept of marginal alteration leads us to understand the ideas of

nation and history, which Sin Ch'ae-ho might have shown in his text, more

universally.

5 According to Min Chan, this is actually an original modern style of writing because it istradidonal. It is noteworthy that Sin Ch'ae-h o's tradidonal form and methodology succeeded as akind of post-modern literature. At his dme when the fact that the tradidonal literature and modernliterature were divided was approved tacitly, he developed his own way of writing though it was to

some extent closer to the tradidonal literature, which can be regarded as an important examplewith which to explore the universal role of literature. (Min Chan, 90).



Park: The Uterary Value of Sin Ch ae-ho s Diezm Sky 31 5

2. READING DREAM SKY

2.1. Dream Sky and the Divine Comedy

In 1907, as Korea was coming under Japanese imperialist rule. Sin Ch'ae-ho

translated the Story of Three Heroes in Building Italy (MÍ\M ^ ^=.^W) by the

Chinese writer Lian Chi Ciao ( ^ ^ S ) . This was intended to indicate a Korean

way of coping with modernization and imperialism, drawing on the historical

examples of Garibaldi, Mazzini, and Cavour in the Italian Risorgimento, the

process of building up the modern-nation-state in Italy. Here Dante is described

as a pioneer, patriot and great poet who yearned for the unification of his country,

and in whom Sin Ch'ae-ho wanted to find hope for Korea. He paid specialattention to the mod ern history of Italy and w rote an article Th e Orien tal Italy

in a newspaper Taehanmaeil-sinbo in 1909^ which shows that he was already

equipped with some knowledge of Italy. He hoped to project the futtire of Korea

along the lines of the reconstruction and independence of Italy and argued that

the country could become an 'oriental Italy'. Perhaps Sin Ch'ae-ho himself also

dreamed of becoming the 'oriental Dante' .

Sin Ch'ae-ho's interest in Dante is evident in his novel Dream Sky, written in

1916 in Beijing, the place of his exüe. However, it coxold not be published at that

time and only became available later in the Series of Sin Ch ae-ho? Therefore,although he supposedly wrote it taking his contemporary readers into

consideration, the readers who actually read and evaluated his novel were the

people of almost a half century later. This means that the sociological-recepdonal

^ Series. (Annex), pp . 184—187. Sin Ch'ae-ho states that In Italy there were great poets like Dan teand great idealists like Mazzini; after they expressed the national spirit, the country gained order.(ibid. 187) Also it is worth noticing that in his writings Hero and World (ibid. 11 1-3) in 1908

and Heroes of the Twentieth Century New Oriental W orld {Series. Vol. 2. pp. 111-6) in 1909,Sin Ch'ae-ho focuses on the possibility of re-highUghdng the he roes ' lives in terms of the present.^ Many literary manuscripts by Sin Ch'ae-ho were not published. He was held in prison from 1928and died in 1936. Afterwards they were forgotten. Though some tried to publish them, it was tono avail because of the censorship under Japanese imperialism. In the 1960s they began to bepublished in such North Korean magazines as Chosön munhak and Munhak sinmun between 1964and 1965. Dream Sky was first introduced in Munhak sinmun on October 20, 1964 with Ju Ryong-Gul's commentary. According to Kim Byung-Min, his manuscripts were arranged in the NationalCentral Library of North Korea from 1966 onwards (Kim, Byung-Min, 2—3). In South Korea, theCommittee for Editing the Series of Sin Ch'ae-ho was established in 1970 and the first Series werepublished in 1972 at Hyungsul Press {Series of Tanjae Sin Ch ae-ho. ed. by The Club ofCommemoration for Tanjae Sin Ch'ae-ho. Seoul: Hyungseol. 1995). So Dream Sky was not shownto the public until 1964.




approach to the contemporary meaning of Dream Skj might be less meaningful

than that based on the text itself which leads us to an aesthedc evaluadon.In general this approach is related to the canonizadon of a text insofar as it

aUows us to re-highlight its Uterary values from diverse aspects; yet in the case of

ream Skj this becomes more complex in that the text was a result of a response

to a so-caUed canonical work: the ivine Comedj It would not be an overstaitement

to say that the value of ream Sky is that it shows that literature can reflect the

pardcular or regional contexts by adapting a canonical work according to the

pardcular situadon of the margin.

Unfortunately, to the best of my knowledge, there is no direct evidence that

Sin Ch ae-ho had direct contact with D ante s Comedy. However, Dante was alreadya weU-known writer in Korea at the time, so we can infer that he gained some

knowledge of Dante, and it is possible that he read the Comedj translated into

Japanese.^ H ow can I guess that? I can do so because Sin Ch ae-h o w as so

interested in the independence movement in Italy and recognized Dante as an

inteUectual who pracdced enUghtenment and überty. But more interesdngly.

Dream Skj and the Comedj show a strikingly similar s tructure, techn ique, and

subject in their narra dve s. It wo uld be very difficult to say that it is just by chance,

and even if it is just by chance, highlighting those similarides is undoubtedly

important for understanding not only their literary values but more cruciaUy their

relevance to such up-to-date issues as marginal alteradon of the canon.

Sin C h ae-h o, as the w riter of ream Skj intended a marginal alteradon, not a

unilateral rec ep do n, of the literary values of the universalized center (the Comedj

by Dante) and, as a post-nadonaUst and anarchist theorist , pursued the pracdce of

enlightenment by interpreting national history in such a way as to escape from

narrow nadonaUsm. This shows how alteradon on the margins helps to construct

true universal value in the Uterary and ideological d ime nsions .

It has been taken for granted that Sin Ch ae- ho a ccepted the survival of the

fittest, as supported by the theor} of social evoludon, which was no more than the

basic logic of imperiaUsm. (Park, No-Ja 2005a, 244) This was a sort of inteUectualsurrender. (Park, No-Ja 2005a, 243). In the same way, the evaluadon that the

anarchist revoludonary Sin C h ae-ho was overwhelmed by the nadonalist Sin

Ch ae-ho , who w as injured by imperiaUsm, might be m ore appropriate for him as

the author of ream Skj. (Choi, 27)

However, it is worthwhUe to re-highlight the symptoms of trans-nadonaUsm

in ream Skj which can be found in his attempts to overcome nadonaUsm as an

ideology and simultaneously to seek the site and sociohistorical meaning of

On the recepdon of Dante in modern Korean literature, see Park, Sangjin 2007.



Park: The Uterary Value of Sin Ch ae-ho s Dream Sky 317

nadonalism in his reaüty.' Sin Ch'ae-ho was a representadve intellectual who

pursued this kind of discourse through literary writing; he thought that the onlyfreedom he coxild enjoy under the current oppression was to produce imaginadve

writing based on historical facts and to publish it so as to sympathize with the

society of his day. In fact, in Dream Sky he warns us not to commit the error of

following Am erica and Ge rm any.' H ere we can see that his nadon alism was no

longer the exclusive nadonalism based on modern evolüdonar)' theory but a much

more advanced type; for him, to imitate the modernized Western countries, as

Japan did, could not be the soludon.

