웹소설에 나타난 <춘향전>의 놀이적 전유와 이어 쓰기, 다시 쓰기 - <발칙한 춘향>, <춘향환상곡>을 중심으로 -

초록

This study analyzes the way in which the classic Chunhyangjeon (The Tale of Chunhyang) is “playfully appropriated” within the digital narrative environment of web novels. Throughout the colonial period and modernization, Chunhyangjeon was simultaneously sublimated as a “national canon” and maintained its popular vitality as a “playful, vernacular” narrative. This study defines the web novel‘s approach to the duality of Chunhyangjeon as “playful appropriation”. This is understood as a narrative strategy that avoids subordination to the authority and dogmatic interpretations (Doxa) established during its canonization. Instead, web novels freely deconstruct and recombine the text's signifiers. These modes of appropriation are analyzed through the lens of Roland Barthes’s concepts of the “readerly text” (lisible) and “writerly text” (scriptible). Two specific narrative strategies are identified: “continuative writing” (ieo sseugi) and “rewriting” (dasi sseugi). <Balchikan Chunhyang> (Impudent Chunhyang), an example of “continuative writing,” expands the narrative from the point immediately following the original's conclusion, where Mongryong betrays Chunhyang. It deconstructs the original's myth of romantic love and its male-centric savior narrative, reconfiguring the antagonist, Byeon Hakdo, as an aide. Furthermore, it establishes a new structure centered on the “]political growth of a female protagonist. Conversely, <Chunhyang Hwansanggok> (Chunhyang Fantasia), an example of “rewriting,” fundamentally reconstructs the narrative's premise. It displaces the core ideology of “fidelity” (jeongjeol) with the issues of motherhood and urvival, developing the plot around the relationship between Chunhyang and Byeon Hakdo. In this process, Mongryong loses his status as a savior and is demoted to the role of a false narrator who recounts the classic Chunhyangjeon, thereby metafictionally deconstructing the canon itself. In conclusion, continuative writing and rewriting are interpreted as Barthesian practices that revert the closed “Work” of Chunhyangjeon into an open “Text” that invites active reader intervention. Web novels exhibit ambivalence. While transforming canonical authority into an object of play, they also establish new values, such as lineage or motherhood, that reflect the desires of contemporary readers. This demonstrates how the dual vitality of Chunhyangjeon has been dynamically reinvented in the digital age.

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