A Study on the Kim Moon-jip’s Impressionistic Poetics

This study examines the development of Impressionist criticism in the 1930s and its characteristics and limitations by focusing on Kim Moon-Jip. The critical view of Kim Moon-Jip can be summarized in two points: the emphasis on the Choseon-style “tradition” centered on the aspect of “language”, and the advocacy of “critical art” or “creative criticism” that emphasizes the creativity and artistry of criticism. First, the important point in Kim Moon-Jip’s criticism is that he linked the issue of “tradition” to the issue of “language”. In other words, our literature lacks tradition because there is no past literature in the Choseon language that possesses a high level of artistic beauty. Kim Moon-jip’s critical uniqueness lies not in his emphasis on the aspects of the Choseon-style, but in his emphasis on linguistic aspects. Meanwhile, Kim Moon-jip asserted the “critical art theory”, that criticism is a unique genre separate from literary works and a second creation. He asserted that criticism is the art of being responsible for the re-creation of aesthetic values; and emphasized that it should become a work. This means that criticism is an independent and inviolable artistic field, separate from creation, and reveals a unique perception that criticism can exist independently without literary works. In addition, “creative criticism” denies the existing perception of the relationship between works of art and literary criticism; and understands that criticism has the same level of autonomy and independence as creation. This critical theory denies the existing dominant view of the relationship between works and criticism; and views the latter as having the same level of independence as creation.