At the beginning of the 1900s, Sin Ch'ae-ho strived to understand 'nadon' on

the basis of territorial homogeneity and historical continuity, but independendy of

nado nalism as an ideologji. H en r)' E m attem pts to read Sin Ch 'ae-ho 's literature

as showing that his freer concept of nadon led him to form his (literary) idendty

as a Korean under Japanese rule in such a way as not necessarily to be

homogenized into a nadon. (Em 1999a)'^ In fact Sin Ch'ae-ho argued that the

subject of revoludon is no longer a nadon but the proletariat, and that only this

group would be able to eradicate the insdtudons that made it possible; here there

exists a polidcal program beyond nadonalism and historical consciousness outside

nadonalist discourse.^^

Sin Ch'ae-ho's trans-nadonaüsm should be more acdvely interpreted in terms

of the complex logic of resistance and de-homogenizadon. This is stricdy linkedto the issue of ethics; his trans-nadonaHsm makes ethics softer and more context-

bound, which is what I describe as responding to the demands of the time. It was

Dream Sky that led or andcipated Sin Ch'ae-ho's trans-nadonal idea and ethical

emodon. As I mendoned above, i ts writing was bound up with the Comedy by

Dan te .

' Here we need to refer to his feature as the so-called 'inclusive transcendental' in his Chosönhyöngmyung sönön (Proclamation of Chosön Revolution). On the other hand, this point relatesto his unique recognition of modernity. See Kim, In-Hwan. hai Jin-Hong. Park Jung-Sim.'0 Sin Ch'ae-ho. Dream Sh . p. 175. Hereafter, only the page num ber will be cited with parenthesis.^' This proposition is the basis of the whole position of the book: Gi-Wook Sin and Michael

Robinson.'2 Henry Em. Nationalism, Post-Nationalism, and Sin Ch'ae-ho, Korea journal Summer 1999, pp.

283-317.'3 Henry Em maintains that Sin Ch'ae-ho's concept of the people {minjun¿) led him to overcomethe narrow category of nation and to move his historiography toward a transnational dimension.

(Henry Em 1999b).



318 Arta Koreana Vol 15 No. 2 2012

Here Weisstein's statement on the omedj is wo rth quoting:

As a particularly fiagrant case of an influence lacking popular support, wemight mendon the Divine Comedy which has faüed to make a lasting

impression either with the general public outside Italy or with the bulk of

foreign writers, but which, through the mediation of the few poets whowere profoundly affected by it (as, later, a Baudelaire and an Euot), become

assured of ts firm place within the uterary trad ition. (Weisstein, 49).

Sin Ch 'ae-ho was also one of those few po ets , because his work bestowed a

pardcular significance on Korean literature and its readers by rewridng Dante in

the colonial period. He pursued a creadve betrayal. The term betrayal may suggestthat Dream Skj has less literary value tha n the Comedj but on the other hand, it

reminds us more powerfully of the meaning of alteradon. When we grasp the

reladonship between Sin Ch'ae-ho and Dante in terms of alteration rather than

influence, we can say that Dante's text realizes the power of alteradon by its

'betrayal' in Dream Skj and that thereby Dante's greatness is highlighted once

again in the context of the Other.

In the Comedj Dante gave life to the structure of the afterlife: hell, purgatory

and paradise. Sin Ch'ae-ho, in Dream Sky relocates such order into purgatory-heU-

paradise, according to the demands of his dme. For Sin Ch'ae-ho, purgatory was aplace that refiected human reality in that it offers a chance to purify ourselves of

our sins. Sin Ch'ae-ho probably located the purgatorial experience in the first part

of his novel because he wanted to foreground the ruin of his country. That is to

say, he wanted to remind the Korean people of the historical reasons that they

had faüen into the 'hell' of colonial reality. In the Purgatory Dante describes the

pügrim Dante progressing towards salvadon. Sin Ch'ae-ho represents purgatory as

a place where the Korean people must, fight against the great enemy, experience

severe trials to reach 'the country of hope' and examine their wül for patriodsm. It

seems to show a response to the very urgent demand of the dme for resistance toJapanese imperialism.

Interestingly, the seven sins that Dante postulates in the Purgatory are pride,

envy, w rath , sloth , avarice, glutton y, and lust, wh ich are aU related to lov e (the first

three are a perversion of love, the fourth is a sign of defecdve love, the last three

represent excessive love, and love is in fact a more universal concept than nadonal

independence in Sin Ch'ae-ho's case). By contrast, the seven trials to which Sin

Ch'ae-ho submits are pain, poverty/, envy, wrath, despair, solitude, and lust, which

are to be understood in reladon to the Korean independence movement. Pain,

despair and lust represent the situadon that the cidzens of the colony must face

and overcome. The pügrim Dante finally purifies au his sins in purgatory and



Park: The Uterary Value of Sin Ch ae-ho s Dream Sky 3 9

ascends to paradise, whue the protagonist of Dream Sky does not overcome the

trials and rather descends to heü. The descent from purgatory to heü ki Dream Skycan be understood as a metaphor for the loss of sovereignty of Korea under

Japanese rule.

The heü described in Dream Sky is much simpler than that of Dante. Only two

types of souls, die enemy and tiie traitor to die nation are located diere, whereas

in Dante's heü, many tripes of souls are described. This is because Sin Ch'ae-ho

intended to concentrate on the crisis of his country. What he means by the

'enemy ' are Ko rean people w ho are mobü ized by Japan, or who make a fetish of

Japan or marry Japanese p eople, and what he means by ' traitors ' are Kore an

people who uve their Uves satisfactorüy despite the niin of their country. SinCh'ae-ho shows his refusal to aüow an inch of compromise with the invaders in

the first case, and exposes his resentment towards those who lost their combative

spirit in the second.

Dante's paradise guarantees eternal happiness but Sin Ch'ae-ho's paradise

differs; it was once a peaceful place where the cultural properties of Korea were

gathered and where those who had dedicated themselves to the independence of

the nation üved, but now it is covered with dust. This ruined paradise symbolizes

the reaüty of Korea under the rule of foreign countries. Sin Ch'ae-ho never aüows

himself to describe his paradise as a place separated from reaüt)?, but can only

describe the figure of the 'new man' who incessandy fights for the national spirit

even in this hopeless paradise.

In sum. Sin Ch'ae-ho's Dream Sky can be evaluated as a localized revival of the

Divine Comedy as a Western canonical work, which supports the idea of the

universaüzabiüty of the Comedy very powerfuüy. Here I think what is caüed

marginal alteration operates. We could postulate that, to borrow Franco Morretti 's

metaphor (Morretti), Dante is a wave and Sin Ch'ae-ho is a tree. A wave runs into

the branches of local traditions, and is always significandy transformed by them.

M orre tti states that this[relation ship of wav e and tree] is the basis for the division

of labor between national and world üterature: national üterature, for people whosee trees; world üterature , for people wh o see wa ves. (Morretti, 161) H e states

that there is always controversy about whether the tree or the wave, the nation or

the world, is the dominant force. This leads us to consider the comparatiye

approach to üterature, which aüows us to look at üteratures from a different

viewp oint. Th us , in order to evaluate a uterary text, we need to maintain no t ugly

one-sidedness and narrow-m indedn ess but a comparativis t perspective (Morrett i,

161), which wiü possibly be ünked to the concept of marginal alteration and

thereby a tnüy universal dimension of uterary achievements. But in order to reach




this kind of conclusion, we need to pursue first a scrupxolously close reading of

Dream Sky.

2.2. M etamorphosis : Th e Ha rm ony of Phantasmago ria andReality

The hero of Dream Sky is H an no m w ho is described as a being in w hom sleep

and dream are united with each other (174 ). Ina sm uch as his characteristics as

well as the whole setting of Dream Sky are surreal, most scholars' * have regarded

it as traditional or pre-modern phantasmagoria.'^ What matters in this article,

though, is to ask more profoundly how we can define the world of the text as

such and what implications it has. In this sense, it is wordi considering the

argument that phantasmagoria can be an effective means to communicate with

reality.' H ow eve r, what we also need to consider is that the text ado pts an

aesthetic form by virtue of which it can guarantee the diversity of interpretation.

