What Is Korean Literature? 1557291861, 9781557291868

Table of contents :
Cover
Notes to this edition
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
Preface
What Is Korean Literature?
Part I: Classical Literature
1: Introduction to Classical Literature
2: Verse
3: Narrative
4: Literature in Classical Chinese
5: Oral Literature
Part II: Modern Literature
6: Introduction to Modern Literature
7: Poetry
8: Fiction
9: Drama
10: Into the New World: Literature of the Late Twentieth and Early Twenty-first Centuries
Bibliography
Acknowledgments
Glossary
Index of Names
Index of Titles of Literary Works
Back Cover

Citation preview

What is

Korean Literature?

Youngmin Kwon and Bruce Fulton KOREA RESEARCH MONOGRAPH 37

Notes to this edition This is an electronic edition of the printed book. Minor corrections may have been made within the text; new information and any errata appear on the current page only. Korea Research Monograph 37 What Is Korean Literature? Youngmin Kwon and Bruce Fulton ISBN-13: 978-1-55729-187-5 (electronic) ISBN-13: 978-1-55729-186-8 (print) ISBN-10: 1-55729-186-1 (print)

Please visit the IEAS Publications website at http://ieas.berkeley.edu/publications/ for more information and to see our catalogue. Send correspondence and manuscripts to Katherine Lawn Chouta, Managing Editor Institute of East Asian Studies 1995 University Avenue, Suite 510H Berkeley, CA 94704-2318 USA [email protected]

March 2020

What Is Korean Literature?

KOREA RESEARCH MONOGRAPH 37 CENTER FOR KOREAN STUDIES

What Is Korean Literature?

Youngmin Kwon and Bruce Fulton

A publication of the Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley. Although the institute is responsible for the selection and acceptance of manuscripts in this series, responsibility for the opinions expressed and for the accuracy of statements rests with their authors. The Korea Research Monograph series is one of the several publications series sponsored by the Institute of East Asian Studies in conjunction with its constituent units. The others include the China Research Monograph series, the Japan Research Monograph series, the Research Papers and Policy Studies series, and the Trans­national Korea series. Send correspondence and manuscripts to Katherine Lawn Chouta, Managing Editor Institute of East Asian Studies 1995 University Avenue, Suite 510H Berkeley, CA 94720 [email protected] Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Kwŏn, Yŏng-min, 1948- author. | Fulton, Bruce, author. Title: What is Korean literature? / Youngmin Kwon and Bruce Fulton. Description: Berkeley, CA : Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley, 2020. | Series: Korea research monograph ; 37 | Includes bibliographical references and indexes. | Summary: “Outlining the major developments, characteristics, genres, and figures of the Korean literary tradition from earliest times into the new millennium, this volume includes examples, in English translation, of each of the genres and works by several of the major figures discussed in the text, as well as suggestions for further reading”—Provided by publisher. Identifiers: LCCN 2019048812 (print) | LCCN 2019048813 (ebook) | ISBN 9781557291868 (paperback) | ISBN 9781557291875 (pdf) Subjects: LCSH: Korean literature—History and criticism. Classification: LCC PL956 .K86 2020 (print) | LCC PL956 (ebook) | DDC 895.709—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019048812 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019048813

Copyright © 2020 by The Regents of the University of California. Printed in the United States of America. All rights reserved. Front cover: Ssanggŏm taemu (Double sword dance) by Shin Yun-bok (1758–?). Used by courtesy of the Kansong Art and Culture Foundation, Seoul. Cover design: Mindy Chen and Bruce Fulton.

Contents

Preface What Is Korean Literature?

vii xi

PART I: CLASSICAL LITERATURE 1 Introduction to Classical Literature 2 Verse 3 Narrative 4 Literature in Classical Chinese 5 Oral Literature

3 7 25 65 85

PART II: MODERN LITERATURE 6 Introduction to Modern Literature 7 Poetry 8 Fiction 9 Drama 10 Into the New World: Literature of the Late Twentieth and Early Twenty-first Centuries

101 108 144 195 227

Bibliography 283 Acknowledgments 287 Glossary 289 Index of Names 303 Index of Titles of Literary Works 309

Preface

What is Korean literature? More specifically, what is Korean about Korean literature? These are questions the junior member of this authorial team (Bruce Fulton; hereafter BF) asks annually to the students in his survey courses in traditional and modern Korean literature at the University of British Columbia. He doesn’t expect definitive answers, only that we begin to engage critically with a millennia-old literary tradition that still struggles for recognition beyond the Korean Peninsula. In the English-speaking world, the academic field of Korean literature is top-heavy with specialists in modern fiction, with the literature and culture of colonial Korea an ongoing focus for many. Few of us offer instruction in all periods and all genres of Korean literature, as Peter H. Lee, the late Marshall R. Pihl, and other pioneers once did. This is unfortunate if for no other reason than that the wave of Korean popular culture that is increasingly driving popular culture worldwide in the new millennium draws significantly on the oral and performance elements of traditional Korean literature and the improvisational nature of the composition of hanshi (poetry written in Chinese by Koreans). There has long been a need for an introductory text on Korean literary history from earliest times to the new millennium. The present volume, inspired by the manuscript “Han’guk munhak iran muŏshin’ga?” (What is Korean literature?) by the senior member of this authorial team (Youngmin Kwon; hereafter YMK), is an attempt to outline the major developments, characteristics, genres, and figures of the Korean literary tradition to students encountering that tradition for the first time—or, increasingly, for students of Korean ethnicity who may have had exposure to Korean literature in middle or high school in Korea and who are now studying abroad—to critically engage with Korean literature. YMK’s Korean version provides roughly equal coverage of traditional and modern literature. This version tilts the balance more toward the modern period

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Preface

with the addition of a chapter on literature from the 1980s into the new millennium. What makes this volume unique among English-language resources is that it includes examples, in English translation, of each of the genres and works by several of the major figures discussed in the text. These translations, as well as suggestions for further reading, are appended to each of the substantive chapters of the volume. The translations have been selected primarily on the basis of how well, in our estimation, they preserve the flavor of the Korean works and at the same time are viable as works of English-language literature. We are especially pleased to offer the late Marshall R. Pihl’s translation of “Hong Kiltong chŏn,” the first time this classic translation of a historic Korean story has appeared unabridged in book form. We have made every effort to contact the translators (or their estates) of the works appearing here. Acknowledgment is gratefully made for their permission to use their works. We also thank the University of Iowa Press, the University of California Press, Koryo Press, and the University of Hawai’i Press for permission to reprint copyrighted material. We acknowledge as well the publishers of earlier versions of the translations. [Sentence removed because of inaccuracy at time of publication.] A number of individuals contributed significantly to the development of this volume. Gabriel Sylvian and other graduate students in the Department of Korean Language and Literature, College of Humanities, at Seoul National University, produced a draft translation of an abridged version of YMK’s Korean original. That draft was reviewed by a team of bilingual graduate students as well as YMK and BF in a graduate seminar at Seoul National University in the fall of 2011. BF has since expanded that draft to reflect his own ideas and judgments as they have evolved over two decades of teaching half a dozen Korean literature courses annually as well as courses on reading and translating modern Korean literary fiction. BF alone developed chapter 10, which adds almost four decades of coverage, while in residence at the Kyujanggak International Korean Studies Center, Seoul National University, in the spring and summer of 2016; he gratefully acknowledges the support of a fellowship from that center. He is grateful as well for a residency made possible for him and Ju-Chan Fulton at the T’oji Cultural Center in the city of Wŏnju, Korea, in September and October 2019. The several anthologies of poetry—vernacular and classical, traditional and modern—prepared over the years by Kevin O’Rourke have been indispensable. Kevin O’Rourke, David McCann, and Young Jun Lee have been helpful consultants for the poetry contents of this volume. Robert Buswell offered crucial support in consultations on Buddhist terminology.

Preface

ix

Ross King assisted with terminology related to the Korean language, and Kate Swatek helped with titles of traditional Chinese literary works. Ju-Chan Fulton assisted with indexing and with inserting the translations in the “Readings” sections of the volume. Cho Tongil’s five-volume Hanguk munhak t’ongsa (A comprehensive history of Korean literature) has been a valuable reference, as has the draft translation of that work left by Marshall R. Pihl upon his untimely death in 1995. Thanks are also due the late Professor Pihl for the reader in traditional literature he developed at the University of Hawai’i, which, regrettably, still exists only in manuscript form. We are grateful to two anonymous readers, who offered helpful suggestions for structuring the volume as well as for terminology. BF must ultimately thank YMK: the Korean literature field both in Korea and in the English-speaking world would be inestimably poorer without the wealth of Korean-language reference works he has compiled over the decades, as well as the English-language anthologies of Korean literature, published by Columbia University Press, that are based on Korean-language anthologies developed by him and his colleagues at Seoul National University—Yi Sangt’aek, Sŏ Taesŏk, Kwŏn Tuhwan, and O Seyŏng. A few comments on editorial conventions: We use the McCune-­ Reischauer system for Romanizing Korean words and the names of Korean authors (names of authors published in English translation in a variant spelling appear in parentheses). Titles of literary works appearing in parentheses in the text are capitalized if a recommended English translation of the work has been published; otherwise only the first word and proper nouns are capitalized. In our discussion of modern Korean literature, early modern (kŭndae) refers to the period before Liberation from Japanese colonial rule in 1945; contemporary (hyŏndae) designates the period after that year. In our discussion of post-1948 literature, Korea refers to the Republic of Korea (South Korea). Readers of this book will encounter literally hundreds of authors and hundreds of literary works. Ways in which to process this plethora of material constitute a central focus of the courses taught by BF. He has learned through trial and error that the following questions offer useful points of departure for engaging with and distinguishing among a great variety of authorial voices and literary styles: What can we learn from these works about Korean history, society, and culture? To what extent, if any, do these works contain social, political, or cultural commentary, either explicit or (more commonly) implicit? How successful are the components of these works as literary art—the images and symbols, the characterization, the narrative style, the subject matter, the use of language?

xPreface What do these works suggest to us about the worldview of the author, or, in the case of oral literature, the collective among which that literature is performed? Finally, to return to the questions posed by BF at the outset: Over the years, he and his students at UBC have come to an agreement that if there is one characteristic that distinguishes Korean literature from other literatures, it is chŏngshin, what we might call “spirit.” That spirit is available in various genres with various helpings of at least three elements that have become clichés but that, like most clichés, were born of the necessity for concepts by which one who is new to a certain field of knowledge may begin to engage with that knowledge: chŏngsŏ, usually translated as lyricism but perhaps more usefully understood as “affect” or “feeling” in general; han, a difficult-to-translate state of mind colored variously by regret, bitterness, resentment, sadness, rancor, and indignation; and hŭng, of which Kevin O’Rourke’s are perhaps the best definitions—the kind of excitement one experiences feeling a tug at the end of one’s fishing pole, or more generally the excitement elicited by the perception of beauty. It is our hope that this spirit, or chŏngshin, may come alive to readers of this book. Bruce Fulton and Youngmin Kwon October 2019

What Is Korean Literature?

We define Korean literature as a distinct literature developed and transmitted from prehistoric times by the people known as Koreans (Hanguk minjok), through the linguistic medium of the Korean language. Koreans trace their hereditary origins to two ancient periods: Ko Chosŏn and Tan’gun. We assume that Korean literature germinated between the first prehistoric settlements by Koreans on the Korean Peninsula and the emergence and flourishing of these ancient Korean states. During this time, the ancestors of the Korean people migrated eastward from Central Asia and settled in the area of Manchuria and the Korean Peninsula. Diverse, scattered tribes merged in this peninsular region over thousands of years, culminating in the states known to history as the Three Kingdoms, and then Unified Shilla, Koryŏ, and Chosŏn. Korean literature developed in response to dynamic changes in popular life and culture taking place over the millennia, and as such it is an expression of the region’s distinctive history. For much of their history the Korean people had no script for their language; oral narratives were the only form in which Korean literature existed. Ultimately, Koreans adopted the Chinese writing system together with many other aspects of Chinese culture, greatly enriching their native literature. With the invention of the hangŭl script in the mid-fifteenth century Korea’s reliance on Chinese orthography came to an end. But, it was not until the twentieth century that classical Chinese lost its position of dominance as the literary language of Koreans. Until that time, literature recorded in Chinese and literature recorded in Korean continued to develop side by side, as did Korean oral literature. To efficiently plot the development of Korean literature, scholars have usually divided Korean literary history into two cumbersome epochs: classical and modern. This convention has not been without problems. Generally, literary works prior to the nineteenth century are considered classical, and subsequent works, modern. Classical literature took root and flowered in the cultural soil of East Asia. The subject matter drew heavily

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What Is Korean Literature?

from the indigenous beliefs of Koreans, yet from the Three Kingdoms through the Koryŏ period it was also nurtured by Buddhism. But then in the Chosŏn period, Neo-Confucianism (sŏngnihak) was adopted as the state ideology, and it became the basis for much of the literature produced from then on. Korea’s modern literature must be seen as an outgrowth of this classical tradition even as it developed through contact with European literary trends. Modern Korean literature evolved into its present state in the face of Japanese colonialism and the subsequent national division. Korean literature has been transmitted both orally (resulting in kubi munhak) and in writing (kirok munhak). The bulk of recorded literature exists either in classical Chinese or in hangŭl. These two forms of written literature are referred to as hanmunhak and kungmun munhak, respectively. Before the creation of hangŭl, Koreans also used hyangch’al, a system of recording with sinographs their native language as spoken. A writer’s choice of script—classical Chinese, hyangch’al, or, after the mid-1400s, hangŭl—not only influenced the text’s orthography but also determined its form and content. Texts often differed sharply depending on the medium in which they were recorded. Korean literature may thus be outlined as (1) oral literature and (2) literature recorded in (a) classical Chinese, (b) hyangch’al, or (c) hangŭl. Oral literature is a crucial element of Korean literature. Orality was the exclusive means for literary creation by the Korean people prior to their adoption of writing systems. Even thereafter orality continued to be the sole means of literary expression among the illiterate classes. Oral literature is the cultural product not of a single creator but of a collective. Moreover, it changes as it is transmitted orally from person to person. It is a flexible and unbound form of communication. Oral literature is based in performance, the conditions and sites of which are important. As performance contexts change, so does the literature. Oral literature contributed significantly to the development of written literature. Indeed, most classical fictional narratives borrow their structure from folk tales. P’ansori stories eventually became the basis of a type of classical fiction. And there are numerous instances of folk songs recast as modern poems. Oral literature has existed from ancient times, and even after the ruling classes came to rely, during the Koryŏ period, on classical Chinese for formal written communication, the lower classes, who had no access to Chinese writing, remained reliant on orality as their means of literary production. This continued to be the case in the Chosŏn period. But with the dramatic increase in the use of hangŭl beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, oral literature became less prevalent. Nevertheless, it maintains a presence even today, a vehicle of expression of Korean life and aesthetics.

What Is Korean Literature?

xiii

As for written literature, its main mode of expression until the mid1800s was classical Chinese. Literature in Chinese written by Koreans dates from the Three Kingdoms period (first century BC–AD 668). By then, classical Chinese and Chinese literary forms had been embraced by Korean literari. The Koryŏ kingdom (918–1392) adopted the Chinese-style state examination system, which was based on erudition in Chinese composition and spurred further development of writing in classical Chinese in Korea, both poetry and prose. Writing in classical Chinese continued to develop throughout the Chosŏn period (1392–1910). Even after hangŭl was created in Early Chosŏn (generally understood as extending from the founding of the dynasty in 1392 to the Japanese invasions of the 1590s), all government documents continued to be produced in Chinese. Chosŏn literati maintained a prejudice against the new native script, demeaning it as ŏnmun (“vulgar writing”), in contrast with Chinese, which they called chinsŏ (“true writing”). Writing in classical Chinese by Koreans, because it is based in Chinese orthography, embodies the spirit of Chinese culture. It is for this reason that some Korean scholars in modern times have sought to banish Korean works written in classical Chinese from the domain of Korean literature. But we cannot rightfully exclude all writings in classical Chinese by the China-oriented Koryŏ and Chosŏn elite, or omit the high culture that permeated the lives, thought, and expression of the ruling class from the Three Kingdoms through Chosŏn. Chinese literature was a value system centered in China that was universally recognized within the East Asia cultural sphere, but from the mid-nineteenth century in Korea, with the popular demand for a Korean vernacular literature, the cultural significance of literature in classical Chinese weakened drastically. The tradition of literature written in Korean began with the invention of hangŭl in 1443 (when promulgated in 1446 the script was termed hunmin chŏngum, “proper sounds to instruct the people”). But attempts by Koreans to write literature in their own language can be traced back to hyangga (native songs), dating from the Three Kingdoms and Unified Shilla (668–935) periods. The hyangch’al script was invented by the people of Shilla, who recorded their language by adopting certain sinographs for their pronunciation by the Shilla people and other sinographs for their meaning. Today we can understand the basic workings of hyangch’al by examining hyangga that have come down to us, but we cannot say for sure what other role hyangch’al might have played in everyday writing practices in Shilla times. The use of hyangch’al at a time when classical Chinese had become the literary language of Shilla shows us that creative efforts were already being made to devise a native script not limited to

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What Is Korean Literature?

Chinese literary practices. This desire fueled the invention of hangŭl in the fifteenth century. The invention of hangŭl marked a turning point in Korean literary history. Whereas writing in classical Chinese was limited to the ruling class, writing in Korean was available to women and the lower classes as well. Diffusion of the Korean script expanded the social base for writing—all classes could now produce literature, new forms could arise, and literature could develop in new directions. This expansion was especially noticeable during the late nineteenth century, when campaigns were launched to universalize the Korean script and Chinese writing declined in use. This marked the end of Korea’s dual writing system and in turn the attainment of ŏnmun ilch’i, the concordance of spoken and written language. Finally, the Korean language and the Korean script had become the heart of the national literature. Korean literature has developed in a variety of streams over its long history. Whether by writing system or time period, the literature is fluid and changing. The wide current that is Korean literature is a confluence of larger and smaller streams. The larger streams coincide with the paradigms of world literary discourse, the building blocks of literature. These paradigms transcend any one period or region and are the universal categories familiar to us, such as the lyrical, the epic, and the theatrical. The smaller streams refer to a certain time and medium, distinguishable by their language and period of production. They maintain their distinctive properties even as they feed into the larger streams. Oral literature is crucial to the Korean literary tradition. Its diverse forms developed through a common means of transmission (memorization and performance). Among the earliest examples of oral literature are myths and folk tales. In this sense, oral literature can be considered the source of written literature. For example, chŏnsŏl or mindam (folk tales) are the source of several classical narratives, and minyo (folk songs) are the source of the lyric tradition and Korean verse. Literature in classical Chinese written by Koreans is for the most part based squarely in the literary tradition that developed in China. The form and characteristics of this literary stream remained fairly constant. But because this literature in classical Chinese was written in the Korean cultural space, it developed differently from Chinese literature proper. Literature in classical Chinese written by Koreans consists of poetry and prose, with smaller streams within each. This literature includes not only welldeveloped genres in China, such as lyrical poetry, but also genres such as yadam (anecdotal tales) and mongyurok (dream narratives) that developed into distinctly Korean forms (see chapter 4).

What Is Korean Literature?

xv

Literature written in Korean has become the main current of the Korean literary tradition. From the classical lyric forms of hyangga, Koryŏ kayo, and shijo (see chapter 2) there developed modern lyric poetry (see chapter 8). Likewise, the mask dance of oral literature from the classical period (see chapter 5) can be seen as a distant forerunner of modern drama (see chapter 9). But in positing lyric, narrative, and theatrical forms as the major currents in the stream of Korean literature, we should not overlook the various smaller currents within them. Categorizing these streams is an expedient means to grasp historical changes and organize the diversity of literary elements into a systematic order. At the same time, we must not lose sight of reciprocal elements among these categories. That is, categorization is useful for sketching a general overview of literary history and is therefore not without importance in Korean literary studies, despite the inevitable blurring of those categories in actuality.

Part I:  Classical Literature

ONE

Introduction to Classical Literature

“Classical literature” is the conventional designation for Korean literary works produced from ancient times into the mid-nineteenth century. Subsequent works are referred to as kŭndae (modern or early modern) and hyŏndae (contemporary) literature. This terminology distinguishes not only historical periods but also the conditions that prevailed during those periods. The period in which classical literature developed was characterized by rulers who wielded absolute power, a strict class system that demarcated aristocrat from commoner, and a patriarchal family structure. Classical literature is rooted in the East Asian tradition. Its earliest influence was Buddhist thought, but it came to manifest great esteem for Confucianism as well. This literature gives concrete expression to the sentiments and values, the traditional modes of life, and the aesthetic tastes of the Korean people. Korea’s classical literature is characterized by a mythic worldview that involves continuity between the mortal and the divine. Human life is determined by the divine realm and receives its value from it. Nowhere is this more evident than in the classical narrative, in which the two worlds often appear together. In the world of the narrative, the natural and the supernatural are always linked, as are mortal and deity. In classical narrative, humans are seen as a part of the world they live in, not at a remove from it. Spirits and people, natural and supernatural, often commune with each other. The richness of many classical narratives owes to their orality. Indeed, most of them grew out of chŏnsŏl and mindam (folk tales). In short, orality is a fundamental characteristic of the classical literature of Korea. For example, shijo and kasa were sung and p’ansori was performed. That commoners, most of whom were illiterate even in hangŭl, could enjoy these three important genres of vernacular literature attests to the significance of orality in the Korean literary tradition.

4

Part I:  Classical Literature

From the time that Koreans began to organize themselves in tribal states, heaven-worshipping ceremonies such as the yŏnggo, the tongmaeng, and the much’ŏn had become a central part of the cultural life of Puyŏ, Koguryŏ, and Ye, respectively. At these events, commoners engaged in singing and dancing—the source, perhaps, of the earliest references in the Chinese histories to Koreans as a people fond of song and dance. Here we see an emerging art form combining the elements of verse, song, and dance. It was during the Three Kingdoms period that literature, music, and dance took on distinct forms and underwent great changes. The introduction of Buddhism and the Chinese writing system were the most influential factors in this change. And when in the seventh century Shilla conquered the other two kingdoms, Paekche and Koguryŏ, it formed a single unified state in which the refined culture of China along with Buddhism further enriched the cultural life of the people. The development of the hyangch’al writing system and hyangga marks the beginning of an indigenous lyric form in Korea. Hallmarks of the Koryŏ period are the further development of literature in Chinese and the emergence of Koryŏ kayo, songs that flourished into Chosŏn times, when they were finally recorded. In the mid-tenth century, shortly after the Koryŏ kingdom was established, a Chinese-style civil service examination system known as the kwagŏ chedo was implemented by the government. To pass this examination one needed an extensive knowledge of Confucian texts and Chinese history as well as a mastery of writing in classical Chinese. The importance placed on cultivating this body of knowledge helps explain why Koryŏ literati registered such notable achievements in Chinese verse and prose composition. One such verse style, kyŏnggich’e ka (kyŏnggi-style song), is highly inflected with Chinese turns of phrase and was sung by its sadaebu (scholar-bureaucrat) authors. In these songs, the sadaebu express ideas and feelings from their own culture that could not be adequately captured in Chinese verse. A prose form that emerged was kajŏn munhak (metaphoric tales). These tales give human characteristics to objects and describe them as if they are actual figures from history. This form flowered into hanmun sosŏl (fictional narratives written in Chinese) during the Chosŏn period. Side by side with these attainments in literature in Chinese was the development of the Koryŏ kayo, some of which are also known as pyŏlgok (“special songs”). In general these songs are divided into yŏn (stanzas). They were orally transmitted throughout the dynasty, often filtering down to the lower classes, who adapted them as minyo. Some were modified into

Introduction to Classical Literature

5

Koryŏ court music. In fact, Koryŏ kayo inspired the court music of the Chosŏn period, and it is in manuals of Chosŏn court music in which we first see these songs in written form. The invention of hangŭl in the fifteenth century by Great King Sejong (r. 1418–1450) proved to be a watershed development in the history of Korean literature. Ever since, there have been two streams of Korean literature: literature in Chinese and literature in the native script. Chinese continued to be the official writing system in the Chosŏn period, as it had in Koryŏ. But scholar-bureaucrats could now also write in the native script, and it was in Early Chosŏn that forms such as shijo, kasa, and vernacular fictional narratives began to be recorded. The invention of the native script meant that all forms of Korean literature could be recorded. There are two quintessential verse forms of the Chosŏn period. Shijo (“current tunes”) first appeared in the latter half of Koryŏ, their popularity owing primarily to Neo-Confucian thought. The shijo is a simple threeline verse form that often yields highly refined works of lyricism and poetic artistry. These songs were sung and cherished by both the scholarbureaucrats and the commoners. In Later Chosŏn (generally understood as extending from the Japanese invasions of the 1590s to the end of the kingdom in 1910), the p’yŏng (regular) shijo form described here developed a variant, sasŏl (narrative) shijo, that better expressed the sentiments of commoners. Employing a rhetoric that is less refined and more direct, sasŏl shijo added elements of sadness and joy, social critique and humor. Sasŏl shijo tend to be considerably longer than the three-line p’yŏng shijo. Kasa are similar to shijo in having a distinct meter but different in their range of content. The kasa form is also relatively simple. Kasa from Early Chosŏn extol the pleasures of the leisurely lives of Confucian gentlemen steeped in nature, or articulate the loyalty of ministers to their king, often borrowing the language of lovers for added intensity. Kasa from Later Chosŏn include new, more realistic themes such as the tragedies of war, the hardships of political exile, and travelers’ impressions of foreign lands. Kasa were written not only by scholar-beauracrats but also by women and commoners, which led to further thematic and expressive variations. Kungmun sosŏl (fictional narratives in Korean) emerged in the Chosŏn period and became the representative narrative prose form in hangŭl. The first example of this form is generally thought to be “Hong Kiltong chŏn” (Tale of Hong Kiltong; translated in the “Readings” section of chapter 3), attributed to Hŏ Kyun. From then on we see more hangŭl prose narratives, along with an expanding variety of themes. For example, following the devastating Japanese invasions beginning in 1592 and the Mongol

6

Part I:  Classical Literature

invasions of 1636, there emerged prose narratives about the exploits of wartime heroes. A second theme, appearing in the same period, is palace life. At the same time, an existing form, kajŏng sosŏl, moralistic tales about family conflicts, gained popularity. Enjoying wide readership in Late Chosŏn was p’ansori fiction, based on p’ansori performances. These prose narratives reached a new level of descriptive artistry in their vivid portrayals of life’s hardships, delivered with biting humor and sharp satire. Chosŏn literature in classical Chinese emphasized Neo-Confucian ideology, especially its moral dimension. The first fictional narratives written by a Korean in classical Chinese were collected in the volume Kŭmo shinhwa (New tales from Golden Turtle Mountain) by Kim Shisŭp. We can see at least three varieties of classical Chinese prose narratives. The earliest narratives frequently addressed issues from real life but masked their true intent by framing the events within a fantastic “dream” narrative. These allegorical stories are termed mongyurok. Chŏn are simple narratives about individual lives, to which the author appends his (or, rarely, her) views. Among the best-known examples of this form are the satires of Pak Chiwŏn of Later Chosŏn. A third form, hanmun tanp’yŏn, emerged against the backdrop of the fluctuating social conditions in Later Chosŏn. These short narratives concern everyday life and reflect multiple perspectives about contemporary changes taking place. Chosŏn verse in classical Chinese, like its prose counterpart, is frequently didactic. But the classical Chinese verse of Later Chosŏn increasingly dealt with the lives and sentiments of the common people. One reason for this expansion of subject matter was the increased presence of the chungin (“in-between”) class, consisting of various functionaries, among the ranks of intellectuals.

