바다에서의 정체성 실험 : 19세기 영국 항해서사 최근 연구동향

This article reviews recent studies of nineteenth-century British sea narratives. Scholars have noted that both the motif of sailing and the image of the sea tell us a great deal about the formation of the nineteenth-century Britain’s national identity and the imperial ideology. Through sea narratives, they have examined how Victorians built relations with the Other outside their ‘home’ and how those relationships helped to change the way they view their own nations. For recent 10 years, scholars of Victorian literature and culture have focused on the issue of space, studying the ways in which specific places such as the South Pacific islands and coral lagoons were imagined in terms of ‘home’ and ‘home-building.’ Also, some of the scholars have read children’s books with sailing motif through the concept of play/game, illuminating the empire’s self-identification with a boy and/or a pirate. Finally, some scholars have revisited the sea fiction genre from the perspectives of girl/colored subject, noting that traveling to the sea and to the island served to challenge and reconstruct gender/race hierarchy. The examples of Victorians advancing outward and redefining self-identity in international relations raise important questions about how to meet the Other in 21st century world.