60년간의 비평적 수용을 통해 본 도리스 레싱의 노벨상 수상의 의미 = The 60 years' History of Doris Lessing's Critical Reception and The Nobel Prize

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

This paper traces the 60 years' history of Doris Lessing's critical reception chronologically, ranging from the nineteen fifties where she published her earliest works to 2008 when she declared her retirement. It is a significant study in that Lessing received the Nobel Prize in 2007 but people are still wondering why it occurred so late.
This paper insists that the critics' belated view of the literary trend prevented Lessing from being recognized properly and timely. For example, in the nineteen seventies Lessing was experimenting a new genre, science fiction, while critics and scholars were demanding realist and feminist works like the Golden Notebook rejecting her experimentation. In the nineteen eighties Lessing who was disappointed at the critics' reception of her science fictions wrote realist fictions under the name of Jane Somers. But there were few critics or scholars who recognized them as Lessing's as she had expected. Obviously, this scandal made them feel uncomfortable and even bitter against her.
Another reason Lessing had not been hailed so long is that she was always on the side of the weak, the alienated, the subaltern, or the minority. Even when she was naturalized and lived in the Great Britain, she criticized her capitalism and imperialism bitterly and defended communism and African natives. She of course never gave up complaining about women's insecure position. She was a rebel on every account.
She was also a challenger, getting absorbed in 'anti-psychoanalysis' rather than formal psychoanalysis, experimenting new literary genres such as fantasy, science fiction, or fable and applying Sufism ideas to her works.
She was famous for her 'contrarian' response because she always responded negatively to all interviewers' and readers' questions. It was told that she regarded even her sympathizers as enemies.
But no one couldn't deny that she was a great sibyl who sees the larger truth and guides our way, incessantly warning us of incoming disasters. That's why the Norwegian Noble Committee decided to give her the Nobel Prize.