We can imagine the text as a response to the demands of its time and

simultaneously as a work open to diverse interpretation beyond its time.

The basic framework of Dream Sky can be found in the mixture of

phantasmagoria and reauty. The elements of phantasmagoria can be seen in

Hannom's diverse ways of existence: conversation with the flowers, which is

oneness with nature or the outer world; meeting with the sages, which is thesurpassing of dme; exchanging the right hand with the left hand and becoming

eight entities, which are the supernatural metamorphosis or non-separation of self

and world. The elements of reality can be seen in the fact that most of the

characters and events in Dream Sky draw on historical materials. But the writer

advises die reader to w atch [them] separately w ithou t m ixture (175), w hich I

think means that he wishes for phantasmagoria and reality to establish the

relationship of harmony and supplement within the reader. T he elements of

phantasmagoria in the text are never limited or confined to the text itself but are

meaningful only insofar as they extend toward realit}' or relate to it; indeed in thetext the writer invites the reader to dream ver}' freely rather than to follow his pre-

fixed intention. He wants to be free at least in writing because his real situation

does not allow him freedom, and he leads the readers x.o play with the elem ents o f

phantasmagoria such as flowers, sages and heroes (175) and at the same time to

''' Sin Ch'ae-ho's novels have long been evaluated as examples of the traditional and pre-modernstyle. See Han Keum-Yun, Ryu Yang-Sun, Kim Sung-Kuk, Yun Myung-Ku, Yu Jong-Kuk, SinCh'ae-ho Jae-H ong, and C ho Dong-Il.

'5 Yang Eon-Suk defines it as a traditional mong u -g-n-) novel. (ï'ang Eon-Suk, 1). ^ See Han Keum-Y un (1998).



Park: The Uterary Value of Sin Ch ae-ho s Dream Sky 32 1

watch [them] separately wit hou t m ixtu re (175) because even thou gh the text is

fuU of unreaUsdc, poedc and mythical elements, it always refers to the historicalfacts based on such books as Kogi ( í i S ) , Samguk sagi ( H i l l i s S ) , Samguk jusa

= i a i l * ) , Koryösa ( i í H i ) , Kwangsa (iÄ5t), and Yöksa (,lf .Í) (1 75 ). W iüi such acontradictory statement, the writer desires to harmonize phantasmagoria andreaUty in such a way that they maintain their own territories. In a situadon inwhich he is deprived of his freedom, die only freedom that he can enjoy is tocreate imaginadve work based on historical facts and to disseminate it so as toextend the scope and in pardcular the depth of sympathy with his readers.'

There fore, by declaring that H ann om is the being in wh om sleep and dreamare united with each other , Sin Ch'ae-ho shows his own desire for ind epend ence

in a very simple, direct and succinct way that jusdfies adopting Hannom as a guide.This reminds us of the Comedj in which Dante indicates diat the sleep and dreamof the pUgrkn signify not a synthesis but something which makes them (sleep anddream) different, by showing that the writer Dante exists in the same way as thepUgrim Dante.'^ The sleep and dream are a rite of passage and progress towardsthe transcendental world, playing the role of self-reveladon and self-guiding. Inthe preface to Dream Skj Sin Ch'ae-ho teUs readers diat he wrote Dream Skj no tafter a dream bu t during a dream (174). Lee C hang-M in holds - that thisproclamadon may weU be a device for eUminating the narradve stage of immong

(entering the dream ). ' ' O n this Kim Young-Min com men ts;

The realization of hope is disturbed when it is in reality. Further, as in thedme when Sin Ch'ae-ho lived the frustration was incomparable, althoughone feels hope in the dream one feels more frustration after the dream. If awriter creates a work in his reality he cannot but think of his realityeventuaUy although his work is based on a dream. However if he writes in

'^ I agree with Lee Chang-Min's argument that Dream Sky can be more properly understood whenwe approach it through the theory of representation which differs from the theorj' of imitadon; ittends to stimulate imaginadon so as to harmonize phantasmagoria and reality. (Lee Chang-Min,67). I think his argument sustains the assumpdon that Sin Ch'ae-ho utilized Dante in order tocreate his representadon rather than imitate him. Interestingly Yi Do-Yeon grasps this point froma romandcist perspective; that is. Sin Ch'ae-ho's imaginadon starts from yearning and proceedswithin yearning so that it does not reach completion and remains in the process of eternalgeneration. (Yi Do-Yeon, 224-225). In my view, eternal generation is something that Dream Sk j

appeals for over and over again: for instance, in the future potential for an independent nation.18 See Park, Sangjin, 2011 (particularly chapter 2). Yi Chang-Min. p. 68. We can define Dream Skj as one of the mong/u novels lacking the stage ofentering the dream(zOTOTO«¿/•?]•§-), if we foUow Sin Ch'ae-ho Jae-Hong's classification according towhich the typical narrative structure consists of entering the dream, guiding, sitting, discussing, the

banquet, the performance and exiting from the dream (Sin Ch'ae-ho Jae-Hong, 275).



322 Ada Koreana Vol 15 , N o . 2, 2012

the dream he is free from the hardship of reality. Here the dream and

reality do not have to create a harmony; the writer can tell everything he

wants without being restricted by reality. Sin Ch'ae-ho, when he wrote the

Dream Sky, never thought of how it would be realized.in his times. (Kim

Young-Min, 320)

However, regardless of such an authorial intendon, we need to consider its

effect which does not signify something diat occurs in contemporary society (the

problem of socio-recepdon histor)') but rather something diat the text embodies

and raises in the process of interpretadon. Then, even diough the text that Sin

Ch'ae-ho wrote in his dream is free from the hardship of reality, diat freedom

does not indicate its irrelevance to realit)' but the liberty of dreaming itself, whichis nothing other than a creative work.

Sin Ch'ae-ho and Dan te use the same narradve technique in that they appeal

to the readers direcdy; this is because they aim for the pracdcal (or polidcal)

literature that can be achieved by the writer who maintains a clear consciousness

of his reality.^° As in the omedy the writer Dante and the pilgrim Dante are the

same character, so in Dream Sky the w riter Sin Ch'ae-ho and the hero Hann om are

idendfied with each odier.^' The whole structure of Dream Sky is sustained by the

memory of I (the writer), who is die same endty as Hannom (191). Accordingly

Sin Ch'ae-ho makes Hannom act as a subsdtute for him, yet the writer himself liesconcealed behind the text and instead m akes H ann om represent both the writer

(reality) and the character (ficdon or phantasmagoria). This means diat Sin Ch 'ae-

ho, as the intellectual-writer who responds to the demands of the time, projects

his own self-consciousness and historical consciousness into the character^^. As in

the case of Dante, Hannom idendfies himself with such figurai elements as

freedom, independence, inidadve, enlightenment and exile, and is thus solitary and

belongs nowhere, which can be called the idendtj ' of non-affiliadon; he can only

place his reliance on the ancestors (184).^ ̂ So Ha nnom appears by himself.

2 On this proposition, see George Orwell (p. 5). According to him, all writings are political.

2' The writer calls Hannom I , which indicates the writer himself (185). According to the

Chronoloff ca l Record o f Sin Ch ae-ho, he used Hannom for one of his pen names { hronological Recor

I n Series. V o l . 2. p. 495 ) . In all. Dream i'/é) ' wa s an a u tob iogr a ph ic a l nove l ( s e e ChronoloncalRxcord. P

5 0 0 ) .

