호메로스 문제와 한국 구비문학 연구

Abstract

This article aims to comprehensively examine the Homeric Questions, which are treated as the most important issues in Western classical philology, in relation to the tasks of Korean oral literature research. The modern debates on Homer's problem began, developed, deepened, and has continued to today as analysts came forward to refute the traditional Unitarianism that Homer was the author of the two epic poems Iliad and Odyssey. Analysts have divided and analyzed the works in detail, arguing that the two epics are a combination of poems by several writers, not by one author, in the process of oral and literal transmission. On the other hand, there appeared the 『new analysis』 that inherited the research results of analysis theory while advocating the position of unitarians. It argues that a single author like Homer could be acknowledged, but he imitated and combined the creations of several previous writers. Unlike them, scholars who explored the creation process of Homer's epic from the perspective of oral literature tried to explain Homer's epic as a product of collective creation, putting the tradition in the foreground than a poet as the author. In addition, as the perspectives of narratology and cognitive science are applied to Homer's problem, the researches are developing increasingly diversely. It is a very important task for us to consider how to deepen and develop discussions related to the preservation, research, and creation of our oral literature, while examining such Homer issues.