TWO

Verse

A. Hyangga Hyangga (“native songs”) are the first examples of Korean verse to exhibit a distinct form, and the first Korean literary form to be recorded by Koreans. Hyangga survive in hyangch’al, a hybrid script using certain sinographs for their meaning and others for how they were pronounced by Koreans. A precise understanding of this highly unusual form of writing requires the aid of linguistic analysis. These songs can be considered the first Korean literary works to be created by individuals. The term hyangga refers to verse produced from Shilla times into early Koryŏ, but it also distinguishes a Korean verse form distinct from poetry written in classical Chinese by Chinese. Hyangga have also been known as sanoega, a term originally applied to songs sung by Buddhist clergy in Sanoeya, the area surrounding the Shilla capital of Kyŏngju, but then broadened to represent all verse composed during the Shilla period. Hyangga are usually associated with Shilla, but examples of the form are seen as late as the twelfth century (early Koryŏ). Historical records refer to a collection of hyangga compiled by the court official Wihong and the monk Taegu at the request of the Shilla queen Chinsŏng (887–897), titled Samdaemok (Hyangga from the three periods of Shilla history), but this work is no longer extant. Among the hyangga that survive today, fourteen are found in Samguk yusa (Memorabilia of the Three Kingdoms), compiled by the monk Iryŏn during the reign of the Koryŏ monarch Ch’ungyŏl (1274–1308). Of these, four are of the “four-phrase” type: “Sŏdong yo” (Sŏdong’s Song), “Hŏnhwa ka” (Presenting the Flowers), “Tosol ka” (Song of Tsita Heaven), and “P’ung yo” (Song of the Wind); the other ten are either “eight-phrase”—“Mo Chukchi rang ka” (Song in Praise of Hwarang Chukchi) and “Ch’ŏyong ka” (Ch’ŏyong’s Song; translated in the “Readings” section of this chapter)—or “ten-phrase”—“Hyesŏng ka” (Comet Song), “Wŏn wangsaeng ka” (Song in Search of Eternal Life), “Ujŏk ka”

8

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(Meeting with Bandits), “Che mangmae ka” (Ritual for a Dead Sister), “Anmin ka” (Appeasing the People), “Ch’an Kip’a rang ka” (Song in Praise of Hwarang Kip’a), “Kwanŭm ka” (Song to the Goddess of Mercy), and “Wŏn ka” (Song of a Bitter Heart). These fourteen songs constitute the only verse remaining from the Shilla period. Eleven other hyangga date from Koryŏ. They were composed by Kyun’yŏ, an eminent Buddhist, and are found in a collection of his tales, Kyun’yŏ chŏn (Life and songs of Kyun’yŏ). These eleven songs, all of the ten-phrase type, are titled “Pohyŏn shibwŏn” (The ten vows of Bodhisattva Samantahabra). They are poetic tributes to the religious faith and ascetic practices contained in the Hwaŏmgyŏng (Hwaŏm sutra). At least two other verses having the characteristics of hyangga are known to us: “To ijang ka” (Lament for two generals, 1120), written by the Koryŏ monarch Yejong (1105–1122) as a memorial to a pair of meritorious ministers who helped found the Koryŏ kingdom, and “Chŏng Kwajŏng kok” (Chŏng Kwajŏng’s Song, ca. 1160), composed by a civil minister named Chŏng Sŏ (whose pen name was Kwajŏng) as an expression of undying loyalty to his king. Other records describe poetry-writing parties hosted by King Ŭijong (1146–1170) and his courtiers, but no examples of the compositions issuing from these events survive. The composers of hyangga whose names are known to us vary in their social status from upper-class Buddhist monks and hwarang (“flower of youth”) to commoners. Ch’ungdam (composer of “Anmin ka” and “Ch’an Kip’a rang ka”), Wŏlmyŏng (“Che mangmae ka”), Kyun’yŏ (“Pohyŏn shibwŏn”), and Yŏngjae (“Ujŏk ka”) were members of the Buddhist clergy, and Shinch’ung (“Wŏn ka”) and Tŭg’o (“Mo chukchi rang ka”) were hwarang, members of a youth corps so named, in which they were trained in the martial arts and in ritual. Kwangdŏk (“Wŏn wangsaeng ka”) was a Buddhist ascetic. On this basis, we can safely say that most hyangga were penned by men from the upper class. That the composition of hyangga did not cease with the fall of Shilla but continued into Koryŏ testifies to the lofty cultural attainment of the Shilla upper class. Shilla hyangga reveal diverse aspects. We have, on the one hand, “Ch’ŏyong ka,” a popular folk incantation, and on the other hand Buddhist hymns such as “Wŏn wangsaeng ka.” Among earlier hyangga, “Sŏdong yo” and “P’ung yo” are closer to minyo, while “Che mangmae ka” exhibits refinement in capturing the inner emotions of the composer. Hyangga emerged from a dual spiritual context: widespread belief in native folklore and spirituality and Buddhist thought imported by way of China. Given this background, it is no surprise that many hyangga sing of one’s desire to overcome the suffering of this world and find peace in the hereafter.

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Scholars hypothesize that hyangga originated in “Sŏdong yo” and “P’ung yo,” which resemble folk songs. Over time this concise four-phrase form lengthened to eight phrases, and in Unified Shilla developed into the refined ten-phrase form. Ten-phrase hyangga exhibit an aesthetically pleasing three-stanza structure well suited to conveying the song’s lyric content. The first two stanzas consist of four phrases each. The third and final stanza is marked by a nakku (ending tag) or a kyŏkku (in-between line) that often begins with a short exclamation of concentrated sentiment, such as “Aya!” or “Aŭ!” Although the most structurally developed hyangga contain only ten phrases, their sophisticated rhetorical qualities and convincing poetic spirit distinguish them from folk songs. B. Koryŏ Kayo It was during the early Koryŏ period that the Chinese-style state examination system was implemented, and for the remainder of that dynasty, and throughout Chosŏn as well, erudition in classical Chinese became the central requirement for being hired as a government official (kwalli). Classical Chinese therefore became the focus of Korean intellectual life and the writing culture of the Koryŏ governing elite. During King Yejong’s reign, Chinese traditional music (taesŏng ak) imported from Song China revolutionized Korea’s instrumental and notation styles. The native musical forms of this period were called sog’ak (“popular music”) or hyang­ak (“native music”). Koryŏ kayo designates native music to which kasa (“sung words,” that is, lyrics) were added. The popularity of these new songs was accompanied by a gradual decline in hyangga. Koryŏ kayo are widely referred to as pyŏlgok and are also known as yŏyo (“Koryŏ songs”), changga (“long songs”), kosok ka (“old popular songs”), and sog’yo (“popular songs”). Koryŏ kayo were passed down orally until the promulgation of hangŭl in Early Chosŏn, when they were first recorded. During King Sŏngjong’s reign (1469–1494), a book of scores titled Akhak kwebŏm (Musical studies guide, 1493) was compiled. It divides existing musical styles into three categories—court music (aak), Chinese music (tang’ak), and native music (hyangak)—and outlines in detail the principles and methods of scoring and reading each of these three styles, as well as the proper methods of playing the instruments and performing the songs and dances. Akhak kwebŏm contains such important Koryŏ kayo as “Chŏngŭp sa” (Song of Chŏngŭp), “Tongdong” (Calendar Song; translated in the “Readings” section of this chapter), “Ch’ŏyong ka” (Ch’ŏyong’s Song; a considerably longer version of the story recounted in the hyangga of the same

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name), and “Chŏng Kwajŏng kok” (usually classified as a Koryŏ kayo in spite of its hyangga-like structure; more on this later). Other Koryŏ kayo appear in Akchang kasa (Lyrics for song and music), a compilation that also includes the lyrics to hyangak pieces from Early Chosŏn. The Koryŏ kayo in this volume include “Sŏ’gyŏng pyŏlgok” (Song of the Western Capital [that is, P’yŏngyang]), “Ch’ŏngsan pyŏlgok” (Song of the Green Mountain), “Ssanghwa chŏm” (The Mandu Shop), “Chŏngsŏk ka” (Song of Chŏngsŏk), “Manjŏnch’un pyŏlsa” (Spring Pervades the Pavilion), “Isang kok” (Treading the Frost), “Samo kok” (Song to a Mother), and “Kashiri” (Must You Go?). A third book of musical scores, Shiyong hyangak po (Notes on contemporary Korean music, ca. 1504), contains the Koryŏ kayo “Sangjŏ ka” (Song of the Mill) and “Yugu kok” (Song of the Cuckoo). Unlike the sinocentric literature of the upper class based in Chinese writing, Koryŏ kayo were modified to create palace music and were also orally transmitted to the commoner class, among whom they survived. Many of them are bold, assertive depictions of human experience that express the uninhibited sentiments of everyday life. The simple, unabashed feelings of commoners are especially noteworthy in “Sŏ’gyŏng pyŏlgok,” “Ch’ŏngsan pyŏlgok,” “Ssanghwa chŏm,” and “Manjŏnch’un pyŏlsa.” These songs feature everyday sentiments grounded in festive rhythmic variations similar to those of minyo. “Sŏ’gyŏng pyŏlgok,” for example, describes the sadness of the inevitable parting from a lover, whereas “Ch’ŏngsan pyŏlgok” expresses the singer’s desire to escape from painful reality. “Ssanghwa chŏm” and “Manjŏnch’un pyŏlsa” sing of lust between man and woman. Songs such as the last two did not escape the notice of Chosŏn Neo-Confucianists, who critiqued their lewdness with such expressions as “the dallying of men and women.” Over the centuries in which Koryŏ kayo were orally transmitted, it is quite possible that the versions recorded in Chosŏn changed significantly from the very first versions. Some songs consist of a single long stanza (“Chŏng Kwajŏng kok,” “Samo kok”); others have multiple shorter stanzas. Among the latter, “Ch’ŏngsan pyŏlgok,” “Tongdong,” and “Ssanghwa chŏm” each have between four and thirteen stanzas, as well as a refrain. Such distinctive characteristics of minyo as repetition and juxtaposition of line and the addition of a refrain are prominent in Koryŏ kayo as well. This does not mean, though, that the songs are bound by strict rhythmical rules. Rather, they are comparatively free in form and are marked by their refrains, which lend gusto. Among the best-known Koryŏ kayo is “Ch’ŏngsan pyŏlgok.” Each of its eight stanzas ends with the rhythmic refrain “Yalli yalli yalla shŏng, yallari yalla!” The song expresses the singer’s ardent wish to leave home and live

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among the green hills or along the ocean shores. There is an escapist tendency in the longing for a new world apart from the troubles and loneliness of the singer’s present reality. But reality does not allow such escapes. The final stanza suggests that only alcohol can assuage painful reality. “Tongdong” is a poetic journey through the twelve months of the year but is equally a lyric song of parting. It depicts a woman whose longing for her lover remains constant, indeed intensifies with the passing of time and the change of the seasons. Noteworthy in this song is the appropriation of the seasonal cycle and the seasonal customs of the people to enhance the singer’s blessing of the departed loved one. The advent of kyŏnggi-style songs is closely related to the emergence in later Koryŏ of the class of scholar-bureaucrats known as sadaebu. These songs are often understood as a variation of Koryŏ kayo with a Chinese ring, compared with the songs just discussed, which have a more native sound. This relatively short-lived form developed in the thirteenth century and survived into the sixteenth century. The songs reflect the lifestyle and outlook of the sadaebu, but in using litanies of objects and sights enumerated in Chinese phraseology they may smack of wordplay indulgence. The characteristic interspersing of an exclamatory refrain “Wi kyŏng kŭi ŏttŏhani ittko!” (“What a sight that would be!”) among the litanies of sights and objects concentrates the effect of the song. This intermixing of classical Chinese phrases with Korean exclamations is rare in Korean literature in general and unique in Koryŏ. Some songs, such as Kwŏn Kŭn’s “Sangdae pyŏlgok” (Song of the censorate), were performed with instrumental accompaniment. The best-known of the kyŏnggi-style songs is “Hallim pyŏlgok” (Song of the Confucian Scholars), composed during a gathering of these learned gentleman. In contrast, songs such as “Kwandong pyŏlgok” (Song of the east coast; not to be confused with Chŏng Ch’ŏl’s kasa so titled) and “Chukkye pyŏlgok” (Song of Bamboo Valley) were penned by individual sadaebu (in these two cases, An Ch’uk) of late Koryŏ. The creation of lyric forms such as the kyŏnggi-style song may be understood as a reflection of the dissatisfaction of these scholar-bureacrats with the domination of both their literary life and their official life by classical Chinese. C. Shijo Shijo are the quintessential traditional Korean lyrics. We can presume that the form was established in the fourteenth century, judging from extant collections of shijo that include works by late Koryŏ Confucian scholars such as Kil Chae, Yi Saek, and Chŏng Mongju. And in Early Chosŏn,

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several shijo were produced by such prominent Confucian scholars as Chŏng Tojŏng and Pyŏn Kyeryang. That the creators of early shijo were mostly illustrious Neo-Confucianists suggests that Confucian thought served as the aesthetic base for the development of this new lyric form. Buddhism, which had exercised great influence on the lives and minds of Koreans since the Shilla period, was the premier ideology of Koryŏ, even affecting aspects of its political life. But, socially corruptive practices that had developed over the centuries served eventually to distance the faith from the lives of the commoners and from the spiritual life of intellectuals. Neo-Confucianism, which began to be transmitted from China in late Koryŏ, became the governing ideology of Chosŏn; it was a belief system that promoted pragmatic rationality and was based in moral precepts. As a new lyric form established on the basis of the new values and ethics of Neo-Confucianism, it became widely popular as an embodiment of concentrated form and graceful aesthetics. The poetic form of shijo derives from formal variations of Koryŏ kayo. Looking at the second and fifth stanzas of “Manjŏnch’un pyŏlsa,” for example, we see clear formal similarities to the poetic structure of shijo: (From the second stanza:) I toss and turn in my lonely bed; I cannot get to sleep. I open the west window: peach blossoms are in bloom. Carefree, the blossoms scoff at the spring breeze: at the spring breeze they scoff. (From the fifth stanza:) I spread my bed on South Mountain, pillow my head on Jade Mountain. Beneath my Brocade Mountain quilt I lie with a musk sweet girl in my arms, breast pressed to fragrant breast, breast to breast. Ah, ah, love, let us be true to each other forever. Translation by Kevin O’Rourke

The poetic narrative and rhythmic mode of “Manjŏnch’un pyŏlsa” are very close in character to the three-line form of shijo. That the textual unit changed from one stanza to three lines, and that the three-beats-to-a-line meter of Koryŏ kayo was abandoned in favor of a four-beats-to-the-line meter, are evidence of the demise of the extended structure of Koryŏ kayo and the emergence of the new lyric form of shijo.

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Shijo have a fixed form consisting of three lines. Each line is made up of three-syllable or four-syllable phrases, with a total of four phrases per line: First line: Middle line: Last line:

3–4-3–4 3–4-3–4 3–5-4–3

(line 1) (line 2) (line 3)

The three-line structure is basic, but variation is permitted in the number of syllables per phrase, any of which can contain an additional syllable or two or be short a syllable or two. The third and last line, however, admits of less flexibility. The first phrase must be three syllables, and the second phrase must be five or more syllables. These restrictions in the last line help ensure lyric liveliness by limiting the potential for rhythmic monotony. Shijo that conform to this structure are called short-form or standard (p’yŏng) shijo. Shijo containing a one-syllable variation in any of its phrases (except, as mentioned, the three-syllable phrase in the last line) are called middle-form (chunghyŏng) or contrary (ŏt) shijo. Shijo that have two or more syllabic variations in phrase are termed long-form or sasŏl (narrative) shijo. Sasŏl shijo emerged in Later Chosŏn and are characterized primarily by an extended second line; an extension of the second half of the third line is sometimes seen. By far the most popular of these three forms is the p’yŏng shijo. Widely known from Early Chosŏn is the yŏn shijo (linked shijo, or shijo cycle), consisting of multiple p’yŏng shijo all written on a single theme and presented as a single extended composition. With the stabilization of the new kingdom of Chosŏn, shijo emerged as an elegant lyric form evoking the lives and thoughts of high-ranking scholar-officials. These officials infused their shijo with motifs such as the pleasure of living in harmony with the natural world and its changes, but also incorporated the Confucian concept of loyalty. Shijo embody a favorable outlook on nature and such themes as loyalty to one’s lord and the practice of ethics. Notable shijo cycles from Early Chosŏn such as Yi Hwang’s “Tosan shib’i kok” (Twelve songs of Tosan, 1565), Yi I’s “Kosan ku kok ka” (Nine songs of Kosan), and Chŏng Ch’ŏl’s “Hunmin ka” (Instructing the people) conflate the human and natural worlds in search of harmony between man and nature; they are graceful in the extreme and suffused with ethical values. At the same time, we cannot ignore the contribution of the professional entertaining women known as kisaeng, such as Hwang Chini, to the shijo of this period. Their shijo express anew the authenticity and liveliness of the lyricism of the Koryŏ kayo of a previous generation. Yun Sŏndo’s

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“Ŏbu sashi sa” (The Fisherman’s Calendar; translated in the “Readings” section of this chapter) is a masterpiece from Later Chosŏn, a shijo cycle singing of the aesthetic enjoyment of an orderly life in nature, with ten songs devoted to each of the four seasons. Elegant in the precison and beauty of their native Korean vocabulary, the lyrics detail the harmonious communion of human life and the natural world with the turn of each season. The development of the shijo form took a giant step forward with the appearance of sasŏl shijo. This narrative form of shijo is linked with the expansion of the Practical Learning (shirhak sasang) movement, which likewise emerged in Later Chosŏn. Practical Learning began as a critical reevaluation of the Neo-Confucian thought of such Chinese scholars as Zhu Xi, and established itself as a pragmatic approach to life. As such it wrought changes in the lives of the people. In the case of literature we see a growing awareness of the lives of the common people, together with the popularizing of prose forms such as p’ansori-based fiction. Sasŏl shijo marked an attempt to deviate from the aesthetic symmetry of standard shijo. More than four hundred narrative shijo survive, the great majority departing from encomiums of man and nature and incorporating instead bold and even radical themes such as love affairs, the evil deeds of corrupt officials, and behavior antithetical to conventional Confucian morality, all expressed in frank and realistic description as well as through symbol and metaphor. Their aesthetic appeal lies in their fresh unconventionality. The lyric form of shijo bears a close relationship to that of composed music. Shijo may be sung either in the classic style (kagok ch’ang) or in a simpler style known as shijo ch’ang. Shijo sung in the classic style are accompanied by court music played on the kayagŭm (a type of zither) and other musical instruments. Singing shijo in the classic style involves changing the three-line lyric form into a five-line musical form. Performing a shijo in this style requires an advanced level of musical ability in addition to the musical accompaniment. But because instrumentalists were not always at hand, a new form of singing, shijo ch’ang, came about. In this style shijo could be performed without instruments, the sole accompaniement being the beating of time on one’s knee, and the three-line musical form could be retained. This simpler form of shijo performance became widely popular. Among the composers of shijo in the Chosŏn period were numerous professional singers trained in both the classic style and the simpler style. These aficionados contributed significantly to the development of the shijo tradition, organizing themselves in troupes and compiling anthologies. Kim Ch’ŏnt’aek is responsible for Ch’ŏnggu yŏng’ŏn (Enduring

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poetry of Korea, 1728). Kim Sujang, a member of Kim Ch’ŏnt’aek’s troupe and one of the most accomplished shijo writers of Later Chosŏn, compiled Haedong kayo (Songs of Korea, 1763). Kagok wŏllyu (Anthology of Korean songs, 1876) was compiled by Pak Hyogwan and An Minyŏng. Recognized today as the three great shijo anthologies of Chosŏn, these collections were organized systematically by composer, tune, and performance style. Other surviving shijo collections include Kogŭm kagok (Korean songs past and present, 1764), compiled by an individual known only by his pen name of Songgye-yŏnwŏr’ong; Yi Hyŏngsang’s P’yŏngwa kagok chip (Songs of P’yŏngwa), Kim Kyohŏn’s Taedong p’ung’a (Elegant songs of Korea), and the anonymously compiled Namhun t’aep’yŏng ka (Harmonious songs from Namhun, 1863). D. Kasa Like shijo, kasa took form during late Koryŏ and Early Chosŏn. “Sŭngwŏn ka” (A monk’s song) and “Sŏwang ka” (Song of vowing rebirth in the Western Pure Land), both composed by Hyegŭn (better known as Naong Hwasang [Great Monk Naong]) and recorded in idu, one of the various ways in which Chinese characters were used to render vernacular Korean, are two pioneering examples of the form. Seen in these works are the regular rhythm and the free expression of the diversity of everyday life that would become standard characteristics of kasa. Chŏng Kŭgin’s “Sangch’un kok” (Song in Praise of Spring) shows that the kasa form had been perfected as a vernacular literary form by Early Chosŏn. The departure from classical Chinese writing by Chosŏn sadaebu represented by their use of vernacular Korean for creating and singing shijo and composing kasa marks an epochal achievement in the Korean literary tradition. Kasa exhibit a basic four-beat rhythm but a comparatively free verse form without strict limits on length of line. Thanks to their liberation from formal strictures, kasa were by mid-Chosŏn established as a literary form capable of expressing the life experiences of numerous classes, not only the sadaebu but also well-born women and even commoners. Though a verse form, kasa are not limited to lyric expression but can also include moral content and/or recount the poet’s travels and impressions. And although kasa are imbued with diverse prose content, their position as one of the representative vernacular verse forms of the Chosŏn period is undeniable. Chosŏn kasa written in praise of the delights of rivers and lakes (kangho kasa) are highly developed in both form and technique. The unity of man and nature serves as their perennial theme. In addition to Chŏng Kŭgin’s “Sangch’un kok,” previously mentioned, Song Sun’s “Myŏnangjŏng ka”