22 In na t iona l l i te ra ry t rend s of the 197 0s , Sin C h ' a e - h o w a s mainly highl ighted as a his tor ian and

th inker , and there w a s d i sc uss ion of ho w such asp ec ts were projec ted in his figure of t h e li terary

writer. (Han Keum-Yun, 137-138).

This corresponds to the way that Dante takes the Roman poet Virgil as his guide and considers

Rome as the ideal community. In addition, they dream the 'utopia' which is die community that is

now absent but to be achieved in the near future; for them the commutiity is represented as the



Park: The Literary Value of Sin Ch ae-ho s Dream Sky 323

without colleagues (188), and although he has a number of alter-egos, all of them

disappear and he remains alone eventuaüy.He was not alone from the beginning; his seven alter-egos form a oneness

wid i the writer by being called w e (191).^ Th e writer separates himself from

the Hannom composed of seven endues and simultaneously unites himself in

them; this is the landscape in which, through his separation and synthesis at the

same place, the writer reflects himself by making them console, encourage and

rep rov e each othe r. VUl of them are in fact a single body (this is wh at H an n om

means actuaüy) which is precisely Sin Ch'ae-ho himself and die community of the

Korean nadon. Therefore we can say that the scene where au of them are

disunited and isolated aüegorizes the coüapse of community.

As the pügrim Dante maintains his will to ascend throughout the Comedj

Hannom and his alter-egos do not cease to move forward in the Dream Sky. In

this process, however, most of the alter-egos faü by the wayside; Innom faüs out

of die ranks because of pai n (199); Yö tchain om is separated from die odiers

becau se of his desire for gold (199); Sen nom dies because of die disaster of

Saeam (199); N en no m , w ho shot Senno m m istakenly, is bur nt to death (199).

H ere Sae am , wh ich means a water stream , implies betrayal. It reminds us of the

rivers which penetrate hell tul they reach its bottom and form a lake where the

soxils who committed the worst crime in this world are situated. Their crime is

precisely betrayal as we see the same posidon in the Comedy. Dream Skj describesin detaü how the crime of betrayal has been committed historicaüy (196-197). To

pass diroug h Saeam impUes to overcom e crime. As the pügrim Dan te succeeds

in reaching purgatory by escaping from hell, Hannom and his alter-egos cross the

Sa ea m successfvüly. In Dream Skj the essendal tools for overcom ing Saeam

are suggested as Hwarangdo^^ Chinese literature. Buddhism and Chrisdanity, au

of which are derived from the pursuit of reciprocal communicadon among

universal morality, knowledge and belief

As mendoned above, the diverse idenddes which compose Hannom connote

the situadon of his split idendt)' . Now there remain Tannom and Tunom;Tannom decides to uve with a disengaged atdtude and Tunom to surrender to the

enemy. Hannom's final decision in this situadon is that as each has its own load

each needs to go separately (200), yet in fact he hesitates about his decision

process of achieving itself rather than that achieved already. I have explained this with the term

u topia in-process. (Park, Sangjin 2010, 27-47).2 Dante uses the pronoun 'our' in tiie first part of Inferno to show that his book was written for

all mankind.25 This term refers to the rule of the elite youth in the Silla Dynasty who excelled in beauty,

bravery and military arts.



324 Ada Koreana Vol 15, No. 2, 2012

because for hün there remains the desire to unify his own alter-egos and internal

troubles, and set diem \n order. Nonedieless he remaüis alone, which means thathe bears die load by hünself ^ ̂ Th e six Hann om s w ho were reproduced in the

same figure of Hannom were put in die text to show the problems diat can take

place wh en die nationaüst w ho mus t be Tae-a {-jz. ̂ cannot but be ardendy

attached to the desires of So-a(/J^|lc) diat he enc oun ters in the real situation:

desperation due to hardship, temptation to uve in splendor, jealousy of coüeagues

and, as a result, loss of nationaüs t patdo tism so as no t to buüd up Tae-a. ^^

Ultünately, Hannom has to travel ki the transcendental world by himself; he

deskes die country of N im (esteemed perso n) yet is lonely, tough and sad

üidefinitely (201). He deskes a guide who can carry sympathy and an object of the

sympathy, yet reaüzes that he wül be unable to encounter the guide with his alter-

egos or his contemporary community because the destination of that guidance is

precisely his own future akn; ki odier words, die akn itself is die guide for

Hannom. Thus Hannom's travel is always guided by its prospect, and therefore

Hannom is obüged to change incessandy yet remain the same; he is endlessly

extended, continued and radiated, yet ki this process of metamorphosis he cannot

escape from the struggle (184), wh ich, as discussed abov e, guarantees die endless

contüiuity of Hannom's identity of non-affiüation and context-boundness. Only

through struggle do the metamorphosis and identity of Hannom co-exist (I wül

return to the issue of struggle ki chapter 4).

At this pokit, it is kiterestiüg to observe diat Dream Sky is composed of 6

chapters b ut m os t of chapter 3 does n ot exist and chapter 6, w hich is beüeved to

be the last, remakis unfinished. It is very probable that die kicompleteness of such

a creative form was intended by die writer. Ind eed tiie discussion abo ut w heth er

Dream Sky was reaüy kitended to be read^^ and the reasons why he left it

unfinished wül never be properly resolved. Instead I would üke to pay more

attention to his assumed intention, which means that he kitended not to be

obsessed by a certain uterary form: die novel as the typical, canonical modern

Western genre; in odier words, die kicomplete form helps us consider that the

^ This soludon sounds similar to diat in the Comedy. See Purgatorio 6. 133-135 and Paradiso 5 57.

^ ^ Han Geum-Yun. 145. Here Ta e-a ' can be w dtten as 'die Big I' while 'So-a' is 'the Small I'. Thereladonship between the Big I and die Small I is the main basis of his ambitious construcdon ofKorean history Choson saniosa, in which he strives to seek the origin of Korea.28 See Ho ng Myung-Hee's statem ent; Sin Ch'ae-ho w rote many novels but he didn't have anyintendon to present them. He did it in order to express the outcry of Choson, die fidelity of .Choson, broken out from die bottom of his unbearable heart. (Hong Myung-Hee). See also theconcep t of acceptability suggested by Jung Gin-Won (108-111) in reladon to die aesthedcevalúadon of Dream Sky.



Park: The Uterary Value of Sin Ch ae-ho s Dr eam Sky 32 5

writer aimed at an unrestricted expression of his own internal world and his

reaction to his contemporary situation.In fact, he declared in the preface of Dream Sky that he did not seek formal

com pletion (174). At the end die text finishes with the inco m plete phras e: I am

naturally heardess and do not realize how many tears I shed for my

hum ank ind (224). This is the quintessen ce of Sin Ch 'ae- ho's self-reflection.

Thus we can say that Dream Sky as an unfinished text exists as a part and process

of his historical insight that has neidier beginning nor end. Another point is that

the form of Dream Sky is unique in that it is a mixture of poem and novel; poetry

doubles the appeal whüe die novel explains, yet in the prose-description of

characters and struggles we can find rhythm.^' In his paper Ch'önhüidangsihwa,Sin Ch 'ae-h o defines a po em as the essenc e of national language. ^ In particular,

the poem in which Hannom realizes why the sky is covered with dust in the

country of Nim and imagines die future when someday the sky will be blue

again(l 19-220 ) shows exquisiteness in ad optin g the basic characters of the

Korean language for alliteration.

