The Study On Shin Gyu-sik's Chinese Experience And Literary Creation

Shin Gyu-sik(1880-1922)is a famous politician,diplomatand independent activist in modern Korea.In 1911 he went into exile and arrived in Shanghai,China,where he passed away in 1922.During his short life,he carried out a wealth of movements of national salvation and reinstatement,showing the feature of an outstanding political diplomat and independent activist.While running for the revolution,Shin Gyu-sik left many literary texts.In particular,during his 11-year Chinese exile career,he accumulated a wealth of transnational experiences,including experiences of Chinese revolutionary,Korean independent movement,interpersonal communication and dispersal life,etc.,which provide rich themes for his literary creation.Shin Gyu-sik's literary works embody excellent Chinese language and superb literary attainments,write a variety of transnational experiences and also contain a rich world of emotions,thoughts and consciousness,research value of which is of great significance.However,most of previous studies in the academic circle only regarded Shin Gyu-sik as an aspirants pursing independence and did not pay enough attention to his literary texts.So far his literary works have not been systematically sorted out,let alone in-depth studies.Therefore,based on the combination of post-colonial critical theories such as "cross-border","dispersion" and "identity",neo-historicism,imagology of comparative literature and text analysis,this dissertation will elaborate the relationship between Shin Gyu-sik's Chinese experience and his literary creation from literary and ideological perspectives,and then further clarify the value and significance of his literary creation.Shin Gyu-sik was a thoughtful man and full of practical spirit.His thoughts guided his practice and sublimed under the counteraction of practice.Influenced by his Chinese experience,his national consciousness which sprouted while he was in Korea developed into a clear anti-Japanese line;the obscure vision of freedom and civil rights developed into clear consciousness of modern state;militarism and concern about the international situation sublimated to the governing concept of integration of diplomatic and armed forces;and his attention to China,affirmation of the Revolution of 1911 and the national Datong thought gradually developed into the consciousness of Sino-Korea union and then into the consciousness of international union.Under the guidance of these ideologies,during his exile in China,with Sino-Korea union and international union as the strategy,the democratic republic system as the political philosophy of the reinstated country and the Datong thought as the basis,Shin Gyu-sik made full use of the international situation,the ideological trend of national self-determination and the public opinions to launch Korean Independence Movement around the world.He built a platform for Sino-Korea revolution union,cultivated Korean patriotic youth and played a vital role in the establishment of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea and the recognition of the Sun Yat-Sen Law Protection Government,becoming the pioneer of Korean Independence Movement in Shanghai and the founder of Sino-Korea revolution union.It can be said that his Chinese experience made him grow from an ordinary fighter for national independence to a pioneer of the anti-colonial era.However,we also noticed that the limitations in his thoughts that he relied overly on Chinese revolutionary factions and international aid,failed to value and mobilize the masses,and failed to stop the struggles among various factions within the Koreans due to the lack of clear revolutionary guiding ideologies.Shin Gyu-sik's rich Chinese experience has contributed to the writing and imagination in his literary works,and there is a close relationship between the two.First of all,Shin Gyu-sik extensively made friends with Chinese revolutionaries,joined Nanshe Society,a revolutionary literary organization,and created the Chinese Weekly Chindan,which created a position for the exchange between China and Korea.These cross-border exchange experiences led to his literary exchange with Chinese revolutionary pioneers and progressive literati,which showed the following characteristics:Firstly,the topics mainly focused on national independence and bourgeois revolution,which promoted the construction of anti-Japanese discourse and national discourse in China and Korea,thus effectively promoted the development of common discourse and mutual cognition;secondly,Shin Gyu-sik's approval of the Revolution of 1911 and anti-Japanese consciousness became the development mechanism for the exchange between the two sides,thereby achieving a generative dialogue mode;thirdly,both sides took self-reflection through the writing of the other side,thus gaining a deeper understanding of the destiny of their own country and the future of their revolution;fourthly,the two-way cross-border narration promoted the development of their literature respectively.Next,Shin Gyu-sik's political and revolutionary experiences obtained from the cross-border space have exerted significant influence on his understanding of China and his literary writing.He regarded the bourgeois revolution as the only future for China and even Asia and thought the Beiyang government a corrupt and incompetent government and a government of national betrayal,which gave rise to his consciousness of modern state,his awareness of Sino-Korea union and even international union as well as his understanding of world peace.In his writing of China and his literary imagination,he advocated the Revolution of 1911,created a series of images of Chinese revolutionary aspirants and criticized feudal autocracy and Beiyang government's retrograde and perverse actions,corruption and