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(Song of Myŏnangjŏng [his sobriquet]), Chŏng Ch’ŏl’s “Sŏngsan pyŏlgok” (Song of Star Mountain), Ch’a Ch’ŏllo’s “Kangch’on pyŏlgok” (Song of river and village), and Pak Illo’s “Nogye ka” (Song of Nogye [his sobriquet]) are masterpieces in this genre. Other kasa carried warnings against immorality, in line with Confucian moral codes. Eminent scholars of Neo-Confucianism such as Yi Hwang (sobriquet T’oegye) and Yi I (sobriquet Yulgok) framed their kasa within the worldview of that ideology. Yi Hwang’s “Todŏk ka” (Song of morals) and Yi I’s “Chagyŏng pyŏlgok” (Song of self-admonition) are good examples. Some scholar-­officials also topicalized their administrative jurisdictions, including in their poems events and scenes that impressed them during their journeys, or sung of the joys of government service. Examples of this type include Paek Kwanghong’s “Kwansŏ pyŏlgok” (Song of the West Coast) and Chŏng Ch’ŏl’s “Kwandong pyŏlgok” (Song of the East Coast). Still other scholars composed kasa during periods of banishment from government service, in a spirit of loyalty and nostalgia for the king. Two prominent examples are Chŏng Ch’ŏl’s “Sa miin kok” (Thinking of the Loved One) and “Sok miin kok” (Thinking further of the loved one). Cho Wi’s “Manbun ka” (Infinite rancor) lays bare the heart of the poet as he grieves at being exiled from the capital and longs to bask in the favor of the sovereign. Kasa from Early Chosŏn were typically composed in the vernacular language by scholar-officials. Structurally they are more or less consistent in adhering to a four-beat rhythm. A kasa’s end phrase (kyŏlgu) is a point of refinement mirroring the importance of the third and last line of the shijo. The kasa, like the shijo, could be enjoyed as a sung melody, but its lack of rules governing line length led to its development more as a verse form recited on occasions formal or informal. While growing in popularity kasa became more important in the lives and entertainments of scholar-officials. By mid-Chosŏn the form had become much longer and adopted a broader range of themes, bringing it quite close to prose. Kasa from Later Chosŏn reveal a shift from themes relating to nature to those relating to problems that directly affected the poets. Pak Illo’s “Nuhang sa” (On a Wretched Life) and Chŏng Hun’s “Uhwal ka” (Song of heedlessness) and “T’angung ka” (Lament on destitution) promote the ideal of happiness amid poverty but realistically describe the hardships of life. Yang Sajun’s “Namjŏng ka” (Song of an attack on the South), Pak Illo’s “T’aep’yŏng sa” (Great Peace) and “Sŏnsang t’an” (Shipboard Lament), and Ch’oe Hyŏn’s “Yongsa ŭm” (Song of rebirth) take as their themes the Japanese invasions of the late 1500s and the Manchu invasion of 1636, cursing Japan and the Qing armies while bemoaning the cruelties of warfare and the impoverished

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conditions of Chosŏn society. Also emerging during this time were yubae kasa, lamenting the rigors and suffering of a scholar-official’s life in exile while also patriotically singing the praises of the country. Well-known examples include Song Chusŏk’s “Pukkwan kok” (Song of a northern frontier post), An Chohwan (also known as An Towŏn)’s “Manŏn sa” (An Exile’s Life), and Kim Chinhyŏng’s “Pukch’ŏn ka” (Song of exile to the north). There are also travel (kihaeng) kasa, such as Kim In’gyŏm’s “Iltong chang’yu ka” (Song of a glorious voyage to Japan), in which the author recounts his experiences as a member of a Chosŏn diplomatic mission to Japan, as well as Yu Inmok’s “Pukhaeng ka” (Song of a journey to the north) and Hong Sunhak’s “Yŏnhaeng ka” (Song of a journey to Beijing), composed on the occasions of Chosŏn envoy missions to Qing China. Also in Later Chosŏn, women from scholar-official families began to compose kasa. These women gave frank expression to their day-to-day experiences, sometimes propounding upon the wifely virtues stipulated for women of yangban households. Known in general as naebang (innerroom) or kyubang (boudoir) kasa, they are exemplified by kyenyŏ ka (songs of admonition), which contain simplified summaries of the rules and regulations prescribed in Sohak, the Confucian classic, for daughters-in-law serving their husband’s household. Todŏk ka (songs of morality) and nabu ka (songs of idle women) also emphasize rules of deportment for women, as well as wifely virtue. Hwajŏn ka, singing of the joys of spring on the occasion of flower-viewing outings by wellborn women, give a detailed view of the aesthetics of yangban women. Sach’in ka and sahyang ka express women’s yearnings for parents and ancestral home, respectively, while kyuwŏn ka lament the lonely and arduous lives of daughters-in-law or women yet to be married. In Later Chosŏn, with the spread of Roman Catholic doctrine, Catholic kasa emerged, such as Chŏng Yakchŏn’s “Shipkyemyŏng ka” (Song of the Ten Commandments), Yi Pyŏk’s “Ch’ŏnju konggyŏng ka” (Song in worship of the Lord), and Yi Kahwan’s “Kyŏngse ka” (Song of awakening to the times). Toward the end of the Chosŏn period Ch’oe Cheu, founder of the Tonghak (Eastern Learning) religion, wrote a series of kasa titled “Yongdam yusa” (Posthumous songs from Dragon Lake) in praise of the new indigenous faith; in them, he recognizes the equality of all men and condemns the encroachment of foreign powers. Stylistically significant about these songs is that they were composed entirely in hangŭl, rather than in the mixed script of hangŭl and classical Chinese adopted by sadaebu for the composition of vernacular verse. During the same period, Shin T’aeshik’s “Ch’angŭi ka” (Song of righteousness) proclaims the duty of the righteous armies (ŭibyŏng) to save the country.

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E. Readings Ch’ŏyong’s Song (Ch’ŏyong ka) I reveled all night In the moonlit capital, came home and discovered four legs in my bed! Two are mine; whose are the other two? Legs once mine, now purloined, what am I to do? Translation by Kevin O’Rourke Calendar Song (Tongdong) Virtue I offer to the spirits, blessings I offer to my love. Come and offer virtue and blessings. Ah, ah tong-dong-do-ri. First month streams freeze and thaw by turn. Born into the world, I’m doomed to live alone. Ah, ah tong-dong-do-ri. Second month, full moon: lantern brightly hung on high, you shine on all the people. Ah, ah tong-dong-do-ri. Third month, last days; already azaleas fill the mountain: born with a beauty the world will envy. Ah, ah tong-dong-do-ri. Fourth month: the orioles never forget to visit. Why, why, my ranking love, do you forget the days of old? Ah, ah tong-dong-do-ri. Fifth month, fifth day: I offer you

Verse

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Tano morning medicaments: may you live a thousand years. Ah, ah tong-dong-do-ri. Sixth month, full moon. I follow a while the comb cast from the cliff, in the hope my love will look back. Ah, ah tong-dong-do-ri. Seventh month, full moon: I lay out offering for the dead. I offer my prayer: may my love and I go together. Ah, ah tong-dong-do-ri. Eight month, full moon: it is the Ch’usŏk Harvest Festival. Only with my love is it a festive day for me. Ah, ah tong-dong-do-ri. Ninth month, ninth day: the yellow chrysanthemums bloom within: they are for medicinal purposes; time makes everything indistinct. Ah, ah tong-dong-do-ri. Tenth month. A lime tree chopped in pieces. My love will not reassure a cut tree. Ah, ah tong-dong-do-ri. Eleventh month. Chopsticks cut from pepperwood, laid on a tray, at an angle for my love. A stranger puts them to his lips. Ah, ah tong-dong-do-ri. Translation by Kevin O’Rourke Yun Sŏndo The Fisherman’s Calender (Ŏbu sashi sa), Spring 4 Is that the cuckoo singing? Is that the willow grove greening? Row the boat, row the boat!

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Part I:  Classical Literature A few fisher houses glimmer in and out of the haze. Chigukch’ong, chigukch’ong, ŏsawa! Shoaling fish Flash in a clear deep pool. Translation by Kevin O’Rourke Hwang Chini I’ll Cut a Piece from the Waist I’ll cut a piece from the waist of this interminable eleventh moon night and wind it in coils beneath these bedcovers, warm and fragrant as the spring breeze, coil by coil to unwind it the night my love returns. Translation by Kevin O’Rourke “Dialogue” between Im Che and Hanu The northern sky was clear, So I set out without rain gear. Snow fell on the mountain; cold rain ran through the fields. Today I met Cold Rain; I’ll freeze in bed tonight. What’s all this about freezing in bed, Why should you freeze in bed tonight? Where’s your duck-embroidered pillow, your kingfisher quilt: why do you say you’ll freeze? Today you met Cold Rain; perhaps you’ll melt in bed tonight. Translation by Kevin O’Rourke Chŏng Ch’ŏl Song of the East Coast (Kwandong pyŏlgok) [excerpt] Reclined in the bamboo grove, victim of my love for rivers and streams. Big news! I am to be Governor of Kwandong, All eight hundred li. The king’s favor knows no limits!

Verse

21

I race on horseback through Long Autumn Gate, take my leave of the king and set out on my way, eyes trained on the Gate of Feasts, the king’s jade tally my standard. Change horses at P’yŏnggu Posthouse, follow the Black River. Where is Toad River? That’s Pheasant Ridge. Where do the slow-flowing waters of the Soyang River drain? An aging retainer leaving the capital faces the prospect of white hair. After a night in Ch’ŏrwon, I climb at first light to Pukkwan Pagoda. Thought I might see the highest peak of Capital Mountain. Magpies scrawk on the site of Kung’ye’s palace: in knowledge or ignorance, I wonder, of the waxing and waning of old time? Hoeyang shares its name with a village in the ancient kingdom of Han. Will I see again the noble mien of prefect Ji Zhangru? All’s well in the official residence. It’s the third month. Hwach’ŏn Stream stretches to the Diamond Mountains. I cast off all accouterments; lighten my load. Stick in hand I set out along the narrow stony track. Hundred Stream Canyon is on one side as I approach Ten Thousand Falls. I see a silver-white rainbow and a jade-tailed dragon. Coils, swirls, the spew explodes for miles around; thunder in the ear, snow in the eye. Translation by Kevin O’Rourke

22

Part I:  Classical Literature Hŏ Nansŏrhŏn A Wife’s Sorrow (Kyuwŏn ka) Not long ago I was in my youth but how am I already so old? It seems no use to think back to my young and happy days. I am choked with sorrow to talk about my sadness at this old age. While my father gave me life, my mother raised me, they brought me up in bitter hardship. They wished me a bride fit for a gentleman, though they could not expect a princely spouse. As regretful karma of my three lives, my destined matching with a man was surreal; I find myself as in a dream, mated with a flippant city blusterer; I always feel a wariness with him, as if I were treading on thin ice. As I barely passed fifteen and sixteen, I showed a beauty given me by birth; With this face and heart I was promised for one hundred years. But my years of youth flew by and even the Creator was jealous of me. The winds of spring, the moons of autumn, sped like a shuttle crossing threads on a loom; My snow skin and flower face have left me with features so unpleasant to look upon. When I see my face I know, who in the world could care for me? I am ashamed all by myself— who is there for me to blame? Do I hear that there come, by twos and threes, new girls at the kisaeng house? When the flowers bloom, in the dusk, he is around somewhere out there. Astride a white steed and bearing a gold whip, where could he have gone to stay?

Verse I know nothing of the world, whether near or far; how will I ever hear word from him? Though our tie may be broken, would I not have thoughts of him? Since I am no longer able to see his face, I still can do so with my longing heart; But twelve watches make a long day and thirty days a month hang heavy. The plum tree growing by my jade window— how many times has it blossomed? Through winter nights of bitter cold the snow, so fraught, is falling; And, through long summer days— for what, this cruel rain? In spring’s three lovely months, The sight of willows and flowers Depresses me. When the autumn moon invades my room and crickets are chirping on the table— My long sighs, my falling tears, my meaningless weary thoughts; Even this my merciless existence, would be so difficult to end. Rather, let me empty my frustrated heart: Shall I thus? What of that? I light the lantern and, placing my blue damask zither across my lap, Play the “Azure Lotus” with an anxious mind. Like night rain on the Xiao and Xiang mixing with the sound of water on the bamboo leaves; Like the tearful crane, an aeon gone, returning to its human tomb. In my skill of playing with fine fingers, the sound of yore can still remain; But within my lonely lotus curtains, who is there to hear the sound? My heart is twisted into knots and is close to breaking up. Rather would I fall asleep to see my love at least in dreams.

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Part I:  Classical Literature The sound of falling leaves and the cries of beasts in the fields, For what do they, like enemies, wake me with their crying? Altair and Vega, separated by the Milky Way, never miss their meeting every seventh of July. What vast waters are keeping my departed love afar? Not a word of him whether coming or going. Leaning over the balcony, I gaze whence he had gone. When dew forms on the blades of grass And evening clouds are passing, The sound of birds in the grove of green bamboo is even more sorrowful to hear. In this world there are sad people beyond count. Can there be anyone like me— ill fated, but a fair maid? Perhaps, because of my lover, I hover between life and death. Translation by Young Hee Lee with Marshall R. Pihl

F. Suggestions for Further Reading Lee, Peter H. Anthology of Korean Literature: From Early Times to the Nineteenth Century. Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii, 1981. McCann, David. Form and Freedom in Korean Poetry. Leiden: Brill, 1988. O’Rourke, Kevin. The Book of Korean Poetry: Songs of Shilla and Koryŏ. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2006. ———. The Book of Korean Shijo. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2002. ———, trans. and ed. The Book of Korean Poetry: Chosŏn Dynasty. Singapore: Stallion Press, 2014. Rutt, Richard. The Bamboo Grove: An Introduction to Sijo. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971.

THREE

Narrative

A. Classic Fiction The term kojŏn sosŏl (traditional fictional narrative; literally, “classic fiction”) designates two categories of fiction appearing in the Chosŏn period: that written in Chinese (hanmun sosŏl) and that written in the vernacular (kungmun sosŏl). Some scholars recognize only the latter. These works were initially known as “folk stories” (p’aesŏl) and “old tales” (kodam). Works written in the vernacular script were termed “vulgar stories” (ŏnp’ae) or “old tales in vulgar books” (ŏnsŏ kodam). All of these terms contain the idea of “story books.” Kojŏn sosŏl became a standardized scholarly term at the end of the nineteenth century. With the emergence of the “new fiction” (shin sosŏl) during the early Enlightenment period, the term “old fiction” (ku sosŏl) was coined to differentiate the fictional narratives of the traditional era from those of the new. Both terms are still in use. Traditional fictional narratives differ from myths (shinhwa) in that the latter are deity-centered whereas the former address the experiences of human beings. They also differ from legends (sŏlhwa) and narrative shaman songs (sŏsa muga) in that they are descriptive literature recorded in prose. Traditional fictional narratives depict the lives of Chosŏn-period Koreans and focus on conflicts arising in the course of human life but are distinguished from modern fiction by their allowance of intervention by the supernatural world. Vernacular fictional narratives begin with “Hong Kiltong chŏn” (Tale of Hong Kiltong), ascribed to Hŏ Kyun. Appearing in the early 1600s, this work deviated from the dominant ideology that took writing in Chinese as its standard. It has historical importance as the first fictional narrative written in hangŭl. That the Korean script was used as its literary form is rooted in the author’s consciousness that a prose work should embody reality, the aim of all descriptive literature.

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The eponymous protagonist is born into the lowly social status of a concubine’s son (sŏja). Defying the society that unfairly discriminates against him simply on the basis of his birth status, he flees his conservative home life to cultivate the art of Daoist sorcery (tosul). He assembles a band of bandits and carries out righteous deeds, eventually becoming king of an island country called Yul. “Hong Kiltong chŏn” is an example of “heroic fiction” (yŏng’ung sosŏl), and many more such narratives followed in its wake. It lambastes the conservative social order that universally discriminated against the sons of concubines. Suggesting the need to punish abuses of bureaucratic power and the injustices perpetrated by the government ministers, the tale portrays the activities of “righteous bandits” (ŭijŏk) in a positive light. Hŏ’s use of the fictional form to critique the social problems of his day makes his work especially significant in Korean literary history. Equally noteworthy is the utopia realized at the novel’s end: the utopian ideal was the object of aspiration by Chosŏn scholars (sŏnbi). The tale’s unusual blend of realistic imagination and utopian idealism shows the comprehensive character of the traditional fictional narrative. Works from the first half of the history of traditional fictional narratives most often embodied the high culture of scholar-officialdom. The refined literary style of Kim Manjung’s Kuun mong (A Nine-Cloud Dream) and “Sa-sshi namjŏng ki” (Lady Sa’s journey to the South) reveal the lofty tastes and lifestyles of the elite. The content and themes of these early fictional works reflect the idealized life of Chosŏn officialdom and its esteem for the virtue of loyalty (ch’ungŭi). Kuun mong is set in both a dream world and the real world. In the real world, the protagonist Sŏngjin is the disciple of the holy sage Yukkwan, but in the dream world he is reborn as Yang Soyu. Yang’s exploits in the dream are the subject of this novel-length work. The narrative space shifts from reality to dream world and back to reality in the manner of a story-within-a-story (aekcha sosŏl). The protagonist accomplishes in the dream world what he cannot accomplish in reality, but when he finally awakes he realizes that what transpired was false, that the desires attained by the hero in the dream were devoid of substance. Living genuinely, he realizes, is possible only after one has awoken to reality. The dream portion of the story captivatingly describes the hero’s meeting and parting with eight women. The writer imbues each of the eight women with her own personality while employing a graceful literary style rich in detail. Such artistry, in addition to the philosophical depth of the work, constitutes a high point in the traditional fictional narrative. The elegance of Kuun mong is rooted in the richness of its descriptive passages. Fictional narratives from later in Chosŏn tend to portray the lives of the peasant class. Ch’unhyang chŏn (Tale of Ch’unhyang), Shim Ch’ŏng chŏn

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(Tale of Shim Ch’ŏng), and Hŭngbu chŏn (Tale of Hŭngbu) directly address problems that complicate human existence. Events in such stories rely less on coincidence than on the principle of cause and effect as intuited through lived experience. The narrative style mixes refined literary language with earthy colloquial language and witty stories (chaedam) of the peasants. The tragedy of bearing the pains of real life coexists with passages rich in comedy and sharp satire. Ch’unhyang chŏn is the story of Young Master Yi and Ch’unhyang. Their love develops in resistance to the conservative social hierarchy and the barriers set by class prejudice. Such details as the young master’s unfailing vow of devotion to Ch’unhyang, the daughter of a kisaeng who inherits her mother’s lowly status, and Ch’unhyang’s defiance of Governor Pyŏn Hakto’s summons to serve as his bedmate, represent challenges to the antiquated social order, assertions of egalitarianism, and the individual’s aspirations to that ideal. Especially noteworthy in this socially progressive narrative is the realization of human equality within a love story. The stories in traditional fictional narratives are based in the mythic imagination but take place at least in part in the realm of experiential reality, in a world inhabited by gods and mortals alike. To modern readers anchored in the world of reality, the setting seems like a paradise lost: a realm of super-experiential beings and elements of the magical, with no boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead. Hong Kiltong enjoys immortality on the island utopia of Yul. In The Tale of Shim Ch’ŏng, the heroine’s watery death as a sacrifice to the sea gods leads to her rebirth in the palace of the Dragon King. And in Kuun mong, the protagonist is delivered from his confusion about the ephemerality of human existence, at which point he returns to the divine world, putting forever behind him the real world experienced in his dream. Insofar as mythic imagination imputes the ideal of perpetual cyclicality to all forms of existence, these narratives express faith in the eternal nature of the human spirit. The structure of traditional fictional narratives reflects tension and conflict between the supernatural and the natural. In Kuun mong the two worlds of the divine and the mortal represent the realms of morality and desire, respectively. The protagonist striving to perfect his knowledge of the Way (to) represents a divine realm, whereas the mortal world he experiences in his dream is mundane. Awakening from his dream of that world, he returns to the realm of the sacred. The cyclical motif of falling from the divine world, being born human, then returning to one’s divine origins is the imaginative archetype foregrounded in fictional narratives from before the modern period. This motif also appears in “The Tale of Hong Kiltong.” The Tale of Shim Ch’ŏng and The Tale of Hŭngbu are divided between the world of reality in their first half and the world of fantasy in

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their latter half. This structural duality achieves resolution through the unifying worldview of the story. The mythic imagination of the work joins the two parts into a seamless whole. The main characters in traditional fictional narratives tend to be either good or evil. From the moment of their emergence they occupy one of these two opposing moral domains. Those who represent goodness retain their moral position to the end of the story, while those appearing as evil are punished for their wicked deeds. In Inhyŏn wanghu chŏn (The True History of Queen Inhyŏn) the former are epitomized by Queen Inhyŏn and her loyal retainer Pak T’aebo, while the latter are represented by Lady Chang, who temporarily replaces Inhyŏn as the consort of King Sukchong. The main characters are predestined to meet their allotted end. They simply carry out their roles as agents within the narrative structure, and generally fall short of becoming well-rounded characters with individual subjecthood. Traditional fictional narratives unfold in chronological order yet also bear correspondence with supernatural time. “Hong Kiltong chŏn” begins with events occurring prior to Kiltong’s birth. The lengthy enumeration of miracles attending his birth serves to show that his advent accords with divine will and his life is bound to eternal time. In traditional fictional narratives, the final scene arrives with the death of the protagonist. But the end of his or her earthly existence also marks a return to the mythical space the protagonist left upon entering the world as a human. The life of the protagonist continues in eternal time at the end of the narrative. Therefore, while traditional fictional narratives begin and end with the birth and death of the hero, the internal time of the narratives continues. Traditional fictional narratives depict the life events of the characters according to natural chronological order, with natural time doubling back to mythical, eternal time. Traditional fictional narratives are written in a distinctive mode that we might term legend style (sŏlhwach’e) or storytelling style (iyagi cho). Legend style designates an omniscient narrator who relates the story in an uncomplicated manner through his or her own voice, controlling every aspect of the narration. This style is highly functional for narratives of a recapitulatory nature. The descriptive method employed in traditional fictional narratives is like a narrative recap of events, because there is insufficient concrete description of the subject matter. Even chronological time, the most important structural principle in these narratives, is subject to considerable abbreviation. The problem of narrative focus also seems to be accorded little importance. The narrator, who assumes absolute authority as storyteller, relates the story entirely in keeping with his or her own preferences; there are few instances in which appropriate narrative

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distance between narrator and characters is maintained. The qualities particular to the legend style also appear in the way conversations between the characters are depicted, their dialogues influenced, controlled, and altered by the tone of the narrative voice. The words exchanged between characters thus bear no relation to natural-sounding speech. In the traditonal writing style, the ending -dŏra (used when reporting past events) regularly appears, giving the narrative a unifying coherence. But because the entire narrative takes place in the realm of reported speech and the scope of the story is limited to the single, all-commanding tone of the narrator as “report-er,” the voices of the individual characters are not allowed to ring clear. B. Genres and Types Traditional fictional narratives in the vernacular developed in several directions. The most popular types of vernacular fiction during the Chosŏn period were the military narrative, the household or family narrative, and the palace narrative. Military fiction (kundam sosŏl) deals with the historical experience of wartime chaos. A hero emerges who enters the heat of battle, dispels chaos, and saves the country. Because the extraordinary exploits of the hero dominate the plot, this genre is also sometimes referred to as the heroic narrative (yŏng’ung sosŏl). “Cho Ung chŏn” (Tale of Cho Ung), “Yi Taebong chŏn” (Tale of Yi Taebong), “Yu Ch’ungnyŏl chŏn” (Tale of Yu Ch’ungnyŏl), and “So Taesŏng chŏn” (Tale of So Taesŏng) are all categorized as military fiction. Neither the upheavals of war nor the heroic protagonist who intervenes to quell the chaos have any connection with actual historical incidents or persons. Events and people alike are fictional. But there are instances in military fiction in which the heroic actions of actual historical figures and historical wartime events are fictionally re-created in certain scenes. The descriptions in “Imjinnok” (The imjin wars) concentrate on the chaotic events of the Japanese invasions of 1592 and 1598, while “Im Kyŏngŏp chŏn” (Tale of Im Kyŏngŏp) and “Paksshi chŏn” (Tale of Lady Pak) are both set against the background of the Manchu Invasions of 1636–1637. The experience of these devastating invasions accounts for the tremendous popularity of military fiction in Later Chosŏn. It also laid an important foundation for critical reflection on Neo-Confucianism, the philosophy that formed the ideological base of the yangban scholar-bureaucracy that dominated Chosŏn society, and it foreshadowed a new form of thought called Practical Learning. The invasions also precipitated a new awareness by the peasantry of its own culture in opposition to that of the gradually deteriorating yangban class.