2.3. T h e C ountry of N im : T he Structure of Sin Ch'ae -ho 's World

Sin Ch'ae-ho's world appears succinct but if we look into its strata we can find

there innumerable folds, which leads us to consider two points.First, he designs the spiritual world as an eternally repeatbg world (182), in

which die same scenes, including the errors of the earthly life, appear over and

over again (199). It reminds us diat in die Comedy hell is sustained by eternal

punishment and paradise is full of eternal happiness, while purgatory reflects the

errors of the earthly life, yet also offers chances of correcting and even

overcoming them. Once repetitions begin, diey continue widiout difference;

however, die contents can differ according to the order, achievement and result of

the earthly life. In diis structure in which the order, achievement and result of the

earthly life are maintained changelessly, the position of purgatory is no longerstable and dius very ambiguous, which is linked to die determinist world view that

whatever is determined in the earthly life condnues in the spiritual world.

Although the function of purgation is caught, it never opens itself up (183).

Second, die writer asks readers to consider as allegory what Buddhism and

Christianity say about hell and paradise. This means abolishing the unrealistic view

that this world is the middle and thus passive stage wherein one's destiny, whedier

to go to hell, or paradise, is decided. Prob lem s that o ne faces, such as diose of

Yi Seon-Y oung defines it as poetic prose style. (See Yi Seon-Yo ung).See Cho D ong-Il ' s com ments in his Hankuk munhak t ongsa. Vol. 4. p. 330.




community, salvadon and jusdce, are to be solved here in the earthly Ufe, and die

division between heU and paradise is made according to how hard one tries tosolve such problems.

In Sin Ch'ae-ho's world, everything is concluded according to the message

from the sky (Nim ), in Une with w hich, more concretely, die victor goes to

paradise while dae defeated goes to heU. However, diis principle cUffers from die

logic of the survival of the fittest that we find in Social Darwinism. For Dante as

weU as for Sin Ch'a e-h o, to win in the struggle for jusdce is impo rtant;^' but w hat

is more important is to ask what the struggle for jusdce should be and how one

has to work for it. This ambiguous and fluid definidon of jusdce and struggle is

indispensable for understanding Dante as weU as Sin Ch'ae-ho; die ways to solvethis problem are w hat we have to consider in bod i writers.

After aU, it is the struggle that su stains the fu ndam ental w orld view of Dream

Skj. The influence of struggle ranges from the earthly world to the spiritual world,

from the East to the West, and it continues endlessly. Therefore, man in his

historical context must inexorably pardcipate in the struggle, and in Sin Ch'ae-ho's

era, when Korea was under Japanese rule, pardcipating was much more

indispensable. In fact the writer describes how Hannom perceives die

cosmological significance of struggle and represents die pracdcal inteUectual who

feels soUtude and sadness before such a huge stream of history. In this respect, itis worth nodcing that Nim, whom Hannom meets in paracUse, appears as the

companion who shares die soUtude and sadness of Hannom. For Hannom, Nim's

existence is indispensable because neidier he nor his alter-egos alone can

overcome die existing difficuldes as I discussed above. Nim, as a sympathedc

companion for Hannom, is also Hannom's emodonal and ideological aim; in

other words, that aim itself is Hannom's companion and guide. Here Hannom

appears as the self-reflecdve inteUectual who takes his aim as his guide.

The odier companion of Hannom is history. For instance, Nim gave him a

sword that Chöng Ki-ryong, the general of loyal troops in 1592 when Japan

invaded Korea, used. The writer makes the sword speak;

A certain enemy commander leaning on the desk is reading the history of

the war between Japan and Korea while the sword in Hannom's one hand

shivers and shouts indicating the comm ander;

That guy is exacdy Toyotomi Hideyoshi who strived to disgrace Chosön

(Korea). (202)

5' T he problem of justice was one of Da nte's main concerns for building up a hum an com mu nity,

as we can see in his omedj a nd De monarchia. There are many articles about it, and I discussed it inmy paper (Park, Sangjin 2010).



Park: The Uterary Value of Sin Ch ae-ho s Dream Sky 327

This is precisely to make history speak so as to highlight the judgment of

history and the sword's will to punish commander Toyotomi Hideyoshi. However,at the instant when To yo tom i HQdeyoshi is transformed into the greatest

beaudful wom an of the age, H an no m drops the sword which becomes one of

the reasons why Hannom falls into hell rather than jusdy ascending to paradise

(211). Hannom, along with other people who do not understand what crime led

them to hell, meets Kang Kam-ch'an, who was a distingtiished general in Korean

history and is now the messenger of hell, and he explains all. Now Hannom

realizes diat hell belon gs to this world^^ and asks a no table qu esd on :

If hell was buut by us, can it be b roken by us? (206)

The answer is:

The small crime can be broken by you but the big crime cannot be broken

even by Nim, and it wi decay for thousands and thousands of years. (206)

The big crimes that Kang Kam-ch'an enumerates are five, but he sends to hell

only the souls who committed the first unfaithfulness to their nadon, which is

exacdy the crime of not responding to the demands of the dme. Here hell

becomes an ethical space. The nature of this crime is clarified in great detaü bycomparison widi the rest of Dream Sky In fact, it covers most of die crimes that

man can commit in this world.' '^

Kang Kam-ch'an also emphasizes love; there are many kinds of love but the

love that he emphasizes is directed only toward die nadon. He takes love for a

woman as an example of the other kinds of love and says that the two cannot be

compadble at all (211). Eus concept of love includes the physical aspect and

ideology. Concerning this, Kang Kam-ch'an says:

Two things cannot occupy the same place at the same time and two

thoughts cannot exist in the same mind at the same time. Please infer fromthis sentence. If a man has two loves in his whole Hfe, he can hardly achieve

. even one love; as an old book says that one must not have two integrities,which is a reproof to unfaithfulness (211).

The recognition that hell belongs to this world has long been expressed by Italian writers such

as Dante Calvino Pasolini and Primo Levi.

Interestingly, ti ie punishment in Dream Sky is based on tiie principle of contrapasso as in tiie

Comedy




What the physical aspect signifies here is that ideology must be sustained by

pracdce, which is comparable with the non-physical aspect in paradise. That is,whue the love in paradise is not physical, the love in the situadon which Hannom-

Sin Ch'ae-ho faces must be physical. Kang Kam-ch'an's moraUzing lecture (212)

concentrates in this way on the originality and uniqueness of patriodsm.

What is interesting in ream Skj in this respect is the recognidon of space; heü

and paradise exist in the same place and at the same dme.

If one thinks that the Country of Nim (paradise) is in the sky and heü is under

the earth, and thus the distance between them must be a thousand or ten

thousand tnües, this is merely so in human thought. The reaüty differs; the earth is

the same and the time is the same; likewise, if you bring it down it becomes thecountry of Nim and if you turn it upside it becomes heü; if you run verdcaüy you

can go to the country of Nim and if you run horizontaUy you can go to heü; if you

fly you wiü be in the coxintry of Nim and if you crawl you wül be in heü; if you

catch it you wiü be in the country of Nim and if you lose it you wül be in heü. In

au, the d istance between country of Nim and heü is merely this (213).

H an no m mo ves from heü to paradise in the same place. Just as in the Comedj

heü is under the earth and paradise is above it, but whue the two are distincdy

separated materiaüy and physicaüy in the Comedj in Dream Skj paradise can be

located in the very same place as heü, depending on Hannom's way of Uving.

