그녀가 존재하기를 멈추었을 때: 루시 시편들에서 나타나는 시간성과 언어의 역할

Abstract

This paper aims to demonstrate the role of poetic language as the epitaph which accentuates the separation between the deceased and the living, but at the same time brings to the attention the possibility of existence without perceivable bodies and concepts. Wordsworths Lucy poems focus on the inevitable impotence in facing the spatiotemporal discrepancy between the speaker and dead Lucy. However, Wordsworth presents Natures temporality in which the boundless time is not separated nor terminated by physical death, and thus demolishes the concept of time segmented into the past, present, and future. The language of Nature, in contrast to that of the speaker in terms of portraying Lucy, successfully represents the vitality of Lucy by giving forms and timeless life without physical and temporal gap. For the speaker, however, achieving his ultimate desire of reenacting the past when Lucy was still alive is never possible because of the limits his poetic language holds. When faced with death, which cannot be fully understood or experienced by human perception, the speaker thoroughly recognizes the limitations of human perception and language. Nonetheless, the only reaction the speaker can take to trace the past is reconstructing it with the only, but limited medium he owns: the poetic language. However, in doing so, the poetic language ironically succeeds in indicating the existence beyond the human senses. In short, it is only at the very moment the poetic language reaches its limit when it can surpass its innate linguistic capacity.