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Part I:  Classical Literature

Particularly after the Chinese Ming dynasty’s defeat by the Manchurian Qing, deliberations in the Chosŏn court about the feasibility of a northern expedition rekindled popular hostility against Chosŏn’s neighbors to the north and west, and stimulated the appetites of the people for the emergence of popular heroes. It is these historical conditions that seem to have given rise to the military fiction genre. Family narratives (kajŏng sosŏl) gained the most popularity and displayed the most thematic variety among traditional fictional narratives. These narratives share the background of the domestic household. The characters are limited to family members, and the contents are centered in love, filial piety, friendship, and conflicts between parent and child, husband and wife, and brother and sister. Here the most important value is ethical behavior within the family. Human ethics based in Confucian virtues are at the heart of the relations among household members. When we consider that Chosŏn fictional narratives were mostly read by women in scholar-bureaucrat households, it is natural that these narratives emphasized family ethics. A standard plot for household narratives is domestic conflict between the husband’s primary wife and his concubine, with some stories ending in reconciliation, such as Kim Manjung’s “Sa-sshi namjŏng ki” and “Ongnin mong” (A dream of beautiful deer), and Cho Sŏnggi’s “Ch’angsŏn kamŭi rok” (An account of propriety and justice) and “Cho Saengwŏn nok” (Tale of Cho Saengwŏn). Narratives such as “Sug’yŏng nangja chŏn” (Tale of the maiden Sug’yŏng), “Ok nangja chŏn” (Tale of the maiden Ok), and “Oktanch’un chŏn” (Tale of the kisaeng Oktanch’un) thematize female chastity and finally unite the hero and heroine in marriage. “Changhwa Hongnyŏn chŏn” (Tale of Changhwa and Hongnyŏn) and “K’ongjwi P’atchwi chŏn” (Tale of K’ongjwi and P’atchwi) involve conflict between a stepmother and a daughter from the husband’s first marriage. Also classifiable as household narratives are p’ansori narratives such as Shim Ch’ŏng chŏn, stressing filial piety, and Hŭngbu chŏn, about brotherly love. (That only two of the family narratives discussed here have identifiable authors—and the authorship of “Ch’angsŏn kamŭi rok” remains uncertain—is indicative of the anonymous nature of the great majority of fictional narratives written in the vernacular.) The lineage narrative (kamun sosŏl, kagye sosŏl, or kajoksa sosŏl) also enjoyed great popularity in Later Chosŏn. This genre differs from family narratives in its depiction of the rise to power of a family over several generations, focusing on such themes as marriage, the social advancement of the family, and conflicts with other clans. Lineage narratives may have arisen as a result of improvements in genealogical research by the yangban class in Later Chosŏn, or because of reforms in the literary outlook of that period. Works in this genre that appeared after the reigns of

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the Chosŏn kings Yŏngjo (1724–1776) and Chŏngjo (1776–1800), such as Wanwŏl hoemaeng yŏn (Banquet celebrating a pact made while admiring the moon), Myŏngju powŏl ping (Marriage sealed by a lovely gem and a precious pendant), and Im Hwa Chŏng Yŏn (Tale of the families Im, Hwa, Chŏng, and Yŏn) each have dozens of volumes. Such lengthy works are termed taeha sosŏl. All of these works concern the thriving fortunes of a single clan. They go beyond the domestic affairs of the household, widening the contextual horizon to include scenes of heroic action such as the expulsion of evil characters and the overcoming of perils that threaten the kingdom. Palace narratives (kungjŏng sosŏl) tell of a world unknowable to people outside the royal palace, restaging with great elaboration the customs and rituals of life within its walls. Examples of palace literature are “Kyech’uk ilgi” (Journal of the kyech’uk year), Inhyŏn wanghu chŏn, and Hanjungnok (The Memoirs of Lady Hyegyŏng [literally, “Records made in leisure” or “Records made in bitterness,” depending on how one reads the han of the Korean title]; see “Readings” section of this chapter). “Kyech’uk ilgi” is set among the political upheavals taking place in mid-Chosŏn leading up to the enthronement of King Injo. The protagonist is Queen Dowager Inmok, who became King Sŏnjo’s consort at the age of nineteen, after the death of his first queen, and thereafter gave birth to Prince Yŏngch’ang. After Kwanghaegun ascended the throne, however, she became subject to all manner of humiliation and oppression. The new king commanded Inmok’s father and brother to drink poison, putting them to death on charges of plotting treason against the throne, and killed Yŏngch’ang, finally banishing Inmok to a remote area of the palace. Inmok’s suffering is recounted in heartbreaking detail. Inhyŏn wanghu chŏn tells the dramatic story of the life of Min Inhyŏn, queen (wanghu) of King Sukchong. The appearance in the story of the royal concubine Chang Hŭibin and her treacherous deeds has been a point of great popular interest, but the work emphasizes the virtuousness of Inhyŏn, who endures the suffering dealt her by fate and finally emerges victorious. Hanjungnok is one of the most accomplished prose works of the Chosŏn period. The author, Lady Hong of Hyegyŏng Palace, is also one of the primary figures in the work. Brought to the palace during King Yŏngjo’s reign as a bride for the prince, she later suffers the loss of her husband, who was put to death by his own father, the king. Lady Hong recorded this story, as well as that of the suffering experienced by members of her own family, for posterity following the death of Yŏngjo, after her son Chŏngjo ascended the throne. The work is also an elegantly crafted record of the ways and manners of the royal family.

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Part I:  Classical Literature

Borrowing features from the oral tradition, p’ansori (“open-air singing”) emerged in the early 1700s and burgeoned in popularity as a folk entertainment. P’ansori is performed by a professional singer (ch’angja, or, more generally, kwangdae) who tells a story through song and narrative in time with rhythms provided by a drummer (kosu). The best-known p’ansori works are Ch’unhyang ka (Song of Ch’unhyang), Shim Ch’ŏng ka (Song of Shim Ch’ŏng), Hŭngbu ka (Song of Hŭngbu), Sugung ka (Song of the Underwater Palace; also known as a fictional narrative, T’okki chŏn [Tale of the hare and the tortoise]), Chŏkpyŏk ka (Song of the Red Cliffs), and Pyŏn Kangsoe t’aryŏng (Ballad of Pyŏn Kangsoe). These stories are based on folk tales passed down among commoners. For example, Ch’unhyang ka may be seen as a combination of the virtuous woman (yŏllyŏ) motif and the undercover inspector (amhaeng ŏsa) motif, and Shim Ch’ŏng ka brings together motifs of the filial daughter and human sacrifice to the gods. P’ansori narratives are either copied directly from oral performance or recorded with a degree of embellishment. P’ansori’s sweeping popularity eventually engendered commercial circulation of book copies printed from woodblocks (p’an’gakpon). Thus did the p’ansori works, enjoyed as oral performances by a kwangdae, become available in such story books as Ch’unhyang chŏn, Shim Ch’ŏng chŏn, Hŭngbu chŏn, and T’okki chŏn. The themes and techniques of p’ansori narratives contain many elements that distinguish them from other categories of traditional fictional narrative. In Ch’unhyang chŏn, the heroine’s fidelity is given great importance, and Shim Ch’ŏng chŏn emphasizes the heroine’s filial devotion. Hŭngbu chŏn concerns itself with friendship and goodwill between brothers, while T’okki chŏn advocates loyalty to the king. But realizing these traditional morals and values in actual life is not an easy task. The narratives also actively reflect the complexity of real life, making manifest the corruption and vices of government officials and yangban, and the development of the peasants’ awareness of their victimization. The orality characteristic of p’ansori is reflected in the narrative style of these fictional versions, which contain lively everyday language and realistic description. C. Fictional Narratives and Print Culture More than six hundred traditional fictional narratives have come down to us. The authors of the narratives written in hangŭl are for the most part unknown. The scholar-bureaucrats of Chosŏn dismissed vernacular fictional narratives as unworthy of an educated man’s attention, and their authors were reluctant to disclose their names. But not all traditional fictional narratives were authored by members of the sadaebu. It is thought that as

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these narratives came to be published and circulated for profit, authors also emerged from the peasant class. Traditional fictional narratives seem to have been transmitted to readers primarily in manuscript form, judging from the fact that most of these narratives have survived in that medium. As readership expanded, more manuscript copies of individual works were made, and in the process some texts were rewritten (kaejak). The existence of so many versions (ibon) of the most popular works of the period is thought to be due to such rewritings. Traditional fictional narratives began to circulate commercially in the early 1700s. Privately owned publishing shops printed books by means of woodblocks and sold them directly to the public. This medium of circulation developed into a popular form of business in the early 1800s. Texts are classified according to the region of their manufacture: Capital editions (kyŏngp’anbon) were printed in the capital of Seoul; Wanju editions (wanp’anbon—Wanju is a place-name designating the area around the city of Chŏnju) were printed in Chŏnju, North Chŏlla Province; and Ansŏng editions were printed in the town of that name in Kyŏnggi Province. Some sixty fictional narratives exist in woodblock editions, suggesting that the most popular works were selected for publication in this medium. Even during the heyday of the new fiction (shin sosŏl) during Korea’s Enlightenment, fictional narratives were reprinted by means of the latest printing technology (shin hwalcha pon) and enjoyed wide readership in that form. D. Readings Hŏ Kyun The Tale of Hong Kiltong (Hong Kiltong chŏn; early 1600s) 1. The Birth of Kiltong During the reign of King Sejong in Chosŏn there was a minister whose name was Hong. Scion of a long-established and illustrious family, he passed the civil service examinations at an early age and went on to attain the post of Minister of Personnel. He enjoyed a good reputation both in and out of government circles and his name resounded throughout the country as a man in whom loyalty and filial piety were combined. Early in life he had two sons. The first son, named Inhyŏng, was born to his official wife, who was of the Yu clan, and his other son, Kiltong, was the child of his maidservant Ch’unsŏm. Minister Hong once dreamed of Kiltong’s birth: sudden thunderbolts resounded and a green dragon with flailing whiskers leaped at him. He woke in a fright, only to realize it was but a passing spring dream. In his heart he was overjoyed. “Surely this

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Part I:  Classical Literature dragon dream must herald the birth of a lovely son!” he thought. And with this he rushed to the inner room, where his wife rose to greet him. In joy he took her jade hands to draw her near and press his love upon her, but she stiffened and said, “Here, you, a minister of state, forget your position and take to the vulgar antics of a giddy youth. I will not submit to it.” So saying she drew her hands away and left the room. The minister, disconcerted and barely able to endure his exasperation, returned to the outer room. He was still deploring his lady’s lack of understanding when the maidservant Ch’unsŏm came to serve him tea. Quietly, he drew the girl to him and led her to a room, where he made love to her. Ch’unsŏm at this time was eighteen. Having once given her body to the minister, she never left his gates again and had no thoughts of accepting another lover. The minister, delighted with her, made her his concubine. Indeed, from that month she began to show the signs of pregnancy and in the ninth month gave birth to a child of jade-fair beauty whose frame and vigor were like no other and whose mien and spirit betold a glorious hero. The minister was happy, but still saddened that the child had not been born to his proper wife. 2. Scorned at Home Kiltong grew apace and when he was eight years old he could already grasp a hundred things from hearing only one. The minister was most devoted to this son but, owing to the boy’s ignoble birth, felt compelled to rebuke him promptly whenever the boy called him Father, or his brother Brother. Even after Kiltong reached the age of ten he could not presume to call his father and brother as such. Moreover, he was scorned even by the servants. This grieved him deeply and he could not still the turmoil within himself. Once, at the full moon of the ninth month, a time when the bright clarity of the moon and the brisk coolness of the wind conspire to engage a man’s passions, Kiltong in his study set aside his reading and, pushing the table away, lamented, “When one born to a man’s role cannot model himself after Confucius and Mencius then he had best learn the martial arts. With a general’s insignia tucked into his waistband he should chastise the east and subjugate the west, render meritorious service to the state, and illuminate the generations with his name. That’s the glory of manhood. But why have I been left disconsolate, why my heart near rent that I may not name my own father and brother? Have I not cause for grief?” Kiltong stepped down into the garden and set about practicing his swordsmanship. The minister, also out enjoying the moonlight, caught sight of his son pacing the garden and called him over to ask the reason. “What’s gotten into you—not asleep so late at night?”

Narrative Kiltong answered respectfully, “I have always enjoyed the moonlight, but there is something else tonight. While heaven created all things with the idea that mankind is the most precious, how can I be called a man when such value does not extend to me?” The minister knew what he meant, but scolded, “What are you talking about?” Kiltong bowed twice and explained. “Though I grow to manhood by the vigor Your Excellency has passed to me, and realize the profound debt I owe for your gift of life and Mother’s upbringing, my life still bears one great sorrow: how can I regard myself as a man when I can address neither my father as Father nor my brother as Brother?” He wiped away his flowing tears with the sleeves of his jacket. The minister heard him out and though he felt compassion for his son, he could only rebuke him severely for fear an expression of sympathy might give him license. “You’re not the only child born to a maidservant in the home of a minister. How dare you show such willful arrogance? If ever I hear such talk as this again, I shall no longer allow you in my presence!” Kiltong dared not utter a word but could only sink to the ground in tears. The minister ordered him away and Kiltong returned to his quarters, where he was overcome with sorrow. He was by nature uncommonly gifted and was a boy given to thoughtfulness and generosity. So it was that he could not quiet his heart or manage to sleep at night. One day Kiltong went to his mother’s room and in tears said, “We are in this world as mother and son out of an affinity in a former life. My debt to you is immense. But in my wretched fortune I was born illegitimate and the regret I harbor is bottomless. As a man makes his way in the world he cannot submit to the scorn of others. I cannot suppress this spirit innate in me and have chosen to leave your side, Mother. But I beg you not to worry about me and to take care of yourself.” Astonished, his mother replied, “You are not the only boy born humbly in a minister’s home. How can you be so selfish? Why do you tear at your mother’s heart so?” Kiltong replied, “Long ago, Ji-shan, the illegitimate son of Zhang Zhong, left his mother when he was thirteen. In the Yunfeng Mountains he perfected the Way and left an honorable name to posterity. Since I have decided to follow his example and leave the vulgar world, I pray you wait in peace for another day. From the recent behavior of the Koksan woman, it appears she has taken us as enemies out of fear that she might lose the minister’s favor. I’m afraid she plots misfortune for me. Please don’t let my departure worry you so.” But his mother was saddened.

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Part I:  Classical Literature 3. Plotting Against Kiltong The Koksan woman, originally a kisaeng from Koksan named Ch’onan, had become the minister’s favorite concubine. Since she was e­ xtremely arrogant and quick to carry false tales to the minister about anyone who displeased her, she was at the center of countless difficulties in the household. Ch’onan had no son of her own and, having seen the affection shown Ch’unsŏm by the minister after Kiltong’s birth, she plotted with a spiteful heart to eliminate the boy. Then one day, her scheme conceived, she called in a shaman and said, “I must have this Kiltong out of the way to find any peace in life. If you can carry out my wishes, I shall reward you handsomely.” The shaman listened and replied with pleasure. “I know of an excellent physiognomist living outside Hŭngin Gate who with only one look at a person’s face can divine both the good and evil of past and future. What we should do is call the woman in, explain your desires to her, and then recommend her to the minister. When she tells him about events of the past and future, just as if she had seen them herself, he is sure to fall under her influence and could be made to get rid of the child. Then if we only wait for the opportune moment and do thus-and-so, how could we fail?” Ch’onan was very pleased. Straightaway she gave the shaman fifty yang in silver and then sent her off to summon the physiognomist. The shaman bowed low and left. The next day when the minister was in the women’s quarters talking about Kiltong with his wife, praising the boy’s uncommon virtues and regretting his low birth, a woman suddenly appeared in the courtyard below and bowed to him. Thinking it strange, the minister questioned her. “Who are you? What do you want here?” “I practice physiognomy for my living and just happened to be passing by Your Excellency’s gate. “ This put the minister in mind of Kiltong, for he wanted to know the boy’s future. He called the boy immediately and showed him to the woman. She looked him over for some time and in her astonishment almost blurted out, I see in your son’s face a hero, unchallenged by history and peerless in his own age! Only his lineage would be a drawback—there should be no other cause for concern. But instead, she only faltered and stopped. The minister and his wife were puzzled and asked, “Whatever it is, we want you to speak directly with us.” The woman, feeling compelled, asked that the others retire. “From what I see, the boy harbors elaborate and untamed dreams. The lustrous ether of the hills and streams radiates from between his eyebrows—a royal countenance. Your Excellency had best watch him carefully, for your household will surely be visited with ruinous misfortune when he grows up.”

Narrative After a moment of stunned silence, the minister finally gathered himself and said, “Though I know man cannot escape his fate, I still forbid you to reveal this to anyone.” With this command he gave the woman a little silver and sent her away. Not long after, the minister moved Kiltong to a cabin in the mountains where he could keep careful watch over his movements. Unable to overcome the even greater sadness he felt at this turn of events and seeing no way out, Kiltong occupied himself with studying the military arts, astronomy, and geography. The minister was disturbed when he learned of this. “If the boy uses his native talent to further ideas that go beyond his station, the physiognomist will have been proven right. What am I to do?” In the meantime, Ch’onan maintained her secret contacts with the physiognomist and the shaman and through them managed to keep the minister stirred up. Intent on getting rid of Kiltong, she secured at great expense an assassin named T’ŭkchae and explained the circumstances to him. She then approached the minister. “It was uncanny that day the way the physiognomist could perceive events. What do you think? What are you going to do now about Kiltong’s future? Even I was surprised and frightened. Doesn’t it seem the only choice is to have him put out of the way?” The minister worked his brows as he listened. “The matter is in my hands and I want you to refrain from involving yourself in it.” He dismissed her but was left feeling troubled and confused. Finding it impossible to sleep at night, he soon grew ill. His wife and son Inhyŏng—the latter now an assistant section chief in a ministry—were greatly worried and at a loss for what to do. Ch’onan, who had been attending the minister, one day remarked, “The minister’s critical condition is brought about by the presence of Kiltong. Now, this is the way I see it. If we just do away with the boy, not only will the minister completely recover, but the whole household, too, will be assured of security. How is it you haven’t considered this?” “You may be right, but who could possibly do such a thing that violates the most solemn strictures of moral law?” the wife asked. “I have heard there is an assassin called T’ŭkchae who claims he can kill a man as easily as picking something out of his pocket. Give him a thousand yang and then let him sneak in at night to do the job. By the time the minister finds out, there will be nothing he can do about it. I suggest, my lady, you give this serious thought.” The wife and her son broke into tears as they replied. “Painful as it may be, such a move would not only serve the good of the country, but help the minister and indeed protect the Hong family. Yes, do as you have planned!”

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Part I:  Classical Literature Highly pleased, Ch’onan called T’ŭkchae in again and explained in detail what she had been told. Ordered to do his work with dispatch that very night, T’ŭkchae agreed and waited for night to come. The story goes on. When Kiltong considered the sorrow and pain of his present situation he had no wish to remain any longer, but his father’s strict commands left him with no choice. He passed the nights without sleep. On this night, he had lit the candle and to steady his wits had turned to the Classic of Divination, when suddenly he heard a raven cry three times as it passed. Kiltong thought this ominous and said to himself, “This bird usually avoids the night. Crying out in passing like this must surely bode ill.” He opened his divining text to the eight trigrams and studied them. He was alarmed at what they portended. He pushed his desk aside and, employing his knowledge of magic, made himself invisible and watched and waited. It was during the fourth watch that a man carrying a dagger stealthily opened the door and entered his room. Kiltong, making sure he was unseen, chanted a mantra from the True Word Sutra. A cold wind suddenly filled the room and in a moment the house had vanished—in its place was only the fresh beauty of a vaulted mountain recess. Terrified by Kiltong’s marvelous powers, T’ŭkchae concealed his dagger and tried to escape. But the road ahead was suddenly cut off when a lofty, bouldered cliff rose to block his way. Trapped, he groped frantically about him. Just then he heard the sound of an eight-holed flute and, pulling himself together, looked up to see a young boy approaching astride a donkey. The boy stopped playing the flute and rebuked T’ŭkchae. “Why would you want to kill me? Do you think you can harm a guiltless man for no good reason and still avoid the punishment of heaven?” He chanted one more sutra. A black cloud formed, and sand and stones flew through the air. When T’ŭkchae managed to gather his wits and look about he discovered Kiltong before him. Even with his marvelous powers, how could this child be any match for me? With this thought T’ŭkchae flew at him. “Though this is your death, bear me no malice! It was Ch’onan who convinced the minister through a shaman and a physiognomist to have you killed. Don’t hold it against me,” he cried as he leaped, dagger in hand. Kiltong could not control his rage. Blinding T’ŭkchae with magic, he snatched the dagger away and denounced the would-be killer under the blade of his own knife. “If your greed for money allows you to murder so easily, then I can kill your brutish sort without a second thought,” Kiltong said and sent T’ŭkchae’s head flying with a single sweep of the blade. Still overcome by anger, Kiltong went that same night and seized the physiognomist and pushed her into the room with the dead T’ŭkchae.

Narrative “What have you against me, to plot my murder with Ch’onan?” he said, chastising her, and then he slit her throat. Was it not a terrible thing? 4. Kiltong Plans an Exile’s Life Kiltong had killed them. Now he looked up into the night sky where the Milky Way trailed toward the west. Moved by the clarity of the moon’s thin light, Kiltong, in his rage, thought of killing Ch’onan. But thinking of the minister’s love for her, he threw away the dagger and resolved to lead an exile’s life. He went directly to the minister’s room to take formal leave of him. Startled to hear the footfalls outside, the minister opened his window and discovered Kiltong there. He called him in and asked, “What are you doing up and about so late at night?” Kiltong prostrated himself and answered. “I have always intended to pay back the life’s debt I owe you and my mother, if only in one ten thousandth part. But someone of evil design in the household has deceived Your Excellency and attempted to kill me. Though I have escaped with my life, I know I cannot remain here and serve Your Excellency any longer. So I have come now to bid you farewell.” The started minister asked, “What calamity could have occurred that would force you to leave your childhood home? Where do you intend to go?” Kiltong answered, “By the time day breaks you will have learned the circumstances as a matter of course. And, as for me, why worry about the whereabouts of this cast-off child? It’s my lot to wander aimless as a cloud.” His tears poured forth in twin streams as his words faltered. The minister was moved to pity at the sight and began to offer counsel. “I can appreciate the grief you must be suffering. I am going to give you my permission to address me and your brother as Father and Brother from this day on.” Kiltong bowed twice and said, “Now that my father has lifted away this one small sadness of mine, I know I could die without regret. I sincerely wish you a long, untroubled life, Father.” Again he bowed twice to take his leave, and the minister, unable to stay his son, could only ask him to take care. Kiltong then went to his mother’s room to inform her of his departure. “Though I am leaving your side now, there will be a day when I can come back to serve you. I pray you take care of your health while I am away.” As she listened, it crossed her mind there might have been some calamity but, seeing him bow now in departure, she grasped his hands and cried.

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Part I:  Classical Literature “Where will you go? Even in the same house it has always seemed difficult to accept the small distance that has separated our quarters. But now how am I to endure, having sent you off to an unknown place? I only pray you will return soon so we can be together again.” Kiltong bowed twice in taking his leave and, passing through the gate of his home, headed aimlessly toward the shrouded mountain recesses. Is this not a pitiful thing? The story goes on: Extremely apprehensive at receiving no word from T’ŭkchae, Ch’onan inquired into what had happened. She learned that Kiltong had disappeared without a trace and that the bodies of T’ŭkchae and the physiognomist had been found. Stricken with terror, she flew to inform the minister’s wife of what she had found out. The lady, equally alarmed, called in her son, the assistant section chief, to tell her what she had heard. When all this was finally reported to the minister, he went white with shock and said, “Kiltong came to me last night and bade me farewell with heavy heart. I thought it very strange at the time. But now, this!” Inhyŏng dared withhold no longer what he knew of Ch’onan’s involvement in the affair. Greatly angered, the minister had Ch’onan driven out of the house and the bodies quietly removed. He then called in the servants and ordered them to say nothing of the matter. 5. Entering the Bandit Cave The story continues: After leaving his parents and going out the gates of his home, Kiltong wandered aimlessly until one day he happened upon a place where the scenery surpassed anything he had ever seen. He ventured further, looking for a house, and discovered a closed stone portal at the base of a huge boulder. Opening the door with care, he stepped through it and saw hundreds of houses set out neatly across a wide and level plain. A great number of men were gathered before him, enjoying themselves at a feast; this valley was a bandit’s lair. Suddenly they caught sight of Kiltong and were pleased to see from his appearance that he was a man of no mean quality. “Who are you?” they questioned him. “Why have you sought out this place? The braves you see gathered here have not yet been able to settle upon a leader. Now, if you think you have enough courage and vigor to join our ranks, see if you can lift that rock over there.” Sensing good fortune in what he heard, Kiltong bowed and said, “I am Hong Kiltong from Seoul, the son of Minister Hong by his concubine. But when I could no longer endure the scorn I suffered there, I left and have since been roaming the four seas and eight directions until I chanced upon this place. I am overwhelmed with gratitude that you speak of my becoming your comrade. But what trouble should it be for a man to lift a rock like that?”