Saying "M y bo dy was no t intrinsicaüy bou nd to heü, so there is nothin g to

unbind," Hannom shakes himself free, and thereupon without chain and jaü only

the body of Hannom rises aloft (212).

The idendty of unbounded-ness, the liquid and fiuid idendty of Hannom

makes the interleaving (existing in the same place) of heü and paradise possible,

which means that Hannom's subjecdve pracdce is what reaüzes the place of

paradise; heü and paradise co-exist flexibly. They exist as non-place-ness, and

change according to the ways of existence of the souls who cope with them or

reside there. The souls in paradise are historical figures who pursued the

subjecdve pracdce in diverse fields. Their work is to make brooms and sweep thesky because "today our sky is more dusty than our earth"(261), and the dust

continues to accumulate so that there is no more "blue sky" and instead "white

sky covers our h ead"(217). Han no m 's ques don on this is scrupulous and striking;

Is there even a misty sky? (217)

Although we cati hardly find the answer to this quesdon in the text, we can

reaüze that there is not always a blue sky; there may be a misty sky co vered with

dust. Although it may sound self-contçadictory, it exists in reaüty. Then we need



Park: The Uterary Value of Sin Ch ae-ho s Dtezm Sky 3 9

to pay special attention to how that can be. If a sky is truly a sky, it is not because

it is so origkiaüy or unchangeably but because it becomes so due to the endeavorof the subject who makitains the sky as it is. Therefore the Nkn who is ki the sky

is described not so much as the absolute being who transcends man but as the

being who shares Hannom's tears; paradise and reaüt)' aügn with each other,

progress together, and influence each other.

It is not possible to know how many died badly under this misty sky; thus if

they repent of thek past errors in this world and sweep the dust out of the sky

altogether even from now on, it would not be difficult to maintain this sky, this

sun and this moon as they are (219).

The salvation of Choson is also the salvation of paradise and vice versa, whichis the pardcular and universal mission for au manldnd. This for Ski Ch'ae-ho is

linked to opening up the horizon of a nation beyond the modern nation-system

for which power and struggle function indispensably.

2.4. Power and Struggle

The writer sets the historical background of Dream Sky as so m e day in the year

4240 of the Tan'gun era (1907 A.D.) and the place as the city, countryside or

foreign countries; the time and space are ambiguous and even unimportant. This

indicates that the scenes of the novel are not confined to any particular time andspace; the writer seems to show that his story can be reaüzed not only in his time

but also any tkne in hum an histor}^.

In the introdu ctory pa rt of the text, the writer sits on the blossom w hich is as

large as a big room, laid on the kinumerable mues of branch of the huge Rose of

Sharon . (176) Suddenly the sky parts and re ddish rays stream out, and a

government official, who wears a hat of soft cloud and a Turumagi (a traditional

Korean man's outer coat) which is more red than those rays, appears and shouts

üke thunder:

For man there is only struggle. If one wins one Uves, if one is defeated onedies. This is the order set by the god (176).

This proclamation is placed at the begkining of Dream Sky so that the readers

can not but consider die mearüng of struggle. Th e struggle here encom passes

not only man but also au things; in other words, au things in the world exist in the

form of struggle (177). Th e struggle is the natu re of the univ erse (178) and it is

m an's respo nsibü ity to take part in tiie struggle (178). In reaüty, the gru esom e

struggle between the East and the West breaks out before Hannom's eyes; that is.




Hannom is invited by the Rose of Sharon to become the observer.' ' ' ' At this sight

Hannom sheds tears (178), and faüs on his face and cannot stand up again (180).Then he experiences the metamorphosis of his own body after hearing fromgeneral Ülchimundök about the structure and meaning of earthly and spiritualworlds, their inter-relationship, and the historical impücation of the struggles hehas witnessed (181-183). ' '

Th e Rose of Sharon teaches the meaning of the struggle with her sweet

voice :

The struggle should take place between me and the other; if it is the

struggle between m e and me, it is suicide, not struggle (185).

What draws our attention here is the fact that the metamorphosis of Hannomleads the Rose of Sharon to suggest the meaning of struggle. His metamorphosisis linked to that of au things and nature, and appears as the figure of struggle.Although the metamorphosis takes place in his body, Hannom stands back in theposition of an observer. However, even in that position Hannom is unable tounderstand the meaning of struggle, and the Rose of Sharon comes to teach it .

Here the flower undoubtedly indicates the abstract reality of the Han (Korean)nation (tFíl^). It is abstract because it does not indicate the immediate realityrepresented by Paektu Mountain and Chosön, but reality as the historical potentialthat is connoted in the flower's statement:

The Rose of Sharon crosses Hwanghae and Parhae, covers the continent ofManchuria and passes through it so as to spread over UsùUi (-rE'Sl) (180).

Interest ingly Ha n (tb) may mean both Ha n { ) and oneness (—), and n om ( ^ ) means a real hum an existence and Sin Ch 'ae-ho himself Sin Ch'ae-hoidentifies himself with Korea and thinks that struggling for the independence of

Ko rea is his destiny and way of Hfe. Ultimately, H an no m means the K orea nnation as oneness and its reaüzation, and further Sin Ch'ae-ho's endeavor for it.The Han nation reproves and guides Hannom-the writer Sin Ch'ae-ho, andconversely Hannom-Sin Ch'ae-ho begins to reaüze fuüy his moral responsibility torespond to the demands of the time. The historical potential of the Han(Korean)

^ Here the East and the West directiy indicate Koguryö and Sui (PS) (182) and indirectiy indicateChosön and Japan or the W estern powers. This reminds us of Dante's pride in his own description of metamorphosis, which he considers

much better than that of Ovid. See nferno 25. 92-103. Sin Ch'ae-ho's description of themetamorphosis of Hannom (184—185) is verj' dynamic and vivid.



Park: The Literary Value of Sin Ch ae-ho s Dream Sky 331

nad on is Unked to the emergence of Toryön ggun ( £ ^ 3 - ) a t the end of the text

(221). H ere To ryö ng gu n indicates directly the H wa ran g of ShUla yet itencompasses the whole history and spirit of the Han nadon, enlarging its originand scope by referring to such historical texts as Samguk sagi and Korjösa an dthereby connecting the historical facts—e.g., the Hwarang of SiUa and Buddhistarmy of Korea—^with each, oth er.

The general Ülchimundök plays the same role . Hannom meets Ülchimundök,who Uved about 2000 years ago. To Hannom, who hesitates over how to addresshim because of the distance in dme, Ülchimundök explains the historicalcondnuity of Korea ranging from Tan'gun to Koguryö and the historical idendty

of the H an nadon.^*^ In respo nse to his kindness H an no m makes a low bow in theKo gury ö way (181 -182), which shows the. unificadon of the two idendd es byverifying their common historical roots. Here Ülchimundök's definidon ofstruggle is notewo rthy in reladon to p ow er and salvadon:

Have you forgotten my saying that power is the ladder to paradise? Thereare very few people of Chosön who know its meaning. . . The termbenevolence makes us decline. Benevolence to our nadon may become thereason of prosperity yet benevolence to the enemy should become thereason of decline (187).

