2000년대 한국 노동시의 분화 양상과 수사적 특성

초록

This article aims to provide a comprehensive examination of the patterns of differentiation and the rhetorical characteristics of Korean labor poetry in the 2000s. The primary objects of analysis are four poetry collections published during this period by the poetry collective “Ilgwasi”(literally, “Work and Poem”), which are examined in connection with two previous studies conducted. Adopting an inductive approach, the study explores the internal differentiation of labor poetry as manifested in Ilgwasi’s collections and, furthermore, identifies the major rhetorical features that characterize these works. The poetry collections of Ilgwasi include texts that give form to the diverse contradictions of labor sites in the 2000s, such as divisions within labor unions and among workers, the realities faced by women workers, and industrial accidents. At the same time, however, they also reveal the limitations confronting labor poetry in this period. References to women workers and victims of industrial accidents remain limited, while the issues of newly emerging labor subjects-such as non-regular workers, platform workers, and migrant workers-are scarcely addressed. In addition, certain poems retain the slogan-centered and unrefined language characteristic of earlier labor poetry, thereby exhibiting signs of partial regression. Through this analysis, the present study lays the groundwork for an integrated understanding of the internal transformation and rhetorical evolution of Korean labor poetry in the 2000s. Nevertheless, the works analyzed in this study articulate a sense of selfhood through language embodied in workers’ lived experiences and actively employ rhetorical strategies such as metaphor, irony, and pun. These features demonstrate that labor poetry in the 2000s does not merely repeat the aesthetics directions through both inheritance and variation.

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