Narrative With this, he hoisted the rock, which weighed one thousand catties, and walked some ten paces. The assembled braves praised him with one voice. ”Here is a real man among men! Not one man in all our thousands could lift that rock, but beneficent Heaven has today given us a general!” They seated him at the place of honor and each in turn pressed wine upon him. Swearing oaths of fealty in the blood of a white horse, the assemblage raised its unanimous approval and celebrated the day long. 6. The Plunder of Haein Temple Kiltong and his men practiced the martial arts until, after several months, they had quite refined their tactics. Then one day some of the men approached Kiltong. “For some time now, we have wanted to raid the Haein temple at Hapch’ŏn and strip it of its treasures, but we have been unable to carry out our plan for lack of a clever strategy. Now, as our general, what do you think of the idea?” Kiltong was pleased and answered, “I shall send out an expedition soon and you should be ready to follow my commands.” In black-belted blue ceremonial robes, Kiltong mounted a donkey and prepared to leave camp with several followers in attendance. As he started out, he said, “I am going to that temple now and shall return after looking over the situation.” He looked every inch the scion of a high minister’s family. As soon as he arrived at the temple, he called the abbot to him. “I am the son of Minister Hong of Seoul. I have come to this temple to pursue my literary studies and shall have twenty bushels of white rice shipped in for you tomorrow. If you are tidy about preparing the food, I will be glad to join you and your people for a meal at that time.” Kiltong looked over the temple and left its precincts, having made promises for another day with the overjoyed monks. As soon as he got back, Kiltong sent off some twenty bushels of white rice and called his men together. “Now, on a certain day, I wish to go to the temple and do such-​and-​ such.” When the appointed day arrived, Kiltong took some tens of his followers and went ahead to the Haein temple. He was received by the monks, who all came out to meet his party. He called an elder to him and asked, “With the rice I sent, were you able to make enough food?” “Enough, sir? We have been overwhelmed!” Kiltong took his seat in the place of honor and bade the monks share his company, each having been given a tray of wine and savories. He then led the drinking and pressed each monk in turn to join him. All were filled with gratitude.

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Part I:  Classical Literature Kiltong received his own tray and, while eating, suddenly bit with a loud crack on some sand he had secretly slipped into his mouth. The monks, startled at the sound, begged his forgiveness, but Kiltong feigned a great rage and rebuked them, saying, “How could you be so careless in preparing my food? This is indeed an insufferable insult and humiliation!” So saying, he ordered his followers to bind the monks together with a single rope and sit them on the floor. The monks were in a state of shock, no one knew what to do. In no time, several hundred fearsome bandits came swooping into the temple and set about carrying off all its treasures. The helpless monks could only look on, screaming their laments. Soon after, a temple scullion on his way back from an errand saw what had happened and hurried off to notify the local government office. When the magistrate of Hapch’ŏn heard about this, he called out his militia and charged them to capture the bandits. The several hundred troops who dashed off in pursuit soon came upon a figure in black robes and a nun’s pine-bark cap who called to them from a promontory: “The bandits took the back road to the north. Hurry and catch them!” Believing this to be a helpful member of the temple, the soldiers flew like the wind and rain down the northerly back road, only to return ­empty-handed at nightfall. It was Kiltong who, after sending his men along the main road to the south, had remained behind to deceive the troops in this clerical disguise. Safely back in the bandit lair, he found the men had all returned and were already sizing up the treasures. They rushed out to meet him and shower rewards upon him but Kiltong laughed and said, “If a man hadn’t even this little talent, how could be become your leader?” Kiltong later named his band the “Save-the-Poor Party” and led them through the eight provinces of Chosŏn, stopping in each township to confiscate the wealth unjustly gained by magistrates and to succor the poor and helpless. But they never preyed upon the common people nor ever once touched the rightful property of the state. So it was that the bandits submitted to Kiltong’s will. 7. Raiding the Governor of Hamgyŏng One day Kiltong gathered his men around him to discuss their plans. “I am told the Governor of Hamgyŏng Province with his rapacious officials has been squeezing the citizenry to a point where the people can no longer endure it. We cannot just stand by and do nothing. Now, I want you to follow my instructions exactly.” Thus the braves slipped one by one into the Hamgyŏng area and, on an agreed night, built a fire outside the South Gate of the provincial capital. When the governor, in a state of alarm, called for the fire to be extinguished, the yamen clerks and the city’s populace all rushed forth to put it out.

Narrative Meanwhile, several hundred of Kiltong’s bandits poured into the heart of the city and opened the warehouse to uncover the stores of grain, money, and weapons, which they carried out the North Gate, leaving the city to churn in chaos. These unexpected events left the governor helpless. When at dawn he discovered the warehouse stripped of its grain, money, and weapons, he paled in consternation and bent all efforts toward the capture of the bandits. The notice he forthwith posted on the North Gate named Hong Kiltong as leader of the Save-the-Poor Party and responsible for looting the city stores. Troops were dispatched to bring in the outlaws. While Kiltong, with his band, had made a good haul of grain and such, he was still concerned lest they be apprehended on the road by some misadventure. Thus he exercised his occult knowledge and ability to shrink distances, and brought them back apace to the lair, where they ended the day. 8. Creating Men from Straw On another day, Kiltong again gathered his men around him to discuss plans. “Now that we have looted Haein Temple at Hapch’ŏn of its treasures and robbed the governor of Hamgyŏng of his grain and money, not only have rumors about us spread across the country but my name has been posted at the provincial offices for all to see. If I don’t take steps I am likely to be caught before long. Now, just watch this trick!” Whereupon, Kiltong made seven straw men and, chanting a mantra from the True Word Sutra, invested them with such spirit that the seven Kiltongs all at once sprouted arms, cried aloud, and fell into animated chatter with one another. From appearances alone, no one could tell which was the real Kiltong. They separated, each going to a province and taking several hundred men under his command. And now no one knew where the real Kiltong had gone. 9. A Humiliation for the Gendarme Eight Kiltongs roamed the eight provinces, calling wind and commanding rain as they exercised their magic. In night sorties that left no trace they made off with grain stores in every township and even managed without any difficulty to snatch a shipment of gifts bound for officials in Seoul. Every township of the eight provinces was in turmoil, sleep at night was impossible, and travelers disappeared from the roads. Chaos covered the country. At last one governor reported the situation to the throne: “There is an accomplished bandit known as Hong Kiltong, who strikes without warning and can with ease summon up the wind and clouds. He has looted treasures from every township and raised such a furor with his antics that even gift shipments cannot be sent up to the capital. If this bandit is not caught, the whole country will fall under his threat. Thus

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Part I:  Classical Literature I humbly beg the throne to charge the Gendarmerie of the Left and the Right to capture this man.” When he heard this, the king was alarmed and summoned the captains of his gendarmerie. Reports continued to arrive from the rest of the eight provinces, and when the king opened and read each one he discovered that the names of the bandits were all the same Hong Kiltong and that the raids had taken place all on the same day at the same time. Astonished, the king said, “The dauntlessness and wizardry of this bandit are unchallenged even by the ancient rebel Chiyou. But still, no matter how marvelous the fellow is, how could he, with his one body, be in eight provinces and stage his raids in one day and at the same time? This is no common bandit—it looks as though he will be a difficult one to capture.” The captains of the left and right were to dispatch their troops with orders to apprehend the bandit, but Yi Hŭp, captain of the right, memorialized, saying, “Though your servant is without particular talent, he begs the throne rest assured that he himself can capture and deliver up the bandit. Why, then, should the gendarmeries of both the left and right be dispatched?” The king approved and pressed the captain to depart with all haste. Yi Hŭp took his leave and, commanding a host of government troops, deployed them widely with instructions to gather again on a certain day in the county of Mungyŏng. Yi Hŭp himself took only a few gendarmes with him and scouted the countryside incognito. Late in the afternoon of another day, the party sought out a wine shop where they stopped to rest. Presently a young man rode up on a donkey and, exchanging courtesies with the captain, sighed and said, “The Odes tell us: ‘Under the scattered sky all lands are fief, all men to the sea’s marge serve but one chief.’ Even though living here so far out in the country, I am concerned for the nation!” The captain feigned surprise and said, “What do you mean by that?” The boy answered, “Could I not be surely troubled when people are being victimized by that bandit Hong Kiltong? He roams the eight provinces and mounts raids at will, but no one has yet been able to catch the marauder.” The captain responded, “You impress me as a brave and spirited young man who speaks with directness; how about joining me in capturing that bandit?” “I have long wanted to catch him but could not find a man of courage to share my purpose. How fortunate to have met like this! Still, I know nothing of your ability—why don’t we find a quiet spot and stage a contest between us?” They went together to another place, where they climbed to the top of a boulder and sat down.

Narrative “Kick me as hard as you can with both legs and try to knock me off this boulder,” said Kiltong as he moved out to the very edge and sat down again. The captain thought: No matter how powerful he is, he is sure to fall off if I give him one good kick. And, summoning all his strength, he kicked Kiltong with both legs at once. But the boy just turned to him and said, “You are indeed a strong fellow. Though I have tested a number of men, none has been able to move me. But you, indeed, have nearly shaken me. If you will come along with me, I know we can catch Hong Kiltong!” With this, the boy led him into the deep recesses of the surrounding mountains. As he followed his guide, the captain thought: Until today I had always thought my strength worth boasting about. Seeing this boy’s prowess, could one remain unawed? With just his help alone, I am sure to capture Hong Kiltong. A moment later, the boy turned and said to the captain, “This cave leads into Kiltong’s lair. I am going in first to take a look around—you should wait for me here.” The captain was suspicious, but he bade the youth bring his captive back quickly and so he sat down to wait. Suddenly many tens of screaming warriors descended on him from the hills around. The captain attempted to escape but was easily overtaken by the bandits and bound. “Are you not Yi Hŭp, captain of the gendarmerie? We have come to arrest you under orders from the king of the underworld.” Collared in chains and driven like the wind and rain, the captain was frightened out of his wits. It was not until after they had arrived at another place, where he was forced to his knees amidst fierce cries, that he could begin to grope toward consciousness and take in his surroundings. It was a grand palace; he saw countless yellow-turbaned warriors ranked to the left and right, and a sovereign sitting upon his dais in a hall beyond. “Contemptible wretch!” the lord roared. “How dare you presume to capture General Hong? For this we are going to condemn you to the underworld!” His senses nearly recovered, the captain pleaded, “Worthless though I am, I have been arrested for no real crime. I beg you, my lord, spare my life and allow me to leave.” But the response from the dais was a burst of laughter. “Take a good look at me, you knave! I am Hong Kiltong, leader of the Save-the-Poor Party, the very man you seek. Since you had set out to capture me, I decided to test your courage and determination. So I lured you here in the guise of a blue-robed youth, that you might have a taste of my authority.” Whereupon, Kiltong ordered his attendants to loosen the captain’s bonds and seat him nearby in the great hall. Pressing wine on his guest,

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Part I:  Classical Literature the general said, “You can see how futile it is to scout around for me—you had better just report back. But do not let on that you have seen me, for they are sure to hold you responsible. I urge you not to say a word of this.” After pouring another cup and offering it to his guest, Kiltong ordered his attendants to free the captain and send him off. At this, the captain thought: Whether this is real or a dream, I do not know. Yet somehow, I have come here and have learned to appreciate Kiltong’s marvelous powers. But no sooner did he turn to leave than he suddenly found himself unable to move his arms and legs. When he calmed his spirit sufficiently, he considered his plight and discovered he was wrapped inside a huge leather sack. After extricating himself with some difficulty, the captain found three more sacks hanging beside him from a tree. He opened them one after the other, and discovered there the three retainers with whom he had set out originally. “What has happened? When we set out we had agreed to meet at Mungyŏng—how did we get here?” So asking one another, they looked around and saw they were on Mount Pugak, overlooking Seoul. “How did you three get here?” the captain asked his men, as the four stood looking in amazement down at Seoul. “We fell asleep back in the wine shop. Then we were suddenly carried here, shrouded in wind and rain. There is no way to account for it, sir.” “No one is going to believe this absurd story—you must say nothing to the others about it. This Hong Kiltong really has powers beyond believing—how could we ever capture him by human means? But if we return empty-handed now, we could never escape punishment. Let’s wait a few more months before reporting back.” With this, they descended the mountain. 10. Inhyŏng Is Appointed Governor of Kyŏngsang In spite of royal commands throughout the eight provinces ordering his capture, there was no second-guessing Hong Kiltong’s strategies: now riding about the thoroughfares of Seoul in a one-wheeled chaise, and now—with solemn prior announcement—appearing in various townships in the guise of a royal inspector aboard a two-horse carriage. To top it off, after ferreting out and summarily executing corrupt and covetous magistrates, the self-appointed royal inspector was even making official reports to the throne. At this, the king, now in a towering rage, demanded, “That cur can wander the provinces indulging in such antics and yet no one is able to capture him. Just what do you intend to do about it?” Even as he called his counselors and ministers into conference, reports continued to arrive at court from the various provinces—each of them about the work of Hong Kiltong. Examining each as it came in, the king

Narrative became distressed. He looked round at his officers and asked, “Maybe this fellow isn’t a human after all—his behavior is more like that of a demon! Does any one among my ministers know something about his origins?” One of the officers stepped forward and addressed the throne. “This Hong Kiltong is an illegimate son of the Hong who was once Minister of Personnel, and is half-brother to Hong Inhyŏng, now an assistant section chief in the Board of War. All the facts might be brought to light were you to detain the father and son for a personal royal interrogation.” Further incensed, the king responded, “Why is it only now that you tell us of this?” He forthwith ordered the father’s arrest through the State Tribunal and meanwhile had Inhyŏng brought in for questioning. Pounding his writing desk with awesome rage, the king roared, “We have learned that the bandit Kiltong is your half-brother! How is it you have failed to restrain him and are content to stand by while the state is thrown into turmoil? If you do not bring him in now, the loyalty and filial piety of you and your father will go for naught in our eyes. Apprehend him immediately and remove this affliction from Chosŏn!” Awe-stricken, Inhyŏng removed his cap and bowed his head deeply. “My low-born younger brother was with us until he killed a man and fled, some years ago now, leaving us unable to learn of his fate. As a result, my aged father has sunk into a critical illness and can reckon his remaining life only in mornings and evenings. Kiltong, with his incredible disregard for mortality, has burdened Your Majesty with deep concern, for which we deserve death without mercy ten thousand times. But if Your Majesty, in the warmth of your compassion, would grant our humble petition and forgive my father for his crime, allowing him to return home to recover his health, I intend, even at the risk of life, to capture Kiltong and thus atone for the sins of this father and son.” The king, having heard him out, was deeply moved. He forgave the old minister forthwith and appointed Inhyŏng governor of Kyŏngsang Province. “If you, my minister, had not the power of a governorship, I fear you would not be able to catch Kiltong. I am giving you a year’s time in which you should be able to apprehend him easily.” In taking his leave, Inhyŏng bowed over and over again, expressing his gratitude for the king’s benevolence, and that same day he set out for Kyŏngsang. Upon assuming his new office, he had notices posted in every township urging Kiltong to turn himself in. They read: “The life of men in this world is governed by the five relationships; and these relationships are realized through the constant virtues of benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, and faithfulness. But if one, ignorant of this, disobeys his sovereign’s commands and behaves in a

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Part I:  Classical Literature manner disloyal and unfilial, how can he be countenanced by the world? Kiltong, my brother! You should be aware of these things; come to your older brother voluntarily and let yourself be taken alive. Our father is sickened to the bone because of you, and His Majesty is deeply anxious— so extraordinary is your sinfulness. I have therefore been especially appointed to the governorship with orders to apprehend you, in failure of which the fair virtue amassed by generations of the Hong family will overnight be brought to naught. Would this not be sorrowful? Kiltong, my brother! If you consider this and surrender straight off, as I pray you do, your crimes should indeed be lessened and you would preserve our family. I do not know your heart, but it is imperative that you give this serious thought and present yourself.” 11. The Surrender of the Straw Kiltongs Posting this notice in every township, the governor suspended all other official activity, awaiting only the surrender of Kiltong. One day a youth astride a donkey followed by tens of attendants appeared outside his residence to request an audience. When the youth entered the receiving hall on command and made his obeisance, the governor studied his eyes carefully: it was Kiltong for whom he had been waiting so long. With joyful astonishment he dismissed his officers and, embracing the boy, said in a tear-choked voice, “Kiltong! After you left home, our father, not knowing whether you were alive or dead, was taken by an illness that invaded his very breast. Not only have you thus compounded your unfilial behavior, but you have become the cause of great distress to the state. What can you be thinking to behave in a manner so disloyal and unfilial and, more, by turning to banditry, to commit crimes that are without parallel in the whole world? His Majesty, enraged by this, has ordered me to bring you in. Your crimes are beyond denial. You must go immediately to Seoul and submit quietly to the royal judgment.” As he finished speaking the tears rained from his eyes. Kiltong lowered his head and replied. “At this pass what else could I presume to say but that I am determined to save my father and brother in their peril? Yet, would we have come to this, I wonder, had his excellency, our father, in the first place allowed this humble Kiltong to address him as Father and you as Brother? But, at this point events of the past have become meaningless; now you must have me bound and sent up to Seoul.” Kiltong said nothing further. Though the governor was, on the one hand, saddened when he heard this, he nevertheless composed an official report to the throne. After having Kiltong shackled in fetters and cangue and locked inside a barred wagon, he assigned more than ten strapping officials as escorts to push on day and night for Seoul. The people of each township along the way,

Narrative knowing of Kiltong’s prowess and having heard of his capture, choked the roads to gape at the prisoner as he passed. But by now, a different Kiltong had been arrested in each of the eight provinces and sent up to Seoul. The court and citizens of the capital were lost in helpless confusion—there was no one equal to the situation. When the astounded king convened his full court to conduct a personal interrogation, the eight Kiltongs were brought forward only to argue among themselves. “You’re the real Kiltong, not me!” So they fought on, making it impossible to guess which one was the real Kiltong. Puzzled, the king forthwith summoned the former minister Hong and said, “The saying goes, ‘No one knows his son better than the father.’ I want you to pick out your son among these eight.” The old minister respectfully bowed his head in remorse. “My low-born son, Kiltong, can be distinguished by the red birthmark he has on his left leg.” And, admonishing the eight Kiltongs, he said, “Remember that you are in the presence of His Majesty and that your father is here below. You have committed crimes unheard of even in remote antiquity: do not try to avoid your just fate.” With this, he vomited up blood and collapsed in a faint. The king, in alarm, commanded his royal physicians to save the minister, but they could effect no improvement. The eight Kiltongs, seeing the old man’s condition as tears streamed from their eyes, each produced from their pocket a pellet of medicine and put it in the minister’s mouth. The old man recovered his senses before the day was out. The eight Kiltongs addressed the king. “In view of the many boons granted my father by the state, how could I dare give myself over to improper behavior? But in origin I am the child of a lowly serving woman who could not call his father Father or his brother Brother. To my life-long regret, I chose to leave my home and join a party of bandits. Still, I never once abused the common people but confiscated only the wealth of magistrates amassed through exploitation of the people. And now, when ten years have passed, I shall leave Chosŏn, for I have a place to go. A suppliant at Your Majesty’s feet, I beg you end your concern over me and rescind the orders for my arrest.” As they finished speaking, the eight Kiltongs tumbled over all at the same instant—close scrutiny showed them all to be only straw men. Astonished anew, the king reissued his orders, this time with the aim of capturing the real Hong Kiltong. 12. Kiltong Is Appointed Minister of War The story goes on: Divesting himself of the straw men, Kiltong continued to wander about. Then one day he posted a notice on the four gates of Seoul which read:

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Part I:  Classical Literature “Wondrous is he, for there will be no capturing Hong Kiltong. Only if he be appointed Minister of War can he be apprehended.” When the king had read the text of Kiltong’s notice, he called the ministers of his court into council. The various ministers chorused: “To appoint that bandit now as Minister of War, after having failed in all attempts to arrest him! What an embarrassment if such news were heard in neighboring countries!” The king concurred in this and settled with pressing the governor of Kyŏngsang Province, Inhyŏng, to capture Kiltong posthaste. When the governor saw these stern royal instructions he was struck with fear and trembling, lost for a way out of his dilemma. But then one day Kiltong appeared out of thin air and, bowing before him, said, “This time I truly am your brother, Kiltong. I want you to worry yourself over me no longer: have me bound and sent up to Seoul.” At this, the governor tearfully grasped Kiltong’s hands. “Oh, irresponsible child! As much as we are brothers, I cannot but grieve at your failure to heed the guidance of your father and brother, putting the whole country into chaos. But still, you are to be commended for having surrendered to me voluntarily.” He quickly examined Kiltong’s left leg, and when he found the identifying mark there, he promptly bound his prisoner—taking special care to pinion all four limbs—and put him into the barred wagon. Even engirded tightly as an iron drum by tens of select and strapping officers, and driven like the wind and rain, Kiltong displayed not an iota’s change in his countenance. After several days the party arrived in Seoul. But just as they reached the palace gates, the iron bands broke away and the wagon flew into splinters, while Kiltong, with a twist of his body, flew up into the air like a cicada throwing off its shell and disappeared in a flutter, wrapped in clouds and mist. The officers and soldiers were left dumbfounded, able only to gape mindlessly into the empty air. They had no choice but to report these facts to the throne. Upon hearing this, the king responded in great consternation. “I have never heard of such a thing—even from greatest antiquity!” Then one of his ministers proposed, “Since it is this Kiltong’s expressed desire to serve one time as Minister of War and then leave Chosŏn, why don’t we grant his wish this once? If so, he would come to express his gratitude and then, grasping the opportunity, we could capture him.” The king approved and immediately appointed Kiltong Minister of War, posting notices to this effect on the four gates of Seoul. Kiltong soon heard of this and promptly made an impressive appearance on the main thoroughfare of the capital, riding in high dignity on a one-wheeled chaise and wearing the silk cap and formal gown, and a belt of rhinoceros horn, as was appropriate to his new office. The officials of the Ministry of War, hearing that the new Minister Hong was arriving

Narrative to pay his respects at court, presented themselves as his escort to the palace. Meanwhile, the ministers of state, in full convention, had resolved to have a hatchet man lie in ambush for Kiltong and cut him down the moment he came out of the palace. Now Kiltong entered the court, made obeisance, and addressed himself to the king. “In spite of the grievous crimes I have dared commit, Your Majesty has bestowed his gracious benevolence on me, freeing me of my lifelong anguish. But now I must take leave of this court forever. I humbly pray Your Majesty may enjoy a long life.” So saying, Kiltong leapt traceless into the void and vanished, wrapped in clouds. At this sight, the king sighed. “Indeed, Kiltong’s marvelous talents would be rare in any age! Now that he has declared his intention to leave Chosŏn, there will be no further cause for distress on his account. Although I may have had my suspicions, he has displayed the fine heart of a real man: there should be no cause now for worry.” He then issued a command to the eight provinces pardoning Kiltong and ending the campaign to arrest him. 13. A Visit to Nanjing The story continues: Kiltong returned to his hideout and gave orders to his robber band. “I must go somewhere for a while: I want you men to stay put here until I get back—no coming and going!” he commanded, and forthwith rose up into the air. After traveling for a while in the direction of Nanjing, he reached a place known as the Land of Ludao. Looking all about him, he saw that the mountains and streams were well formed and clean, the people prosperous, and the land capable of supporting a comfortable life. From here he went on to see the sights of Nanjing and thence to Ti Island, where he also toured about viewing the mountains and streams and examining the character of its people. But when he reached Mount Wufeng, he pronounced this scenery truly the most beautiful he had ever seen. The island viewed from Mt. Wufeng, seven hundred leagues around, abounded in fertile fields and rice paddies—an ideal place for human habitation. Kiltong thought to himself: Since I have now quit Chosŏn, this is the place for me to live on in hiding, wherein I can lay great plans. With this, he abruptly returned to his home camp and addressed his men. “On a certain day I want you to go to the banks of Yangch’ŏn on the lower reaches of the Han River and there prepare a good number of boats, whence you will proceed up the Han to Seoul on such-and-such day of such-and-such month and there await my further orders. I shall

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Part I:  Classical Literature ask the king to give us one thousand bushels of unhulled rice, which I shall bring to you. Don’t fail me!” 14. Taking Leave of the King Meanwhile, the story continues: Now that Kiltong had forsworn his banditry, the former minister Hong was able to recover his lost health, and the king, for his part, found the passing days free of their old concerns. One evening, at about the full moon of the ninth month, the king was taking a stroll in his palace gardens, enjoying the moonlight. Just then a cool breeze sprang up unexpectedly, and he was startled to behold, descending from the void, the figure of a young piper wreathed in the elegant melody of his jade flute. The boy prostrated himself before the king, who exclaimed, “Child of another world! Why this descent into the human realm? Of what do you wish to inform us?” Still prostrate, the youth answered, “I am Hong Kiltong, sire, Your Majesty’s former Minister of War.” The startled king asked, “But why do you come here so deep in the night!” Kiltong replied, “It would have been my wish respectfully to serve Your Majesty for eternity. But I was born the child of a lowly maidservant and was denied the career a civil officer might enjoy in the Office of Special Counselors or that of a military officer in the Liaison Office. So it was that I took to roaming the country as I pleased, and it was only by raising havoc with government offices and offending the court itself that I finally succeeded in bringing my plight to the attention of the throne. Your Majesty deigned to grant my petition, and so I have come now to pay my last respects before quitting this court and land. I pray, sire, that you enjoy long life without end.” As Kiltong rose into the air and flew swiftly away, the king honored his prowess with unstinting praise. Thenceforth, with bandit depredations at an end, there was perfect peace in all quarters. 15. Subduing the Monsters The story continues: Kiltong bade farewell to Chosŏn and settled on Ti Island in the area of Nanjing, where he built thousands of houses and strove to develop agriculture. Having taught his people the various skills, he set up arsenals and trained the able-bodied in the military arts. Indeed, his troops were well trained and well fed. One day it happened that Kiltong was traveling toward Mount Mangdang to obtain a certain herb to be applied to arrowheads, when he arrived in the area of Luochuan. Now, a man living there by the name of Bai Long had a daughter who was of uncommon talent and dearly beloved of her parents, but who had been inexplicably lost one day when a wild