incompetence as well as its betrayal.In addition,he actively discussed the significance of Sino-Korea relations,the necessity of Sino-Korea cooperation and the significance of Korea's independence to China,Japan,East Asia and eve the world peace,which made his literature emerge with strong political opinions,reflecting unique features of a political diplomat.But this kind of imagination of China has certain characteristics of Utopia.And then,Shin Gyu-sik's crossing border began with his exile and the experience of dispersal life was another important part of his cross-border experience.The experience of dispersal life made him feel deep homesickness and hatred for the subjugated country.These depressions prompted him to think more deeply about the nature of Japan's aggression and the reasons for the fall of Korea,and formed clear consciousness of national subject.What's more,the dispersal experience gave him deep cognition of national culture and new thinking about national historical culture and national identity.In his literature he expressed his missing of his hometown and his close relatives,spoke about his suffering of his subjugated country and sharply exposed and criticized the predatory and deceptive nature of Japanese aggression.He appealed to nationality—the "soul of Korea",the national spirit,and portrayed a series of great images of national heroes and independent fighters.At the same time,he actively propagated national history and culture,emphasized the rewriting of national history and firmly guarded his national identity through the writing and propagation of national spiritual symbols such as Daejonggyo.It can be said that Shin Gyu-sik's transnational experience has a clear influence on his literary creation.His experience of exchange led to his writing of the revolution in China and Chinese revolutionary aspirants,and then prompted the generative interaction between and mutual cognition of modern Chinese and Korean literati;his political diplomacy and revolutionary experiences prompted him to form his understanding of China,East Asian and modern civilization and the Chinese imagination in his literature;his dispersal experience and national experience made him more aware of his national identity and his works not only showed sorrows and hatreds brought by dispersion but displayed his praise for national spirit and a sense of national identity.Viewing Shin Gyusik's literary works systematically,we can find that they have the following characteristics.The first one is the cross-border nature,that is,his resistance against Japan,his national imagination and his language are all of cross-border nature;the second is the subjectivity,that is,the national subject consciousness and the historical subject consciousness,both of which are expression of colonial contexts and the collective unconsciousness in the exile space;and the third is the blending of cultural identity.Shin Gyu-sik encountered identity crisis and anxiety in his dispersal experience.In the face of anxiety,on the one hand,he:insisted on his national identity through propagation of national culture and national history;on the other hand,he participated in the revolution in China with the strategy of Sino-Korea union,gave approval to the Chinese culture and revolution,and thus restructured his cultural identity to a certain extent,reflecting the characteristic of blending.The fourth characteristic is the nature of political argument.Shin Gyu-sik's literature has a high level by literary and artistic standards.But the keynote of his literature is firm anti-Japanese consciousness and a sense of national mission.Therefore,his literature is full of political and revolutionary discourse with powerful sense of times,such as revolution,anti-Japanese,national salvation and Sino-Korea union,etc.,embodying the function of political aesthetics and displaying unique features of revolutionary literati.To conclude,we can define Shin Gyu-sik and his literature in this way.Firstly,the literature of Shin Gyu-sik is an important component of Korean anti-Japanese literature,Korean modern Chinese literature and Korean dispersal literature abroad.It is a gem of Korean literature and has significant status and value in Korean literary history.Secondly,in the new period of historical transformation and value reconstruction of Sino-Korea exchanges,Shin Gyu-sik's extensive exchange with Chinese revolutionary pioneers and establishing the beginning of Sino-Korea revolutionary union created a new situation in Sino-Korea cultural exchanges,playing an important role in this transformation and being the founder of Sino-Korea relations in the 20th century.Thirdly,with a keen sense of the times and international awareness,Shin Gyu-sik grasped the requirements of the times in the complicated situation of modern East Asia,showed firm anti-Japanese consciousness and found that Sino-Korea cooperation was the common historical choice of both China and Korea in the 20th century.His anti-Japanese consciousness and cognition of China,East Asia and even world peace reflected self-consciousness of the times and cultural self-consciousness of East Asia,having significant spiritual value in the history of thought of East Asia.The study on Shin Gyu-sik's Chinese experience and literary creation is of great significance not only to completely and objectively restore the comprehensive feature of the historical figure Shin Gyusik but also to the studies of Korean Chinese literature,the studies of Korean anti-Japanese literature and even those of Korean modern humanistic exchange.It is hoped that this dissertation will be able to provide some reference for related research and offer beneficial inspiration to prompt current exchanges and dialogue between China and South Korea and the construction of a community of shared future in East Asia.