I t foUows that Ülchimundök, in response to Hannom's mendon of the History

of Korea by Chöng In-gi, argues that although the Han nadon was originaUy huge,it is now reduced to smaU dimensions because it has always been humane andindulgent, not disdnguishing the subject and the other (186). According toÜlch imu ndó k, if pow er is the ladder to paradise (187), we must pursu e thestruggle against an enemy country, not be indulgent towards it. It reminds us ofthe fund ame ntal historical view of Sin Ch 'ae-h o that history is the struggle of theI (*}) and no n- I (ü jof) as he clarifies in his bo ok Chosön saniosa ^

^ Virgü does the same thing to the pilgrim D ante.^ ^ What is history? History is the record of the psychological activities of the struggle between theI and the non-I in human society, which has enlarged and developed in time and space. . . what isthe I and what is the non-I? . . . the I is one who is in the subjective position and the rest is thenon -I. . . Therefore history is the record of struggle between the I and the non -I. Sin Ch'ae-ho .Chosön saniosa. In Series. Vol. 1. p. 33. This fundamental view of history was repeatedly submitted,along with the terms indigenous Cho sön, free people, popular econom y and popularculture, in Sin Ch'ae-ho's papers Chosön hyöngmyöng sönö n and Nanggaek ùi sinnyönmanp 'ü. According to Yi Do-Ye on, we can hardly find such an acute recognition of thecontemporary situation and the nature of empire in other papers of that time. (Vi Do-Y eon, 228—229).



332 Ada Koreana Vol 15 No. 2 2012

If one gains victory, one gets power which must be right; in other words, a

righteous struggle is required for righ teous pow er. '^ So struggle m eansestablishing a righteous reladonship. This is the indispensable process for

construcdng a human community and at the same tifne reconstructing a

misguided realit)^ Here it is important to note that the struggle must be pursued in

this world first and then condnued to that world, which leads us to consider the

con dnu ity and universaMt}' of the (re -)cons trucdon of comm tinity and conversely

the principle that righteousness should be sustained by power. After witnessing

the struggle in the country of Nim, Hannom gains such understanding:

All advocate apparendy: we are the sons of justice and thus the enemiescannot defeat us no matter how strong they are. However under force anykind of justice is useless; all dead are the army of Nim and all overthrownare the army of Nim. Great expanses are fuU of the corpses of justice butthe enemies' force never ceases (200).

This principle is a universal one which can be applied to both this world and

that world even in the country of N im . Ju sdc e is no t a clearly defined con cep t and

thus pracdce (struggle) is required to maintain jusdce; jusdce can be jusdce only

through struggle, which means that jusdce is always a process of pracdce. To

think of this process-like nature is to maintain jusdce.Here we need to scrutinize further the implicadons of the statement above

that the writer Sin Ch'ae-ho and the protagonist Hannom are united. The Rose of

Sharon asks Hannom to become conscious of the derhands of the time; Hannom

asks how to distingtiish his own idendty and the object of struggle:

What does the term I indicate? If I open my eyes widely, the universebecomes my body; and if I open my eyes, my right arm tells my left armthat my left arm is other.

The fiower gives this acute explanadon:

The scope of the I gets smaller and bigger according to the time: in the

time of the family system the family is the I, in the time of the nation

system, the nation is the I. If you precede the time your feet will be torn

38 T he Comedy tells that in Limbo there are many souls who w ere lazy in their com mitm ent to

struggle or duty in earthly life: for instan ce, Pont ius P ilatus, wh o avoide d jud ging Jes us, and

Lucifer, who rejected God's grace. They were faithful only to themselves, without pursuing the

struggle for justice. See Infemo Ca.nto 3. The metamorphosis of Hannom shows that just ice can bejustified only in and toward struggle.



Park The Literary Value of Sin Ch ae-ho s Dream Sky 333

and if you are behind the time your head wül be broken. So do you know

what kind of time today is? Greece loses its position as a strong nation dueto its narrow mind and India suffers the disaster of national ruin due to its

local mind (185-186).

Sin Ch'ae-ho's world view, in which the metamorphosing subject includes the

universe, could be understood as cosmopolitanism. But the meaning of

metamorphosis is neither complete nor sufficient in itself In order for the

metamorphosing subject to obtain self-sufficiency and perfecdon, it mus t be able

to pursue struggle within itself The metamorphosis consists of struggle. This is

th e way our world exists and operates. We do not know whether it is universal or

not; au that we can teü is that for the writer Sin Ch'ae-ho these were the demands

of the time, to which he had to respond as a pracdcal inteüectual.

2.5. Allegory

Allegory deserves to be highüghted as the Hterary technique for sustaining

concepts that are useful for understanding Dream Sky such as alteradon,

metamorphosis , power and struggle. Dream Sky is fiüed with the tradidonal t5ê of

aüegory whereby something is introduced merely as a signifier whose existence is

entirely depen den t on what is signified. Hannom, the bird and the flower in DreamSky do not exist in our reaüty but are merely signifiers which exist in order to

connote something. Through the signifier the reader can grasp the signified if he is

faithful to the writer's intendon, or can constitute it if he is faithful to the reader's

intendon. Those elements mendoned above in Dream Sky are meaningful only

insofar as they bear their own impücadons and connote something, regardless of

whether they exist or not in reaüty. Therefore, when readers interpret Dream Sky

as an aüegorical text, they should be able to grasp and consdtute new meanings,

which wül extend almost indefinitely according to the contexts in which the

readers are situated and the perspecdve from which they consider the writer and

read the text. The traversing of presence and absence is indeed the methodology

and definidon of aüegory.^^

Wha t is the signified that we have to grasp and consdtute in the aüegories that

Sin Ch'ae-ho created in Dream Sky? The concept of nadon wiü be a strong

candidate; what matters is that his aüegory starts from the problem of the nadon

^' In this sense I agree with Kim Chang-Hyun's explanation that the past research into fabularliterature has not sufficiently considered the historical consciousness and the aesthetic form in

Dream Sky and therefore the concept of allegory needs to be used for more profound research.(Kim Chang-Hyun, 365-366).




(or nationaüsm), yet impües something beyond it. In fact his translation of the

Story of Three Heroes in uilding Italy was the result of his choice of póütical aüegoryto reaüze the national consciousness, and thereafter póütical aüegory became the

fundamental form of aüegory that he attempted (Hong , Kyu ng-Pyo, 289).

The most urgent uterary task in the time of Sin Ch'ae-ho was to estabüsh the

perfectiy new form and content through which the writer coiüd configure the

rapidly changing world situation. His approach was unique; its uniqueness derived

from his attempts to embrace and express very actively his duty as an inteüectual-

writer on the ideological and aesthetic bases of Korea, in terms of both form and

content. It is precisely in this respect that we need to pay special attention to the

aüegory. Probably Sin Ch'ae-ho had no chance of acquainting himself withaüegory, insofar as it has been a technique formed in the long history of Western

üterature. Nevertheless we can recognize that the abundant aüegories in Dream

Sky were used as a spontaneous and promising response to the demands of the

time. This becomes more plausible when we remember that in a uterary text

aüegory operates in response to the socio-historical contexts of the writer as weü

as the reader.

Allegory should be explored because it unks the problems of the here-and-

now to the universal. The aüegories that Sin Ch'ae-ho used were general and

traditional rather than particular and individual, so that readers are able to

understand the connotations in the text through them without difficulty. In this

respect Dream Sky can be considered a uterary achievement for communication

and consensus rather than for self-completion. Now the indivisible relationship

between aüegory and contextual interpretation needs to be emphasized; the

aüegorical text reaüzes its meanings in the process of being interpreted.