Narrative wind arose and wreaked havoc among them. Though the grief-ridden parents had spent one thousand measures of gold in a search that extended in all directions, there was not a trace to be found. The sorrowing couple let it be known: “Whosoever may find and restore our daughter to us, with him we shall share our family fortune and regard him as our son-in-law.” Kiltong was deeply moved when he heard of this, but since there was nothing he could do for them he continued on to Mount Mangdang to dig up the needed herbs. It soon grew dark around him, and he was just wondering where to head next when the sound of men’s voices arose and the bright glint of lamplight caught his eye. When he sought out the place whence it came, however, it turned out they were not men but monsters sitting about chatting with each other—the kind of monster called an ultong, a sort that lives for many years and passes through infinite changes. Concealing himself, Kiltong let fly an arrow and struck their leader, causing the monsters all to flee screaming. He propped himself up in a tree and after sleeping the night there returned to his search for herbs. Kiltong’s work was suddenly interrupted by three or so of the monsters who asked, “What is it that brings you so deep into our mountains?” Kiltong replied, “I happen to be skilled in medicine and have come to find certain healing herbs. I consider it my good fortune to have come across you.” They were delighted to hear this. “Having lived here for some time, our King has now taken a bride, but just when he was celebrating at a banquet last night he was struck and seriously injured by some divine arrow. Since you are a knowledgeable physician, you would surely be rewarded handsomely if you could heal the king’s wound with those wonderful herbs.” Kiltong thought to himself: This king of theirs must be the one I wounded last night. When he had acceded to their request, Kiltong was led to a gate where he was made to wait while they went inside. Soon reappearing, the monsters asked Kiltong to enter. Lying abed within the spacious and elegant red and blue villa was the abominable monster, who groaned and twisted his body up in order to look at Kiltong. “It has been my unexpected fortune to be struck down by a divine arrow and left so critically wounded. But having heard of you from my attendants, I bade you come hither. This is a Heaven-sent salvation. Do not spare your skill with me!” Kiltong expressed his thanks for the high trust and said, “I think it best first to give you medicine that will cure your inner distress and then, after that, to use herbs to heal the outer wounds.” When the monster agreed to this, Kiltong extracted some poisonous herbs from his medicine pouch and, hurriedly dissolving them in warm water, fed them to the monster. As soon as the potion had gone down, the

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Part I:  Classical Literature monster let out a great cry and fell dead. At this, the other monsters flew into the room, only to be met by Kiltong’s unleashed wonders. With great blows he felled them all. Kiltong was startled then to hear the pitiful supplications of two young girls. “We are not monsters. We are human beings brought here as captives. Please save what is left of our lives! Let us go back into the world!” Recalling what he had heard about Bai Long, Kiltong asked where they lived: one was Bai Long’s daughter and the other the daughter of one Zhao Tie. He cleared away the bodies and took the two girls home to their parents, who were overjoyed to have their daughters back and received Hong Kiltong as their son-in-law. Kiltong took Bai’s daughter as his first wife and Zhao’s daughter as his second. Thus had Kiltong, in a day’s time, gained two wives and two families—all of whom he brought back with him to Ti Island, to the pleasure and congratulations of all. 16. Kiltong’s Father Laid to Rest, Mother Taken Under His Roof One day Kiltong was scanning the heavens and, startled by what he saw, broke into tears. People around him asked the reason for this expression of grief. Kiltong answered with a sigh. “I have been divining my parents’ health by reference to the heavenly bodies, and the configuration indicates that my father is critically ill. But I am saddened to think how far I am now from that bedside I cannot reach.” Everyone was saddened by his plight. On the following day, Kiltong went into Mount Yuefeng to pick out a suitable grave site and had work started on building a tomb with stone work on the scale of a state mausoleum. He also had a large boat prepared and ordered it to sail for the banks of the West River and there await further instructions. Thereupon he shaved his head and, adopting the guise of a Buddhist monk, set out himself for Chosŏn in another, much smaller boat. Meanwhile, the old minister Hong, who had suddenly fallen gravely ill, called his wife and son, Inhyŏng, to him. “I am about to die and that itself is no cause for regret. But what I do regret is to die not knowing whether Kiltong is alive or dead. If he is alive, I am sure he will seek out the family now. In that event, there are to be no distinctions between legitimate and illegitimate, and his mother, too, is to be properly treated.” With these words, he expired. The entire family mourned grievously, but once the funeral had been carried out they were perplexed that it was so difficult to find a propitious site for the grave. Then one day the gatekeeper announced that a monk had come, asking to pay his last respects before the dead. The family was pleased to receive him, but when the

Narrative bonze entered and began to cry in great wails, they did not understand any reason for this and so exchanged baffled looks among themselves. After the monk had presented himself to the chief mourner and performed more sad cries of lamentation, he finally spoke. “Inhyŏng, brother, don’t you recognize me, your own younger brother?” The chief mourner examined this monk carefully—it was Kiltong. He caught his younger brother by the hands and cried, “Is it you, dear brother? Where have you been all this while? Our father’s final words were spoken in great earnestness—it is clear to me where my duty lies.” He led him by the hand into the inner chamber to greet the widow Hong and to see Ch’unsŏm, Kiltong’s mother, who wailed, “How is it you wander about as a monk?” Kiltong replied, “It is because I am supposed to have left Chosŏn that I now shave my head and adopt the guise of a monk. Furthermore, having mastered geomancy, I have already selected a proper resting place for Father, so Mother need no longer be concerned over it.” The delighted Inhyŏng exclaimed, “Your talents are peerless! What further troubles could plague us, now that a propitious grave site has been found?” The next day, Kiltong conveyed the old minister’s coffin, and escorted his mother and brother, to the banks of the West River where, as instructed, boats were standing by. Once all the party was aboard, they sped off like arrows. Soon they arrived at a particularly dangerous spot where an army of men in tens of ships had been standing by for their arrival. As expressions of pleasure were exchanged, the flotilla and its new convoy proceeded on their solemn way. Before long, they had made their way to the mountain top and, as Inhyŏng surveyed the majestic setting, he was unrestrained in his admiration for Kiltong’s knowledge and ability. With the interment completed, they returned as a group to Kiltong’s residence, where his two wives, Bai and Zhao, greeted their brother- and mother-in-law. Kiltong’s mother, Ch’unsŏm, was unstinting in her praise of his choices and also marveled at the imposing stature to which he had grown. After several days had passed and it came time for Inhyŏng to take leave of Kiltong and Ch’unsŏm, he enjoined his younger brother to keep the grave meticulously tended, and then paid his own parting respects at the tomb before setting out. When Inhyŏng arrived in Chosŏn he went directly to see his mother, Madam Hong, and related every detail of the journey, all to her wonder and pleasure. 17. Becoming King of Ludao The story continues: Having conscientiously observed memorials both at the time of the funeral and on the two succeeding anniversaries of his father’s death, Kiltong now once again called his braves together. He perfected them in

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Part I:  Classical Literature the military arts and spared no efforts toward agriculture in order to create a well-trained and well-fed military force. The island kingdom of Ludao to the south, with its many thousand leagues of fertile land, had consistently held Kiltong’s interest and attention as truly a country of heaven-sent abundance. Calling his men together one day, he said, “It is now my intention to attack Ludao and I am asking every one of you to give his all in this effort.” The army set out the following day, with Kiltong himself in the forefront and general Ma Suk commanding the secondary force. Leading his fifty thousand select troops, Kiltong soon reached the foot of Mount Tie­ feng in Ludao and there engaged the enemy. The local magistrate, Jin Xian-zhong, alarmed at the unexpected appearance of Kiltong’s cavalry, notified his king and, at the same time, led his troops out to give battle. But in the engagement Kiltong cut down Jin Xian-zhong at the first encounter, took Tiefeng, and saw to the pacification of its citizens. Leaving one Chŏng Ch’ŏl to hold Tiefeng, he reassembled his main force and set out to strike directly at the capital city. First, however, he dispatched a declaration to the government of Ludao: “General of the Righteous Army, Hong Kiltong, addresses this missive to the King of Ludao. Let him be aware that a king is never the sovereign of one man alone but ruler of all men. It is I who have now received the Mandate of Heaven and so raise armies against you. I have already destroyed the stronghold of Tiefeng and am now surging toward your capital. If the king will do battle let him join in it now. If not, then let him promptly surrender and look to his salvation.” Upon reading the missive, the terror-stricken king said, “We had put all our trust in the Tiefeng fortress and now it is lost! What recourse do we have?” He led his ministers out to offer surrender. Thus Kiltong entered the capital and pacified its people. When he assumed the throne, he enfeoffed the former king as Lord of Ŭiryŏng and appointed Ma Suk and Ch’oe Ch’ŏl as his ministers of the left and right. When Kiltong had honored each of his other generals with appropriate rank and station, the full court convened to offer him congratulations and pray for his long reign. The new king had reigned only three years but the mountains were clear of bandits and no man touched even a valuable left by the wayside; it was a nation of great peace. One day the king called in Bai Long and said, “I have a memorial here I wish to send to the king of Chosŏn, which I must ask that you, my minister, spare no effort to deliver.” In addition to the memorial, he also sent a letter to his family. Upon arriving in Chosŏn, Bai Long first presented Kiltong’s memorial to the king, who was greatly pleased to see it and praised its author, saying, “Hong Kiltong is indeed a man of splendid talents.”

Narrative The king, furthermore, issued a warrant appointing Hong Inhyŏng a royal emissary. Inhyŏng made formal expression of his gratitude and returned home to relate these happenings to his mother. She, for her part, made clear her intention to join him on the return to Ludao, and Inhyŏng had no choice but to set out again with her. After some days they finally reached Ludao, where the king came out to meet them and, ceremonial incense tables set before him, received the royal message. This accomplished, the king, rejoicing in the reunion with Inhyŏng and his stepmother, joined them in a visit to the old minister’s grave and then spread out a grand feast that brought pleasure to all. Not many days later, Kiltong’s stepmother, Lady Yu, suddenly took ill and expired; she was buried together with her husband in the same tomb. Inhyŏng begged leave of the king to return to Chosŏn and report to the throne. His majesty, hearing of the mother’s death, expressed his condolences. 18. Death of the King of Ludao The story goes on: When the king of Ludao had completed the three prescribed annual mournings, the Queen Dowager, Ch’unsŏm, passed away and was laid to rest in the royal tombs. Three mournings, once a year, were again observed. Of the three sons and two daughters born to the king, the first and second sons were by Queen Bai; the third son and the two daughters were by Queen Zhao. He designated his first son, Hyŏn, as crown prince and enfeoffed all the others as princes and princesses. The king had reigned thirty years when he suddenly fell ill and died at the age of seventy-two. His queens soon followed him and were laid to rest in the royal tombs. Thereupon, the crown prince ascended the throne and great peace reigned for successive generations on end. Translator’s Notes The episodic divisions used in this translation were not included in the original kyŏngp’anbon text but follow those added by Chŏng Chidong on his study of The Tale of Hong Kiltong (Taegu: Munho sa, 1961). 1. The Birth of Kiltong King Sejong. This was the illustrious fourth king of the Chosŏn period whose reign from 1418 to 1450 was an era of great cultural achievement for the country. “The Tale of Hong Kiltong” seems intended to take place within the reign of King Sejong but the time span of the story, some 54 years, is much too long. Perhaps Hŏ Kyun chose this monarch because the enlightened and benevolent Sejong would offer a distinct contrast

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Part I:  Classical Literature to the tyrant Kwanghae-gun (r. 1608–1623), under whom Hŏ lived and because such a removed date would be politically safer in Hŏ’s times. We should note that, as a matter of convention, such biographical stories were normally set in the reign of a king well past. 2. Scorned at Home Illegitimate birth. By 1471 the Korean legal code denied the illegitimate son of a yangban many of the privileges enjoyed by his legitimate half-­brothers. Not only shunned within his own home, such a man could not sit for the highest civil service examinations and was given a reduced social status that qualified him only for technical positions in the government. 3. Plotting Against Kiltong True Word Sutra. This sutra is associated with an esoteric sect of Buddhism. “True Word” translates as chinŏn (Ch. zhenyan). In the Dictionary of Chinese Buddhist Terms, Soothill defines zhenyan as referring to mantras, spells, charms, and esoteric words. The story goes on, the story continues. This is taken from a stock story-­ teller’s device, found in traditional Chinese vernacular fiction, that denotes a shift in the action. Though of oral origins, this device came to be used in written narratives. 6. The Plunder of Haein Temple Raiding Haein Temple. It may seem surprising that a character whom some have described as a Korean Robin Hood would be plundering a Buddhist temple. The Buddhist church had fallen into disrepute by the end of Koryŏ, during which it had become an institution of independent economic power that could challenge and manipulate the court. To prevent its resurgence, the Chosŏn court rejected Buddhism as a state-patronized religion and took steps to limit its power and prestige. Land was confiscated, temples destroyed, and entrance into the Buddhist clergy was discouraged. In addition, monks were relegated to the lowest social class. Far from regarding Buddhism as a martyred church, traditional popular attitude seems to have agreed with official policy, for rapacious and degenerate priests figure commonly in popular anecdotes, folk tales, and entertainments. Furthermore, in a Confucian society where an unmarried man was treated as a child, celibate Buddhist monks could hardly have expected much better. In the immediate case of ”The Tale of Hong Kiltong,” the degenerate character of the monks at Haein Temple is suggested by the fact that they drink wine (which they should not) and by the fact that Kiltong addresses the abbot and an elder as social inferiors while they respond to him respectfully.

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9. A Humiliation for the Gendarme The Odes. This is the Classic of Songs (Shijing), China’s first anthology of poetry, which is popularly attributed to Confucius but is probably of later date. It is one of the primary Confucian classic texts. The line in question is from ode number 205 (according to the Mao Concordance). The Ezra Pound translation is used here. Yellow-turbaned warriors. This may be an intentional reference by Hŏ Kyun to a Chinese popular uprising of 184 A.D. against the corrupt Later Han dynasty, in which the participants identified themselves by wearing yellow turbans. Perhaps Hŏ Kyun is suggesting a parallel between the purge-plagued Later Han government and Chosŏn under the infamous Kwanghae-kun. 10. Inhyŏng Is Appointed Governor One-wheeled chaise. This unusual vehicle, illustrated below, was reserved for officials of the four highest (of eighteen) government ranks. Translation and notes by Marshall R. Pihl The Memoirs of Lady Hyegyŏng (excerpt; Hanjungnok, 1795–1805) In the spring of the kyehae year (1743) my older brother performed the capping ceremony, and his wedding was planned for kapcha (1744). I counted the days to the arrival of my new sister-in-law. But, to my complete astonishment, it was I who was selected as the bride of the Crown Prince. At first, Mother did not wish to send in my name for the royal selection.1 She thought that there would be no harm done if a scholar’s daughter were withheld from the list. But Father said, “As a subject, one does not dare to deceive the throne.” And he sent in my name. But my family was extremely poor at the time and there was simply no money for a wardrobe. Mother made a skirt with a piece of fabric that she had originally saved for my deceased older sister’s dowry; she made the lining and the undergarments of cloth taken from old clothes. How poor we were, indeed! I can still vividly picture Mother laboring to assemble the wardrobe. The twenty-eighth day of the ninth month was the day of the preliminary selection.2 I was the youngest among the candidates. I thought that since I was just too young [to be the favorite], I might as well take the opportunity to observe splendid scenes until I was allowed to return home. However, His Majesty noticeably favored me and Queen Chŏngsŏng observed me with particular interest. Lady Sŏnhŭi, the Crown Prince’s mother, was not among those seated in the selection chamber. Instead, I was summoned to her quarters beforehand. When she saw me, she seemed quite pleased and was

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Part I:  Classical Literature very loving. I thought she was kind to me because I was a young child. ­Ladies-in-waiting competed with each other to sit closer to me. All this made me quite uncomfortable. Then we were given gifts. Lady Sŏnhŭi and Prince Hwap’yŏng watched how I carried myself and taught me to improve my manners. I did as they taught. That night I slept in my mother’s room. Early the next morning, Father came in and said to Mother, “This child is the top candidate. How can that be?” He was obviously perturbed. Mother said, “After all, she is only the daughter of a poor and nameless scholar. Maybe we should not have sent in her name.” Half asleep, hearing my parents express their concerns, I became very sad and started to cry. Then, remembering how kind everyone at the palace had been, I flew into a panic and became utterly inconsolable. My parents tried to comfort me, saying, “This is not something a child should worry about.” For some reason, I became acutely despondent after the first presentation. Was it perhaps because I had a premonition of the myriad trials and tribulations that I would go through in the palace? After the initial selection, word spread, and many relatives came to visit us, even the former servants who had stopped paying us visits after kyŏngshin (1740) came. One can see how people are, and what governs their affections. On the twenty-eighth day of the tenth month, the second presentation was held.3 Naturally, I was terrified. My parents, too, were deeply worried. When they sent me off, they seemed to be anxiously hoping that, by some stroke of luck, I would not be chosen. When I arrived at the palace, however, it appeared as though the decision had already been made. First of all, the way my tent was prepared and the way I was welcomed were quite different from the treatment the other girls received. My nervousness grew steadily. At the royal audience, it became obvious. Unlike the way he received other girls, His Majesty came behind the bamboo curtain. He put his arm affectionately on my shoulder and said, “I have found a beautiful daughter-in-law. You make me think of your grandfather.” He also said, “When I met your father, I was glad to find a man of ability. You are every bit his daughter.” He seemed very pleased. Queen Chŏngsŏng and Lady Sŏnhŭi also seemed happy and were loving and kind. The princesses were also affectionate. They held my hands and were reluctant to let me go. Rather than being allowed to leave immediately, I was led to Kyŏngch’un Pavilion. Because of a delay, I had to stay quite a long while. Lady Sŏnhŭi sent some food for the midday meal. A lady-in-waiting came in and tried to remove my ceremonial robe to measure me. I resisted removing my robe at first, but she coaxed me, and I gave in and let her measure me. I felt increasingly agitated. I wanted to cry, but lest the palace ladies see me, I withheld my tears with all my strength. As soon as I entered the palanquin, I burst into tears. Then I realized, to my utter

Narrative amazement, that my palanquin was being carried by palace servants. Before I recovered from this shock, I noticed a lady messenger from the Queen, dressed completely in black, standing in the street, waiting to accompany me. My astonishment was simply indescribable. When it arrived at our house, the palanquin was led through the gate to the men’s quarters. My father raised the curtain of the palanquin and helped me down. He was dressed in ceremonial robes. He seemed awestruck and uncomfortable. How clearly I remember my father’s manner on this occasion, reverent but disturbed. I was overwhelmed by a sharp sadness as I held my parents. Even now, when I recall this scene, I cannot keep tears from streaming down. Mother also had changed into ceremonial robes. She covered the table with a red cloth. Bowing four times, she received the Queen’s message and bowing twice, Lady Sŏnhŭi’s. She, too, was reverent and uneasy. I was amazed to find that complete preparations had been made to invite the whole entourage to a repast with many different kinds of delicacies. I feel that, compared to the way in which the royal affinal families do things these days, we adhered to a much more elaborate and grand style. From that day, my parents changed their form of address to me; now they spoke to me exclusively in respectful language.4 The other elders in the family also treated me with deference. This change made me indescribably uncomfortable and sad. Realizing that his daughter was going to be the Crown Princess Consort and that it was irrevocable, Father seemed to experience an acute sense of apprehension. He perspired heavily, his clothes often became soaked, and he seemed to dread the parting. In his uneasiness, he counseled me, offering a thousand, ten thousand words of advice. I cannot record them all. The prospect of leaving my parents was, of course, simply unbearable for me. This was so horrifying that whenever I thought of it, my insides seemed to just melt away. I fell into a state of such intense anguish that I lost interest in everything. Meanwhile, every one of our relatives—not merely close ones, but even the most distant members of the lineage—came to see me before my departure. It got so that really distant ones had to be received by others in the outer quarters. My great-grandfather’s cousin from Yangju came. Several cousins of my grandfather also came. I remember in particular one elderly gentleman. He said, “Since life in the palace is so strict, this will be our farewell in this life. Please be respectful in your conduct and take good care of yourself.” He then added, “My name is Kambo, Kam for ‘mirror,’ and Po, ‘to help.’ I hope you will remember me.” Though I had never met this gentleman before, his words somehow saddened me. The final presentation was scheduled for the thirteenth day of the eleventh month.5 As the days dwindled, I became sadder, and every night I slept in my mother’s arms. My aunts—Father’s two sisters and Father’s brother’s wife, Aunt Shin—also grieved over my departure and stayed with me and were poignantly affectionate. I wanted to sleep between my

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Part I:  Classical Literature parents, so I asked Father to come and sleep in the inner quarters. But, because there were so many guests to entertain, there were only two nights on which he could come to sleep in the inner quarters. On those nights, lying between Father and Mother, how sorrowfully did I cry! They caressed and consoled me. Pitying their child, they lay sleepless. Even now, so many years later, as I think of these things I am again overwhelmed with those same feelings. I felt that it would be proper to pay a visit to the ancestral shrine of the Hong family and to the shrine of my maternal grandparents to bid farewell. However, I felt rather uneasy doing this of my own accord. My wish to pay a visit was related to Lady Sŏnhŭi through a family connection (the wife of the older brother of Lord Kŭmsŏng, His Majesty’s third sonin-law, was my second paternal aunt’s husband’s younger sister). Lady Sŏnhŭi reported my wish to His Majesty and royal permission was soon granted. Sharing a palanquin, Mother and I went to the home of the main branch of the Hong family. This uncle and his wife had no daughter. They had often invited me to their house, sometimes overnight, and they had showered me with affection. The King had heard of this relationship and had instructed this uncle: “Help with the royal wedding.” He had been staying at our house since the selection, but Aunt Ŏ was very happy to see me and brought me to the ancestral shrine. Ordinarily, descendants would bow to the shrine in the courtyard, but contrary to custom, I was made to enter the main hall and to bow there. Coming down the steps, I experienced deep stirrings in my heart. My second cousins came forward, and I sadly bid them farewell. My mother then told me that since her marriage, she had never been able to bow in the main hall of the Hong ancestral shrine. On that day, because of me, she finally got to see it at close range. Later that day we visited Mother’s family. My mother’s brother had died a few years previously, but his widow welcomed me warmly nonetheless. She seemed pensive and downcast during the farewell. My cousins, with whom I had been quite intimate—playing, riding piggyback on them, or receiving affectionate embraces—now kept a distance. They said few words and were respectful. This saddened me. It was particularly hard to say good-bye to my cousin’s young wife, Shin. We had been so fond of each other. After visiting Mother’s sisters, I returned home. Soon the day of the final presentation came. Two nights before, on the night of the eleventh, my aunts suggested to me, “How about taking one last good look at the house?”6 They led me around. The night air was cold and crisp and the moon shone brightly upon the snow-covered ground. As they led me by the hand through the garden, I wept silently. I returned to my room but could not fall asleep, and lay awake the night through. Very early the next morning, royal messengers arrived to summon me to the palace. I put on the ceremonial costume that had been sent by

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the court. The house was full of women relatives that day, distant relatives who came to bid me farewell and closer ones who gathered to leave for the bride’s pavilion.7 Soon the time came for the ceremony in which I would announce my departure at my grandfather’s shrine. I bowed deeply and read my farewell announcement. I could not help crying as I did this. My heart felt as though it would break. Father also struggled to hold back tears. How everyone lingered, unable to bring themselves to say good-bye! Translator’s Notes 1. During the Chosŏn dynasty, selections of spouses for royal children, known as samgant’aek (three-step screening), were conducted as follows. A royal edict was sent out asking that families with eligible boys or girls send in their names. After prescreening, the remaining candidates were asked to come to the court. There a final choice was made after three screenings. The royal edict concerning the selection of a wife for Crown Prince Sado was sent out in 1743. Yŏngjo sillok (hereafter YS), in Chosŏn wangjo sillok, 58:15a. 2. Eight girls were chosen in the preliminary selection. YS, 58:26a-b. 3. Three girls were chosen in the second presentation. YS, 58:29a. 4. The Korean language has different levels of speech. The language Lady Hyegyŏng’s parents now used with her was of a level appropriate to one’s elders and honored guests. 5. This was when Lady Hyegyŏng was officially chosen. YS, 58:31a. 6. Yi royal family custom did not allow women who had married into the royal family to visit their natal homes. 7. During the Chosŏn dynasty, women marrying into the royal family were housed in a pavilion near the palace between the final presentation and the wedding ceremony. This seems to have been a compromise between the demands of Chosŏn custom, which prescribed that the wedding ceremony take place at the bride’s residence, and Chu Hsi’s Family Rituals, which requires that the groom personally go to the bride’s home to bring her to his family home, where the wedding is to take place. Translation and notes by JaHyun Kim Haboush

E. Suggestions for Further Reading Cho, Sookja, trans. The Tale of Cho Ung: A Classic of Vengeance, Loyalty, and Romance. New York: Columbia University Press, 2018. Haboush, JaHyun Kim, ed. and trans. The Memoirs of Lady Hyegyŏng: The Autobiographical Writings of a Crown Princess of Eighteenth-Century Korea. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013.

