The Political Aesthetics Of Romance: Romantic Love As An Ideological Apparatus In Konjiki Yasa And MujÔNg

Abstract

This study explores the texts of Ozaki Koyo's Kongjiki Yasha (1897-1903) and Yi Kwangsu's Mujông (1917) to reveal how the modern idea of "romantic love" was utilized as an ideological apparatus in both Meiji Japan and colonial Korea. In both novels, romantic love is adopted and considered as a way to resist a dominant force, capitalism in Konjiki Yasha and colonialism in the case of Mujông. However, by deploying the logic of their opponents, the authors shaped a concept of romantic love that became complicit with the spread of the dominant ideologies. Investigating the romantic love portrayed in these novels unfolds useful historical facts regarding how the societies in which these novels were written and consumed were structured and operating. Romantic love as a particular mode of feeling or perception can provide a valuable insight in unpacking the larger economic and political structure