Sin Ch'ae-ho used aüegory to fulfiü his responsibiüty as an inteüectual to the

contemporary times and society. What we can find in the aüegorical

representation in Dream Sky can be summarized as a historical consciousness of

the people's struggle, which was to suggest his historical consciousness of the

confrontation between the I and the non-I as the strenuous efforts for nationalindependence. To repeat. Dream Sky describe s struggle by saying tha t th e struggle

should take place between me and the other. W hat m e means here, as Sin

Ch 'ae-h o's early article Th e Big I (tflû}) and the Smaü I (¿û l- ) declares, is die I

w ho n ever ever dies ; althoug h the sm aü I may die, the big I never dies. *

Th erefo re th e I that he intends to signify mus t be the Big I wh ich decreases an d

increases according to the time; in other words, in the age of the famuy system,

the famuy is the I, whue in the age of the nation system, the nation is the I. (185)

'«' Sin Ch'ae-ho. The Big I and the Small I. In Series. Vol. 2. pp. 81-83.



Park: The Uterary Value of Sin Ch ae-ho s Drea m Sky 335

Indeed in Dream Sky the I does not appear as clearly as the non-I. The non-I

indicates the diverse characters in heü and the objects of struggle and unfaiüngvictory. However, it is ironic that in Dream Sky the I is not so much concretely

shown as represented by Hannom, who is characterized by sadness and tears. This

might be because the social system of the people, which should be meant by the I,

had not yet settled down properly, or because what is represented through the

existence of Hannom includes more complex aspects of that time such as

tradition, changing emotions, subjects who opposed radical social change, clear

inteüectual consciousne ss, and the peop le w ho were still ambiguous. In this

context we can understand that sweeping the sky connotes the fact that the

contamination of this world ranges over the sky, that the sky is no longer anisolated and pure place yet it is the place which must be purified by the being of

this world (Hannom-the I or the Smaü I), and that consequently there is the

oneness of this world and the sky (Hannom-the Big I)

Yi Do-Yeon holds that in Dream Sky the gap between fiction and reauty is so

narrow that it does not rely on rhetorical modification of the novel form but

shows direct contact with reality, and it may be the key for understanding Dream

Sky as a text sustained by an aüegorical structure (Yi, Do-Yeon). However the

narrowness of the gap between fiction and reauty does not necessarüy make

aüegor}' operate. As I mentioned above, the operation of aUegory depends on the

abüit}' to pursue context-bound interpretation; it does not rely on the fact that the

meaning of the text and its structure show familiarity with reauty; Dream Sky

involves the overcoming of reauty but this overcoming stems from the

transcendental nature immanent in it; namely phantasmagoria. In short it yields

possible worlds through repetitive overcomings.

3 . The Horizon of Marginal Alteration

David Damrosch holds that works of world üterature are best read with an

awareness of the work's original cultural context, but they typicaüy wear thiscontext rather Hghdy. When we read the Comedy as an Itaüan uterary work, we see

it naturaüy as a work related stricdy to the medieval poets, theologians and

poUtical thinkers who have not been known further afield. But Dante's poem

transforms itself whüe traversing borderünes. The Comedy is a com pletely different

work in foreign countries and even in Italy it was a very different work for ítalo

Calvino and Primo Levi in the twentieth century than it was for Boccaccio in the

fourteenth century. The Comedy ̂ effect has been always shaped by the readers'

' In this respect. Sin Ch 'ae-h o criticized the fact that the non -I is included in the I in his article Proclamation of Chosön Revolut ion . ( in Series. Vol. 2. pp. 38—40).




strong sensibility to it as a poem which stemmed from a very different time and

space (Damrosch, 139-140). ^How many contexts are required to evaluate a text properly depends on the

text itself and the aims with which the text is read. Therefore we can say that the

universaUty of a text derives from its power to overcome any specific space-time,

which means that the text should be read differendy according to the different

space-times and at the same time maintain its consistency. This is what I have

described as alteradon. A high level of diverse alteradon, which requires the text

to sustain its consistency along with its altered features, guarantees its

universaUzabiUty. The original context of the omedj stUl remains in Dream Skj yet

more importandy the scope of alteradon in it was rather radical. The alteradonrarely occurs direcdy; alteradon needs cUstance, yet consistency tends to remove

cUstance. I find here the power of universaUty which is nothing other than the

power of embracing the presence and absence of distance. Damrosch states:

The texts themselves exist both together and alone: when we read Dante,we are aware that we are encountering a major work of world literature,one that draws on a wealth of previous writing and that casts its shadowahead onto much that will foUow it. Yet even as we register suchconnections, we are also immersed within Dante's singular world, an

imagined universe very unlike any envisioned by Virgu or by Saint Paul, andone that Muton, Gogol, and Walcott wül radically revise in turn for verydifferent purposes of their own (Damrosch, 298).

Da nte has his own pardcular world and aU the notes of the Comedj are the

supplements added to it. AU the notes have the same rights; they color Dante's

pardcular world only until it maintains itself T he omedj has been re-canonized by

a process of intermingUng the original and the alteradon. Dream Skj is one

instance of such processes; it tesdfies to the universaUty of the omedj and more

importandy becomes a new canonical work born in the cultural context ofmodern Korea, and further the Jens through which we can observe the ever

transforming geography of world Uterature.

We can never neglect both the original context of the omedj and the readers'

strong sensibUity to it. In the case of Dream Skj the former was to o weak whUe

the latter was too intense. What does this mean? Should we think that, just as

Dante's originaUty arose from demoUshing his own theological frame. Sin Ch'ae-

ho's radical alteradon inherited and operated Dante's originaUty as such? If we do.

« Damrosch refers to Dimock, Wai Chee. Literature for the Planet. PMJLA. 116.1. 2001. 17 3-188.



Park: The Uterary Value of Sin Ch ae-ho s Dteam Sky 337

Dream Sky may well have made the Comedy r icher rather than damaged it, and may

have go ne b eyon d it toward creating its own literary world based on the writer sknowledge and consciousness of both general human history and Korean history.

Therefore, we can conclude that, in evaluadng the aesthedc and ideological value

of Sin C h ae-h o s literature, it shotild be m uch m ore meaningful to consider

alteradon rather than recepdon, the subject of recepdon rather than the object of

recepdon. However, this does not mean that I value Dream Sky more strongly

than the Comedy or vice versa; rather this ardde aims to focus on their dialogical

partnership and therewith evaluate Dream Sky from a broader sense of ctiltural

exchange.

The consciousness of marginal alteradon helps us quesdon whether

universality can be maintained in die Others contexts and vice versa. To sum up,

the ultimate concern of what I have called marginal alteradon is to maintain both

universal and local contex ts; we nee d to try to maintain a consc iousne ss of the

Others contexts which enables us to have a more just vision. In the case that

concerns us, the original Dante, which consists in his own poedc form, characters

and eve nts , mo sdy disappeared in Dream Sky which means that it was received by

Sin C h ae-h o in the way that E ur op e received the Arabian Nights and the Epic of

Gilgamesh. Yet we need to pay more attendon to the fact diat Dream Sky has the

effect of recreating the original as well as that of losing it. We also need to return

to the original of the Comedy over and over again so as to compare the odginalaura and the reproduced plural auras. I expect this wül allow us to highlight the

literary values of the Comedy and Dream Sky in a more democradc way.

Submitted: 23 August, 2012

Sent for revision: 6 September, 2012

Accepted: 19 September, 2012

S A N G J I N P A R K ( s jpa rk(§buf s .ac .k r ) is a professor in the Department of Comparative

Literature atBusan University of Foreign Studies Korea.



338 Acta Koreana Vol 15 , No. 2, 2012

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The Literary Value of Sin Ch'Ae-ho's Dream Sky: A Marginal Alteration of Dante's Comedy