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Rutt, Richard, and Kim Chong-un, trans. Virtuous Women: Three Classical Korean Novels. Seoul: Royal Asiatic Society, 1974. [Contains The Nine-Cloud Dream, The True History of Queen Inhyŏn, and The Song of a Faithful Wife, Ch’unhyang.] Pettid, Michael J., Gregory N. Evon, and Chan R. Park, eds. Premodern Korean Literary Prose: An Anthology. New York: Columbia University Press, 2018.

FOUR

Literature in Classical Chinese

A. Sinographs and Hanmunhak Sinographs (hancha, “letters of the Han Chinese”) constitute the writing system of China. Koreans borrowed the orthography of China for use in their own writing culture. Poetry composed in Chinese by Koreans is termed hanshi, and prose, hanmun; together the two forms are termed hanmunhak (“writing in the manner of the Han”). But precisely when sinographs began to be used by Koreans cannot be known with certainty. According to Samguk sagi (History of the Three Kingdoms, 1145) by Kim Pushik, a National Confucian Academy, called T’aehak (“Great learning”), was founded in the Koguryŏ kingdom in the fourth century to advance the learning of the young. Records also tell of the Paekche scholar Wang In introducing the sinograph primer known as Ch’ŏnjamun (The thousandcharacter classic) to Japan in the third century. Shilla instituted a state examination in the reading of texts for societal advancement (toksŏ ch’ulshin kwa), with the goal of fostering the development of history studies (sagi) and literacy in the Buddhist sutras. These records imply that Koreans began to use sinographs well before the Three Kingdoms period—that is, before the Christian era in the West. For more than fifteen hundred years, then, sinographs were the primary means by which the Korean people represented their native language in writing. Sinographs have form, each graph possessing a sound (ŭm) and meaning. Both the sounds and the meanings of sinographs were adopted to represent the Korean language. Several methods, collectively termed ch’aja p’yogi (borrowed-graph orthography), were developed for this purpose. Ch’amyŏng used Chinese to represent substantives. Idu used Chinese to represent entire Korean sentences following native word order. After the creation of hangŭl, texts in Chinese were sometimes annotated to facilitate their translation into Korean. This was done by inserting hangŭl letters as grammatical markers (to) into the texts, a system known as kugyŏl.

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Already by then, hyangga were being transcribed by means of hyangch’al, the most thorough and systematic method of using sinographs to represent the Korean language as spoken by the people of Shilla. Hyangch’al used certain sinographs for their meaning and other graphs for the way they were pronounced in Korean. Along with the writing system, Koreans also directly imported the advanced thought forms and material culture of China. By incorporating the Chinese writing system into their own culture, Koreans were able to independently develop an indigenous form of literature in Chinese. From the Shilla period through Koryŏ and Chosŏn, writing in Chinese expanded to become the cultural basis for Korea’s ruling class. As a symbol of knowledge and cultural attainment enjoyed by the rulers, writing in Chinese had a profound influence on the development of Korean thought, history, and culture. Buddhism, imported to Korea from China during the Three Kingdoms period, was transmitted entirely through texts in Chinese, and Neo-Confucianism (called chujahak after the Korean name for its primary exponent¸ Zhu Xi; also referred to as sŏngnihak or yuhak), which entered Korea during the late Koryŏ period and became the orthodox ideology of Chosŏn, was transmitted and developed by means of Chinese writing. Writing in Chinese was also the medium by which the Practical Learning movement emerged in Later Chosŏn. Koreans used Chinese to record their own national history, to consolidate their culture, and to create a Chinese-language literature of the highest caliber. It is for these reasons that Korean literature in Chinese is recognized for its historical importance during Korea’s classical period. The creation of hangŭl by Great King Sejong in the 1400s brought an end to the monopoly enjoyed by sinographs. But it would take centuries before the native script supplanted sinographs as the primary vehicle for the written word. Writing in Chinese continued to dominate the ideology of the Chosŏn rulers, representing the values they esteemed and serving to strengthen their social position. Because the Chosŏn period was characterized by a strict class society, the tradition of writing in Chinese was monopolized by the ruling class; its use by those of commoner status or below, as well as by women, was discouraged. To the extent that literacy in Chinese marked an individual’s social status, it became a fixed cultural sign of class hierarchy. In the mid-1800s, Korean society began to modernize, and political, social, and cultural upheavals rocked the Korean Peninsula. In the process, writing in Chinese lost its authority in all fields—politics, culture, and education—becoming instead a symbol of an outmoded society. As a vehicle for maintaining class-based elitism, it had no place in the new age, for its users and its audience had never included the vast majority of

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Koreans. Alongside the decline of literature in Chinese in late nineteenthcentury Korea, a modern literature was born that used the native script. B. Hanshi Poems in Chinese were written not only in Korea but also in Japan and other locations within the Chinese cultural sphere. Koreans refer to all such poems as hanshi, but here the term will be limited to poems in Chinese written by Koreans. Hanshi were composed in accordance with the characteristics of the Chinese language. There are rules governing graph (syllable) count, line count, tonal changes, and rhyme. Poems commonly consist of five or seven graphs per line, and, less often, four or six graphs. Most poems have four or eight lines. Four-line poems are called quatrains (chŏlgu), and eight-line poems, regulated verse (yulshi). The most fascinating aspect of hanshi is their rhyming structure. Rhyme words generally come at the end of the second and fourth lines of quatrains, and at the end of the second, fourth, sixth, and eighth lines of the regulated version. These give the poems their distinctive poetic sound. Hanshi are classified as old-style (koshi) or ­modern-style (kŭnch’e shi, “modern” referring to the Tang dynasty); quatrains and regulated verse are the main divisions of the modern style. Hanshi meant to be accompanied by musical instruments are sometimes termed scored poems (akpu shi). Old-style poems are also called “oldform” poems (koch’e shi) or “old-fashioned” (kop’ung) poems. Among their differences, old-style poems lack the regulated-verse mandate that they follow a pattern of theme, elaboration, reversal, and conclusion (kisŭng chŏn’gyŏl), nor do they have a stanzaic structure or a requirement that lines be paired. Old-style poems are freer in graph count, and their rhyming rules are less strictly observed. In general, old-style poems are less encumbered by formalistic demands, whereas modern-style poems follow structural rules to the letter. For the most part, hanshi follow the fixed form of “modern-style” poems. Scored poems first appeared in the Chinese Han dynasty and were to be sung accompanied by wind and string instruments. Therefore, the term akpu shi may be limited to poems produced during the Han period. However, poets in later eras often created metered verses (changdan ku) using themes from scored poems from the Han period, but without a musical component. These poems are also called akpu shi even though they were not meant to be sung. Hanshi are characterized by their superficial reception of the Chinese poetic tradition. Koreans lacked an adequate understanding of the Chinese language spoken in their day (the medium of poetic expression in

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“modern-style” poems) and so they used old-style writing in combination with “recent-style” versification rules. Therefore, hanshi are valued more for their meanings, ideas, themes, and spirit than for superiority in expression and form. These limitations in poetic expression distinguish hanshi from poems in Chinese written in other countries. Hanshi were not simply copies of Chinese poems but rather were written in a Korean style, a style fixed in a poetic spirit shaped by indigenous historical and social conditions. It is thought that Koreans began composing poems in Chinese for purposes of aesthetic enjoyment around the seventh century. During this period Shilla established formal diplomatic ties with Tang China and began sending students to the Tang capital for study. This assiduous education in literary Chinese (hanmun hak) extended through early Koryŏ. Major Korean producers of hanshi during this formative period include Ch’oe Ch’iwŏn of late Shilla and Ch’oe Sŭngno, Pak Illyang, and Kim Pushik of early Koryŏ. These men were influenced by the many variations of Tang poetry circulating in their day, but mainly selected the sevengraph form and the regulated verse style. Most of the poems are centered in the poet’s recollections and emotional responses. From mid-Koryŏ, hanshi underwent a major shift due to the importation of new poetics, such as that of the Song dynasty poet Su Shi. Yi Kyubo (see the “Readings” section of this chapter, which contains both a poem and an essay by him), Im Ch’un, Yi Illo, and Ch’oe Cha are recognized as the major hanshi poets during this era. In late Koryŏ the enthusiastic Neo-Confucianist An Hyang absorbed and popularized the texts of Neo-­Confucian thought, while scholars including Yi Saek (see the “Readings” section of this chapter), Chŏng Mongju, Yi Sungin, Chŏng Tojŏn, and Kwŏn Kŭn threw their energies into Chinese studies as practitioners of Daoism, producing a prolific number of writings in literary Chinese (hanmun munjang). Yi Chehyŏn is the major poet from late Koryŏ. Rich in expression and lofty in spirit, his poems were esteemed as epitomizing the art of versification in Chinese. With the founding of Chosŏn, Neo-Confucianism became the dominant current in Korean thought. The new state ideology paved the way for NeoConfucian morality and ideational structures to assume their place at the core of Korean society. Literature also came to be viewed as an “efficacious vessel containing moral virtues” (chaedogwan), and this notion of literature as a utilitarian means to cultivate morality came to dominate Chosŏn cultural and intellectual paradigms. Two verse anthologies from Early Chosŏn, Sŏ Kŏjŏng’s Tongmunsŏn (Anthology of Korean literature, 1478; Tongmun, literally “Eastern litera­

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ture,” designates literature from the region immediately east of China, that is, the Korean Peninsula), and Kim Chongjik’s Ch’ŏnggu p’ung’a (Elegant verses from Korea; Ch’ŏnggu, “green hills,” is another traditional designation for Korea), provide a comprehensive view of the historical development of hanshi. A major poet of this period was Kim Shisŭp (see the “Readings” section of this chapter). The world of Kim’s frank verses is solely the poet’s own, reflecting dissatisfaction with society and longing for freedom from worldly existence. In mid-Chosŏn, Yi Tal (1539–1612), Paek Kwanghun (1537–1582), and Ch’oe Kyŏngch’ang (1539–1583) mastered the art of the Tang poem (they became known as the Three Great Poets of Tang Verse) and reached new creative heights with their hanshi possessed of a distinctly Korean spirit. Also from this time, women such as Hwang Chini, Yi Maech’ang, and especially Hŏ Nansŏrhŏn wrote many superior hanshi. The Japanese and Manchu invasions that mark the beginning of Later Chosŏn were followed by an outbreak of political factionalism (tangnon) at the royal court, a state of affairs whose increasing intensity eventually led to a decline in eminence of the Neo-Confucian scholar class and stagnation in their poetic output. “Aesthetic poems” (p’ungnyu shi) from this period by Yi Tŏngmu, Yu Tŭkkong, and Pak Chega are testaments to their authors’ abundant wit, while among Practical Learning thinkers Chŏng Yagyong (see the “Readings” section of this chapter) is noted for poems grounded in an awareness of social reality. Shin Wi, a scholar famed for his achievement in poetry, prose, and painting, is one of the master poets of Chosŏn, prized for his colorful imagery and freedom of expression. In Later Chosŏn, intellectuals of the new chungin class, situated socially between the yangban aristocracy and the commoners, together with the sŏŏl (sons of yangban fathers and non-yangban mothers), established a new and less class-conscious form of writing they called wihang literature. Headed by Hong Set’ae’s Haedong yuju (Pearls from Korea), examples of this genre include Sodae p’ungyo (Customary songs of our bright age), P’ungyo soksŏn (Further selections of customary songs), and P’ungyo samsŏn (Three collections of customary songs), all containing hanshi. Two writers of wihang hanshi known to subsequent generations are Cho Susam and Yi Sangjŏk. The poems of Kim Sakkat (see the “Readings” section of this chapter) may be read as an attempt to incorporate orality in hanshi. Kim lived in the nineteenth century, at a time when the vernacular verse forms of kasa and sasŏl shijo were gaining interest and prose writing was becoming more popular as a mode of literary expression. Scholars disagree on whether he should be considered an innovator or an iconoclast, with some finding his work more interesting as folk humor than as literature. Whatever their assessment, Kim’s poetry is unique within the long tradition of hanshi.

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By the close of the short-lived Great Han Empire (Taehan cheguk, 1897– 1910) the quartet of Kang Wi, Kim T’aeg’yŏng, Yi Kŏnch’ang, and Hwang Hyŏn had established themselves as the Four Great Writers of the period. But with their passing and the loss of the nation to imperial Japan, the long age of Korean literature written in Chinese drew to a close. C. Hanmun Sosŏl: Prose in Literary Chinese The first recorded instance of the term sosŏl (literally, small stories) in Korean documents is in Paegun sosŏl (Notes on poems and other trifles) by the Koryŏ literatus Yi Kyubo. Sosŏl is part of the title of this collection but means something much different from “fiction,” which is how we understand the term in the modern era. Yi’s work is a collection of treatises and anecdotes about poetry (shihwa, “talks on poetry”), and includes his own hanshi as well as prose writing in literary Chinese. And in Chosŏn period works such as Ŏ Sukkwŏn’s P’aegwan chapki (A Storyteller’s Miscellany) and Yi Sugwang’s Chibong yusŏl (Cyclopedia by Chibong [the sobriquet of Yi Sugwang], 1614), the latter considered to be the first Korean encyclopedia, sosŏl refers to various writings about history as well as folk tales, personal anecdotes, and poetry. This reminds us that at least from Koryŏ until Early Chosŏn the term had a much broader meaning than it does today. A variety of terms similar to sosŏl were common in Chosŏn: p’aesŏl (folk stories, or tales collected by officials), chapsŏl (miscellaneous stories), yŏnŭi (tales), and chŏn’gi (strange tales). The emergence of sosŏl written in Korean (kungmun sosŏl) was attended by still other new terms—ŏndam (stories), ŏnp’ae (vulgar stories), and ŏnsŏ kodam (vulgar books of old tales). P’aesŏl referred originally to the books compiled by the lower-level officials in China whose job it was to travel about the provinces and gather stories popular among commoners. In Korea, the term surfaced during the Koryŏ period in prose works written in Chinese. The term yŏnŭi comes from the title of the monumental Chinese narrative Sanguozhi yanyi (Romance of the Three Kingdoms). In Korea, yŏnŭi was a common synonym for sosŏl. Chŏn’gi (strange tales) were a category of Tang period sosŏl distinguished from chi’goe (stories of the strange). Chŏn’gi sosŏl are stories about strange happenings. Ŏnsŏ and ŏndam were common terms for sosŏl written in vernacular Korean. Within the context of Korean literature written in Chinese, the term sosŏl carries a variety of meanings: stories of strange happenings, tales about individuals, authentic life experiences, treatises and anecdotes on poetry, and transcriptions of folk tales. The term thus defies attempts at strict definition. Although it has been in common use for centuries, it has

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referred to a variety of narrative forms across a variety of periods. For the remainder of our discussion of classical literature, we will refer to sosŏl as “fictional narratives.” The origins of Korean fictional narratives written in Chinese (hanmun sosŏl) may be traced to transcriptions of folk tales (munhŏn sŏlhwa). Folk tales may be understood as a form of narrative that does not exceed the dimension of a simple story. The world of the folk tale may express a specific authorial interest in social problems, and this aspect was likely incorporated in fictional narratives. Certain aspects of the narrative structure of the stories “Kim Hyŏn kamho” (Kim Hyŏn who loved the tiger) and “Cho Shin” in Iryŏn’s Samguk yusa (Memorabilia of the Three Kingdoms, 1281) approach those of fictional narratives, but these stories are much more folk tale–like than sosŏl-like. Allegorical literature (kajŏn munhak), which flourished from mid-Koryŏ on, does not qualify as fictional narrative because of its strong dogmatic character. Kim Shisŭp’s Kŭmo shinhwa (New tales from Golden Turtle Mountain, 1653) represents an advance over the folk tale and allegory and contains arguably the first full-fledged hanmun fictional narratives. In their earliest stages, hanmun fictional narratives directly imitated their counterparts in China, but from mid-Chosŏn on they began to reveal differences in content and form. Stories from this later stage of development often involve movement of the hero between the supernatural and mundane worlds, and broadly topicalize people’s life conditions and desires. Such aspects are thought to reflect the worldview and perceptions of reality of the scholar-bureaucrats who created such narratives during this period. Hanmun fictional narratives had a pronounced effect on the emergence and development of fictional narratives in Korean. Many fictional narratives were produced in both Korean and Chinese versions. Because the hanmun narratives were not written anonymously, as the Korean narratives tended to be, their authors and the dates of their production are generally known to us, enhancing the value of these narratives in our attempt at a comprehensive understanding of the historical development of the fictional narrative in Korea. Allegorical literature first appeared during the Koryŏ period. Basically fictional in content, this literature preceded the development of the hanmun fictional narrative. Surviving examples of the genre include Im Ch’un’s “Kuksun chŏn” (Tale of yeast) and “Kongbang chŏn” (Tale of Mr. Cash); Yi Kyubo’s “Kuk sŏnsaeng chŏn” (Tale of Master Malt) and “Ch’ŏnggang saja hyŏnbu chŏn” (Tale of Master Tortoise, messenger from the clear waters); Yi Kok’s “Chukpuin chŏn” (Tale of Madam Bamboo); Yi Ch’ŏm’s “Chŏ saeng chŏn” (Tale of Master Mulberry); and

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Sŏk Shig’yŏng’am’s “Chŏng shija chŏn” (Tale of attendant Chŏng). Written in Chinese by scholar-­officials, these works anthropomorphize objects from everyday life such as alcohol, money, walking sticks, and bamboo, employing them as protagonists of the stories. Imbuing objects with human qualities in fashioning an imaginary tale is highly reminiscent of the conventional fable (uhwa). But within the broader realm of hanmun narratives, such works are termed kajŏn (disguise tales), because the protagonist is represented allegorically by a personified object. In both “Kuksun chŏn” and “Kuk sŏnsaeng chŏn,” the anthropomorphized substance is alcohol. The former tale thematizes the negative aspects of drunkenness in satirizing scholar-bureacrats and monarchs. “Kuk sŏnsaeng chŏn,” conversely, touts the positive aspects of alcoholic beverages for the improvement of society. “Chŏ saeng chŏn” cloaks its meaning in the vesture of Chinese history, discoursing on the production and use of money in satirizing the economic conditions and practices of Koryŏ society. “Ch’ŏnggang saja hyŏnbu chŏn” uses the tortoise as its hero in appealing to corrupt public officials to cultivate lofty morals. All of these works are rooted in the resentments of the literati class at being persecuted by the military, which effectively ruled the kingdom from the late twelfth century well into the thirteenth century. “Chukpuin chŏn” is an encomium to female chastity, using bamboo as its chief metaphor. “Chŏ saeng chŏn” makes paper its protagonist to reflect on the lives of literatiofficials. “Chŏng shija chŏn” is a fable whose protagonist is a personified walking stick. The authors of these stories were scholar-officials on the political and social rise. Through the medium of the kajŏn they flaunted their education and erudition, fashioning allegorical worlds to express dissatisfaction with the status quo of their government and society. This “instructional” character marks the tales as products of the intellectual and moral impulses of newly rising bureaucrat-officials content to use literature to both mask and assert their political agendas. The hanmun fictional narrative dates to Kim Shisŭp’s Kŭmo shinhwa. This work contains five tales: “Manboksa chŏp’o ki” (Casting the dice at Manbok Temple), “Yi saeng kyujang chŏn” (Student Yi Peers over the Wall), “Ch’wiyu pubyŏk chŏng ki” (Drunken merriment at Pubyŏk Pavilion), “Nam yŏmbuju chi” (The mythical southern state of Yŏmbuju), and “Yonggung puyŏn nok” (A banquet at the dragon palace). All are typical of the “strange tale” style. The protagonists of these short narratives written in Chinese by scholar-bureaucrats are mostly aristocratic, and their social realities are reflected in the stories. The plots exhibit aspects of the marvelous and the mysterious, and are fantastic or romantic. Unrealistic

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elements in the tales, like imaginary spirits and supernatural settings, serve to express, through metaphor and paradox, the tragic sentiments of their authors. Alternatively, they may be comments on social ideals difficult to attain within the grim conditions of contemporary reality. Superhuman figures are vehicles for overcoming the frustration of human desires stemming from inequalities in the social structure or the limitations of being human. Kŭmo shinhwa author Kim Shisŭp was himself a scholar-­official who held a critical view of the power holders in Early Chosŏn. While rooted in Neo-Confucian thought, he also was influenced by Buddhist concepts. Kŭmo shinhwa is an artistic expression of this conflict between the author’s ideals and the reality of his society. Not a few hanmun “strange tales” of the Chosŏn period were influenced by the kajŏn of Koryŏ. Indeed, many Chosŏn fictional narratives contain anthropomorphic or fabular elements. Kim Uong’s “Ch’ŏn’gun ki” (Tale of the heavenly prince), which anthropomorphizes the moral mind (shimsŏng) in its thematization of epic struggle, Im Che’s “Susŏng chi” (Melancholy fortress), and Chŏng T’aeje’s “Ch’ŏn’gun yŏnŭi” (Tale of the heavenly prince) use a heavenly prince as the hero in a struggle between two groups of ministers, loyal and wicked, who vie for the soul of their lord. Plant life was also an object of anthropomorphization, as in Im Che’s “Hwa sa” (A history of flora), which alludes to the history of humankind. Other works, such as “Sŏdaeju chŏn” (Tale of the great rat state) and “Sŏok ki” (Prison of rats), allegorize animals. These two works were produced anonymously in the early sixteenth century, as divisions widened between the entrenched ruling class and the bureaucratic society. These allegorical narratives generally strove to fulfill an educational function, using anthropomorphization to satirize their social milieu. Dream narratives (mongyurok), a genre especially favored by Chosŏn intellectuals, are fabular narratives that offer new interpretations of society through the motif of the fantastic dream. These narratives begin with a chapter depicting the hero’s entry into a dream and conclude with his awakening from the dream. In this sense, the narrative structure is much like a story-within-a-story. The central motifs in the dream sequences are scholarly debates and banquets for poetry composition. Representative works in this genre include Im Che’s “Wŏn saeng mongyurok” (Wŏn’s dream journey), Shim Ŭi’s “Tae’gwanjae mongyurok” (Dream journey to Tae’gwanjae), Yun Kyesŏn’s “Talch’ŏn mongyurok” (Dream journey to Talch’ŏn), and the anonymous “P’i saeng mongyurok” (P’i’s dream journey), “Kangdo mongyurok” (Dream journey to Kanghwa), and “Pubyŏk mongyurok” (Dream journey to Pubyŏk Pavilion). The plots of these

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works revolve about conflict between the mind-set of the protagonist and his sociohistorical circumstances. They are also highly moralistic, the fantasy space of the dream used to illuminate the author’s own ideas and to critique his sober reality. Notable among seventeenth-century hanmun fictional narratives are Hŏ Kyun’s “Namgung sŏnsaeng chŏn” (Tale of Master Namgung), “Ŏm ch’ŏsa chŏn” (Tale of Ŏm, a retired scholar), “Songgok sanin chŏn” (Tale of Songgok the hermit), “Chang sanin chŏn” (Tale of Chang the hermit), and “Chang saeng chŏn” (Tale of scholar Chang). These works belong to a genre of narratives, ilsa sosŏl, about retired scholars living a quiet life of seclusion. The protagonists of these stories are impoverished scholars who have been shunned by society, or else merchant townsmen or peasants. Typically these characters are either men of talent (chaesa) or extraordinary individuals (iin), but in both cases they have turned their backs on the world in their deep dissatisfaction with it. Author Hŏ Kyun adapted the structure of the tale (chŏn) to depict the lives led by hermit intellectuals. Although his five tales in this genre appear to have been based on individuals he met in real life, his depictions are fictional re-creations. The author’s imagination embellishes the tale form, resulting in narratives that are genuinely fictional. Yi Ok’s “Shim saeng chŏn” (Tale of young Shim), “Chang Poksŏn chŏn” (Tale of Chang Poksŏn), “Shin’a chŏn” (Tale of Shin, a mute), “Sangnang chŏn” (Tale of a woman extolled), and “Pumokhan chŏn” (Tale of a temple factotum) are each structured like a tale. Humankind is cast in a positive light through protagonists such as “men of the people” (shijŏngin), exemplary women (ch’unghyo yŏllyŏ), and extraordinary individuals, and the immorality plaguing society is subject to harsh indictment by the author. The naive moral virtues of the peasant class (hach’ŭngmin) are held up for consideration. A similar tendency is visible in Kim Ryŏ’s “Kasujae chŏn” (Tale of Kasujae) and “Sangnangja chŏn” (Tale of the man in the straw sack). In Later Chosŏn, Pak Chiwŏn, an outstanding representative of the Practical Learning movement, paved new directions for the hanmun fictional narrative with his ideal of cultivating the public welfare. Pak’s practical-minded stories “Hŏ saeng chŏn” (Tale of Master Hŏ) and “Hojil” (The tiger’s admonition) are included in his Yŏrha ilgi (Jehol diary), while “Yangban chŏn” (The Yangban’s Tale; see the “Readings” section of this chapter), “Ma Chang chŏn” (Tale of Ma Chang), “Yedŏk sŏnsaeng chŏn” (Tale of Master Yedŏk), “Min ong chŏn” (Tale of old man Min), “Kim Shinsŏn chŏn” (Tale of wizard Kim), and “U Sang chŏn” (Tale of U Sang) are found in Panggyŏnggak oejŏn (Extraordinary stories from the tower that puts forth jewels). Social satire and criticism are important in these works,

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and all carry the attributes of a satirical fictional narrative. “Ma Chang chŏn” and “Yedŏk sŏnsaeng chŏn” emphasize the good nature and moral fiber of the peasantry. “Min ong chŏn,” “Kim shinsŏn chŏn,” and “U Sang chŏn” express pity for the disillusioned “man of the people” intellectuals as well as showing the author’s ascetic views (shinsŏn’gwan). “Yangban chŏn,” “Hojil,” and “Hŏ saeng chŏn” sharply censure the upper classes, especially political administrators and intellectuals, and sound a call to remedy the contradictions plaguing their society. These properties set Pak’s works apart to a certain degree from the genre of the tale. The tale assumed a host of fiction-like qualities in Later Chosŏn, and by the nineteenth century was indistinguishable in form and content from hanmun fictional narratives. In Later Chosŏn, with the emergence of vernacular fictional narratives, Chinese and Korean versions of the same story might coexist: either the work was written first in Chinese and later translated into Korean, or the Chinese version was produced by way of reference to vernacular narratives. This led to the existence of many textual variants (ibon) in both languages. Works such as “Imjinnok” (The imjin wars) and “Im Kyŏngŏp chŏn” (Tale of Im Kyŏngŏp) have been passed down in both Korean and Chinese versions. Also existing in both languages are narratives dealing with romantic love, such as Unyŏng chŏn (Tale of Unyŏng), “Sukhyang chŏn” (Tale of Sukhyang), and “Hong Paekhwa chŏn” (Tale of Hong Paekhwa). Unyŏng chŏn narrates the story of a romantic affair between a palace woman and a palace outsider. The other two tales emphasize women’s chastity. Other romantic narratives from Chosŏn are Sŏ Yuyŏng’s “Yungmidang chŏn” (Tale of Yungmidang) and Kwŏn P’il’s “Chu saeng chŏn” (Tale of Chu). The hanmun short story (hanmun tanp’yŏn) is a distinct narrative form that emerged under the rapidly changing social conditions of Later Chosŏn. This innovative form is similar to the chŏn and to popular legends (min’gan sŏlhwa). Works in this genre are also termed yadam (“dubious tale” or “unofficial historical story”; see the “Readings” section of this chapter). These stories are co-optations of tales circulating in the private sphere, including slices of life from the society of the time. They commonly thematize cultural shifts, the downfall of the yangban class and its struggles to maintain power, passion between lovers, moral confusion, and ambiguous aspects of conventional mores. This genre proved an especially prolific one, yielding collections such as Yi Hŭijun’s Kyesŏ yadam (Yadam from Kyesŏ [the sobriquet of Yi Hŭijun]), Yi Wŏnmyŏng’s Tongya hwijip (Yadam from the Korea; Tongya, “eastern fields,” is another of the traditional designations for Korea), and the anonymous Ch’ŏnggu yadam (Yadam from Korea).

