• 비교문화연구
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• 제35권
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• pp.155-184
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• 2014

The present study aims at exploring in detail the Buddhist worldview and aesthetics of humor in Jo O-hyeon's literary works. This includes the same context as an elucidation of the ways in which his poems closely correspond in expressive forms and thematic contents. It is because, in Jo's literary world, where short poems and prose poems form a contrast, the expressive forms and thematic contents sharply differ depending on the ways in which prajnapti (provisional designation) is either foregrounded or backgrounded. In his literary world, when such a view of language and a worldview based on prajnapti are foregrounded, works that either inherit or play a variation on the fixed structure of the sijo emerge; and when they recede to the rear and are backgrounded, verses in the form of the prose poem are formulated. In addition, in Jo's literary works, where such a worldview of prajnapti and an aesthetics of secular humor intersect together, the thoughts on bheda-abheda(difference-non-difference) and the madhyama-pratipad (middle way) are formed. Such thoughts have considerable significance because they not only harbor a possibility of deconstructing and overcoming the opposition of the sacred/profane but also present a vision of a new unity.