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D. Readings Yi Kyubo Evening on the Mountain: Song to the Moon in the Well A mountain monk coveted the moon; He drew water, a whole jar full; But when he reached his temple, he discovered That tilting the jar meant spilling the moon. Translation by Kevin O’Rourke Yi Saek Song of a Madman I’m the quiet type; turmoil is not my thing; only a cloud on the wind is in constant motion. I’m the open type; I don’t have hidden agendas; water in a well cannot flow. Water, in reflecting an object, shows the beautiful and the ugly; clouds are insensible; they gather and scatter at will. When I see heaven’s will in nature, how can I let time pass idly by? When I have money, I buy wine. No need for second thoughts. When I have wine, I want flowers. Why hesitate? I look at the flowers, drink the wine, let my white hair stream free; I climb East Mountain, enjoy the moon and the breeze. Translation by Kevin O’Rourke Kim Shisŭp Speaking My Mind in Sickness The world has many flavors; but I’m the same old me. Caught between heaven and earth, my body is a caricature. It’s midday in my mountain retreat; quiet, not much afoot. I lie here with the thousand books in my belly drying in the sun. Translation by Kevin O’Rourke

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Pak Chiwŏn Thinking of My Dead Brother in Yŏnam My brother’s face and hair, who did they remind me of? When I tried to recall my father, I always saw my brother. Now when I think of my brother, where shall I look? I’ll don my official skullcap and look at my reflection in the stream. Translation by Kevin O’Rourke Chŏng Yagyong Royal Skirt Album My sick wife sent me her faded skirt; it comes with long miles of warm affection. The red has dulled with the passage of time; in old age it’s hard to hold back my tears. I’ve made a small “cut-out” album in which I’m writing something to edify my sons. I hope it plumbs a father’s heart, That my thoughts are etched for a lifetime in their breasts. Translation by Kevin O’Rourke Kim Sakkat My Rainhat My airy rainhat is the equivalent of an empty boat; use it once and I have it for forty autumns. The cowherd, light rainhat on his head, goes to feed the calves; the old fisherman, following the gulls on the sand, shows his true self off. Drunk, I doff my hat and hang it on the flower tree I was admiring. When the mood comes, I climb the terrace, hat in hand, to view the moon. For worldings, formal dress is a matter of looking right. Me? I haven’t a worry, not even when the sky is full of wind and rain. Translation by Kevin O’Rourke

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Part I:  Classical Literature Yi Kyubo On Mirrors A recluse had a mirror. Because it was dimmed by the dust that spread over it, the mirror looked like the moon covered by a screen of clouds. But still the recluse looked into the mirror morning and evening, like a person who was adorning his face. A visitor saw this and inquired, saying, “A mirror is for reflecting the face. If it doesn’t, then a gentleman, regarding one, seeks out its clarity. Your mirror now is as if misty or fogged, and you no longer can reflect your face or seek out its clarity. But you still keep looking to reflect your face. What is the reason for this?” The recluse said, “If the mirror is bright, a handsome person likes it and an ugly person dislikes it. But, there are few handsome people and many ugly people. If one is going to look and necessarily end up smashing it to pieces, then it is better to let it stay dim with dust. The dimness of the dust spreads only on the surface and does not harm the clarity. So, though you were to polish it only after encountering a handsome person it would not be too late. Ah, in olden times, one who regarded a mirror did so to seek out its clarity, but I regard a mirror in order to seek out its dimness. So, what do you find so strange in that?” But, then, the visitor had no answer. Translation by Marshall R. Pihl Pak Chiwŏn The Yangban’s Tale (Yangban chŏn) A yangban lived in Chŏngsŏn in Kangwŏn Province. A man of most benevolent disposition, he loved reading the classics. Whenever a new county magistrate was appointed, it was customary for the new appointee to seek out the yangban and express his warmest feelings of respect. However, such was the poverty of the yangban’s household that he had borrowed 100 bags of rice from the government granary over the last number of years, a state of affairs that greatly angered the inspector when he came to town on an official inspection and examined the accounts of the government granary. “What son-of-a-bitch of a yangban has depleted the army grain?” he shouted and he ordered the arrest of the yangban. When the county magistrate got the official arrest order, he was filled with pity for the yangban. But what could he do! The yangban had no means of repaying the debt. The magistrate was caught in an impossible situation. He couldn’t put the yangban in jail, and he couldn’t disobey the order of a superior.

Literature in Classical Chinese The yangban in his desperate plight was reduced to tears. He wept day and night but unfortunately failed to come up with a plan. The yangban’s wife cried out in frustration. “You’ve spent your life sitting there reading and now there’s no way of repaying the debt. Yangban, yangban! I’m sick of rotten yangban. The title is rubbish!” A rich man lived in the village, and when the story of the yangban’s misfortune was noised abroad, the rich man had a serious discussion with the members of his household. “No matter how poor a yangban is, he’s always respected and honored. No matter how much money I make, I’m always despised. I’m not let ride a horse. If I meet a yangban, I must tremble and grovel. I bow, I scrape, I sprawl. It’s a dirty life. Now the local yangban has a huge problem. He’s caught; he has no way of repaying the government grain. So why shouldn’t I buy his title and be a yangban myself?” As soon as the rich man had the agreement of his household, he went to see the yangban and offered to repay the government grain. The yangban was delighted. True to his word, the rich man went to the government office and repaid the debt. The shocked magistrate, not sure what this was all about, went to see the yangban. The yangban, dressed in hat and knee breeches, fell to the ground in fear and trembling. He couldn’t even look at the magistrate, and he kept referring to himself in the low form as “Your servant, your servant.” More shocked than ever, the magistrate helped the yangban to his feet. “What does all this mean? Why on earth are you doing this?” The yangban was even more overwhelmed. He fell to his knees again, kowtowed and said, “A thousand pardons. Your servant has sold his yangban title and repaid the grain debt. From now on, the rich man on the other side of the street is the yangban. Your servant can no longer behave with the arrogance of the past.” The magistrate was filled with wonder by all he heard. “This rich man is truly a wise man, a yangban. No meanness in the accumulation of wealth: a man of righteousness. Takes the urgency of another man’s predicament as his own: a man of benevolence. Hates the low, loves the high: there’s wisdom here. This man is truly a yangban. At the same time, if people sell the yangban title by private agreement, without a proper deed, there’ll surely be lawsuits in time to come. This transaction will only be accepted if I call the people of the village together, appoint witnesses, and draw up a proper deed. I’ll sign the deed in my capacity as magistrate.” So spoke the magistrate. Accordingly the magistrate called all the ranking men in the town to a meeting. He also called the farmers, artisans and small traders. He sat

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Part I:  Classical Literature the rich man on the right of the dais in the place of honor, and he put the yangban in the courtyard. Then he drew up the deed and read it aloud. “This deed is drawn up on such-and-such a day in the ninth month of the tenth year of the reign of Ch’ienlung. “The yangban title has been sold to repay a debt in government rice; the price is 100 bags of rice. “There are several divisions of yangban. There is the scholar sŏnbi; there is the official who participates in government; there is the man of virtue known as kunja or wise man. The muban [military nobility] stand to the west; the munban [civil service nobility] stand to the east. Hence the yang or double branch of the nobility. You must choose from among these divisions. “Henceforth, you must perpetrate no base deed. You must imitate the men of old and respect their will. You must rise at the fifth watch, light a candle, and sit with your eyes trained on the tip of your nose, knees bent, heels supporting your buttocks. You must recite fluently from The Writings of Tung-la, and your voice must sound like a gourd sliding across ice. You must endure the pangs of hunger, put up with cold and never let the word poor pass your lips. You must grit your teeth, tap the back of your head with your fist and with a gentle cough swallow your saliva. You must clean your official hat with your sleeve, but the dusting movement must be as smooth as water waves. When you wash your hands, you must clench your fist and refrain from scrubbing. When you rinse your mouth, make sure there is no offensive odor. Call your servants with a long, easy drawl; walk slowly, drag your feet. In copying from the True Treasure of Classical Literature and the Anthology of Tang Poetry, make sure you use tiny sesame seed lettering, a hundred characters to the line. Don’t soil your hands with money; never ask the price of rice. No matter how hot it is, you mustn’t take off your thick pŏsŏn socks. Don’t eat with your topknot uncovered. When you eat, don’t begin with the soup, and don’t gulp your food. Don’t work your chopsticks like pestles and don’t eat raw leek. When you drink wine don’t slurp on your beard; when you smoke don’t suck in your cheeks. No matter how angry you are, don’t beat your wife; no matter how vexing affairs may be, don’t throw dishes. Don’t hit the children with your fist. Don’t call a servant a rotten so-andso. When you’re annoyed by an ox or a horse, don’t curse the owner. Don’t warm your hands over a brazier. When you speak, don’t let your spittle fly. Don’t butcher beef or eat it. Don’t gamble. If any of the hundred provisions are at odds with appropriate yangban decorum, you must bring this deed to the government office and have it corrected.” His Lordship the magistrate of Chŏngsŏn affixed his signature to the deed; the chief clerk and the inspector signed as well. The usher then took out the seals and attached them here and there across the deed. The sound of the seals rang out the beat of a big drum; the seals on the deed were like the stars in the sky. When the local headmen had all read the

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deed, the rich man, visibly discountenanced, thought for a while and said, “Is this what a yangban is? I always heard a yangban was like one of the Immortals. If this is all there is to it, it’s not very attractive. Can’t you correct it, give the rank a little more substance?” Whereupon the magistrate wrote a new deed. “When Heaven created our people, it made four divisions. Of these four divisions, the most prestigious was the sŏnbi scholar; the sŏnbi was yangban and there was nothing better. He had neither to farm nor to engage in trade. With a little learning, he could advance in the civil service. At worst, he had the rank of chinsa. The red certificate of the civil service is no more than two feet long, but it holds a hundred things. It is the sŏnbi’s money bag. If a chinsa gets his first appointment at thirty, every other post in the bureaucracy is open to him. His sideburns can grow white while he sits under a sunshade; his stomach can swell to a chorus of “yeas” from his servants. In his room he can seat a kisaeng beside him; he can breed cranes in the trees in his garden. An impoverished sŏnbi, resident in the country, can do as he pleases. He can take a neighbor’s ox and plough his own fields first; he can call the villagers to weed his fields first. No one can curse him for behaving thus; no one can express resentment, not even a man who is hauled in and has lye stuck under his nose, not even if he is strung up by the topknot in punishment.” The rich man took the deed, stuck out his tongue, and said, “Stop, please! This is unbelievable! Are you trying to turn me into a thief?” The rich man covered his head with his hands and took to his heels. Until the day he died, he never mentioned the word yangban again. Translation by Kevin O’Rourke Score One for the Dancing Girl Cho T’aeŏk, a Minister of State, had for wife a member of the Shim clan, a most jealous woman, who forbade her husband’s casting even a glance in the direction of any other member of womankind. His older brother was Governor of P’yŏng’an Province while T’aeŏk himself was Secretary of a Board. While in charge of this office he received orders from the Government to proceed at once to P’yŏng’yang [capital of P’yŏng’an Province]. He made the journey safely and while spending some days at the Government Headquarters fell in with a dancing girl for the first time in his life. A rumour of this got abroad, and coming to his wife, she at once ordered her traveling kit made ready and prepared for an immediate departure for P’yŏng’yang. She took her brother along, grimly determined that she would make an end of this unspeakable dancing girl. Hearing of it, Cho turned pale, while his brother the governor was equally alarmed. Said he, “What shall we do about it?” In haste, he gave orders that the dancing girl escape for her life.

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Part I:  Classical Literature This dancing girl, however, calmly said in reply, “There is no reason to run away that I know of. Even though I stay here, what special danger is there, pray? I am so wretchedly poor that I have not the necessary means to carry out what I’d like to do. If you will give me a little money, I’ll see that all is managed successfully.” The governor inquired, “What do you propose to do with the money?” Her reply was, “I want some clothes. That’s what I mean.” The Governor said, “If you really have some plans to see this thing through, then you may safely ask what you please and I’ll give it.” He ordered the steward to give her whatever she required. He then sent messengers as well to Chunghwa and Hwangju to meet the lady on the way to express his special compliments and see to her food and fare. When Madame Shim reached Hwangju and met people from P’yŏngyang with abundant supplies of food and dainties, she looked at them with a sniff of contempt and inquired, “Am I a Minister of State that you come out thus to meet me? I have means enough, and am quite capable of looking after my own affairs,” and so she sent them all about their business. When she reached Chunghwa a like scene followed, for a group met her which she again contemptuously drove off. She passed Chaesongwŏn and reached Changnim [Long Wood]. It was then toward the close of the spring season that this happened and so along the three miles of trees the early glory of summer was all about her; the river too at every turn was most delightful to see. Shim-ssi, or Madame Shim, as we would call her, lifted the curtain of her chair and peeked out as she went by. After passing the avenue of trees she came to the white sands of the shore where the river like a great mirror lay before her. Walls skirted the bank along which the trading boats lay thickly crowded together. The East Gate, too, Yŏn’gwang Pavilion, and Ŭlmil Outlook stood high up in front. The decorations of the upper towers flashed in the light and dazzled her eyes. Seeing it, she said, “Assuredly this P’yŏng’yang is a noted place worthy of its name.” While she was passing over the sands she saw in the distance something that looked like a bouquet of flowers but which, on nearer approach, turned out to be a dancing girl, dressed in green and red, riding a prancing palfrey specially saddled and decorated. She was surprised at this and asked the bearers to wait a moment till she could see. When the rider came near she dismounted and said, “I am such-andsuch a dancing girl and have come to greet Your Ladyship.” Hearing her name, Madame Shim recognized her as the guilty party, and immediately her soul revolted at the thought of her and rose three thousand feet into mid-air in fiery indignation. She roared out, “What business have you, bold-faced huzzy, to come out and greet me? Come here till I look you over.”

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The kisaeng [dancing girl] came with a kindly face and submissive manner, and Shim-ssi, seeing her fresh as the bloom of the peach, her lithe waist like the willow, and her rich and comely dress, realized that she was indeed the rarest of beauties. She looked at her for a few minutes and then asked, “How old are you?” “I am eighteen,” replied the girl. Shim-ssi went on, “You are a rare beauty, no question about that. I don’t wonder men seeing you are unable to resist your charms. I came to kill you but now that I meet you, I am persuaded otherwise. Go back and stay with my husband. Know, however, that he is a fool and has no sense whatever. Be careful of his health. If he contracts a disease while under your care, you shall die.” When she had said this she ordered her caravan turn right about and started back to Seoul. When the Governor heard of her having turned back, he sent a messenger in hot haste, saying, “Wait, Madame, please. Seeing you have come all this way, come into the city and rest a day or two before you return.” Madame Shim replied, “Not a bit of it. I am not a beggar asking alms; what reason could I have for staying?” and with that she was off. The Governor then called this kisaeng and asked her how she had dared face the tigress and get off scot-free. The dancing girl replied, “The woman’s nature is vehement, beyond all word, and thus has she come these many miles. But even a kicking horse, when it has kicked its fill, gives up at last. So a woman, likewise, when she has had time to expend her fury, gives way. I thought, ‘If I die I die,’ and so put on my best dress and went out to meet her humbly, made my bow, and that won the day.” Translation and bracketed insertions by James Scarth Gale; edited by Ross King and Si Nae Park

E. Suggestions for Further Reading King, Ross, and Si Nae Park, eds., with annotations by Donguk Kim. Score One for the Dancing Girl, and Other Selections from the Kimun Ch’onghwa: A Story Collection from Nineteenth-Century Korea. Trans. James Scarth Gale. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2017. Lee Sung-Il, trans. The Moonlit Pond: Korean Classical Poems in Chinese. Port Townsend, Wash.: Copper Canyon Press, 1997. O’Rourke, Kevin, trans. Singing Like a Cricket, Hooting Like an Owl: Selected Poems of Yi Kyu-bo. Cornell East Asia Series 78. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell East Asia Series, 1995. ———, trans. Tilting the Jar, Spilling the Moon. Seoul: Universal Publishing, 1988.

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———, trans. and ed. Selected Poems by Kim Sakkat. Korean translations by Han Kyŏngshim. St. Paul, Minn.: Koryo Press, 2014. Pettid, Michael J., and Kil Cha, trans. Unyŏng-jŏn: A Love Affair at the Royal Palace of Chosŏn Korea. Korea Research Monograph 33. Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley, 2009.

FIVE

Oral Literature

Oral literature is produced through the medium of oral performance without regard to the written word. But oral literatures may develop differently, depending on changes in the given society’s writing practices. Oral literature is presumed to have been the only literature in Korea before the introduction of the Chinese writing system to the Korean Peninsula in the second century BC. From that time, literature in Chinese (hanmunhak) took root as the recorded literature (kirok munhak) of one segment of the ruling class. But oral literature lived on among the commoners in the form of their songs and stories. Even in the Koryŏ period, by which time classical Chinese had been adopted as the official writing system, recorded literature by the ruling class and oral literature by the peasant class remained in coexistence. With the invention of hangŭl during the Chosŏn period, recorded literature branched into literature in Chinese and literature in Korean. Stories passed down as oral literature often became the subject matter for vernacular fictional narratives or were recorded as stories and songs. New forms of oral literature, like p’ansori, also emerged. Oral literature takes multiple forms: narratives such as myths, legends, and folk tales (mindam); lyrical forms like folk songs (minyo); and dramas like the mask dance and puppet plays. P’ansori contains both narrative and dramatic elements. The methods of representation proper to oral literature combined functionally with the rites (kut) and ceremonies of practitioners (mudang) of native spirituality, with the songs (muga) of those practitioners, or with various modes of labor as in rice-planting songs (moshimki norae) and boat songs (paennorae). Oral literature also appeared as a form of entertainment, as in the mask dance (t’alch’um). The most important feature of oral literature is its performativity (kuyŏnsŏng). Oral literature is not created by individuals. It is passed down as the accumulated heritage of a cultural group to be performed orally by individuals or groups of performers. Of prime importance is the feeling of affinity (konggamdae) between performer(s) and audience. Oral literature

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is not performed solely for the enjoyment of individual listeners. For the event to succeed there must be a performance space and, most essential, an audience to listen, enjoy, and follow along. Oral literature possesses both an individual and communal character. A. Myths, Legends, and Folk Tales Myths (shinhwa) are stories (hwa) about deities (shin). They are created to explain the origins and patterns of natural and social phenomena in human societies. They imbue their mythic subjects with sacredness (shinsŏng) by investing them with absolute authority and describing supernatural wonders. Sacredness in this sense is created by attributing a totalizing and normative significance to things that existed or exist in reality, and elevating them to the lofty dimension of mythical imagination. Korean myths are plentiful, and perhaps the best known are foundation myths such as the Tan’gun myth of Ko Chosŏn, the Chumong myth of Koguryŏ, the Pak Hyŏkkŏse myth of Shilla, and the King Suro myth of Karak. These myths were recorded for the first time and popularized during the Koryŏ dynasty through documents like Samguk yusa (Memorabilia of the Three Kingdoms, 1281), compiled by Iryŏn, and Samguk sagi (History of the Three Kingdoms, 1145), by Kim Pushik. For this reason, they are known as document myths (munhŏn shinhwa). The foundation myths of Korea describe the divine births of actual historical kings. As such, they contain both mythical and historical elements. The heroes of these myths are unearthly, extraordinary beings who descend to earth from the heavens or spring up from the ground. Their appearance is linked to the establishment of earthly nation-states (kukka), or they become cultural heroes for society. At the core of these mythical narratives is the motif of the divine nature of the country’s origins, consecrated by one who has descended from the skies and established the country as his domain on earth. The best-known Korean foundation myth is that of Tan’gun, founder of Ko Chosŏn, birthplace of the Korean people. The tale is similar to other tales in which a celestial god descends to earth, establishes a kingdom, and assumes rulership of it. The ideal of “seeking the welfare of humankind” (hongik ingan) expresses the communal worldview of the Korean people. Unlike munhŏn shinhwa, kuyŏn shinhwa were not recorded in documents. Most of these myths derive from native spirituality (musok) and are transmitted by its practioners, mudang. Musok myths relate the histories of gods that control human life. Examples include “Chesŏk ponp’uri” (Song of the embodied Sakra), “Pari kongju” (Princess Pari), “Sŏngju p’uri” (Song for

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the home-site god), and “Ch’ilsŏng p’uri” (Song for the Big Dipper god). “Chesŏk ponp’uri” is the myth of chesŏk shin (Sakra in Sanskrit), the king of the gods, who oversees birth and life. “Pari kongju” is tied to death and the afterlife. “Sŏngju p’uri” is a myth of the domestic tutelary god whose presence enhances the health and peace of the family. These myths possess great cultural value as they reflect the Korean people’s originary views about the universe, life and death, and the divine. Whereas myths tend to be imposed on the people by the ruling class, legends (sŏlhwa) are stories that form naturally in human communities. In this sense they are closer to folk tales. Legends are not factual tellings of events, but they take on the pretense of verisimilitude in order to convey interest or moral lessons. They must be told within the scope of everyday experience. Some physical proof of the legend’s authenticity should exist so that the story cannot be disproven. The legend begins with this physical proof and embellishes its origins and history to make a story. If the proof is lost, the legend is discontinued or passes into the realm of the folk tale. Folk tales, though, are complete narratives in themselves and do not require reference to physical proof. Folk tales (mindam) are freer in form and content than myths and are not subject to the demand for verisimilitude that governs legends. The latter seek to explain events and experiences from the past with respect to some physical proof, but the stories of folk tales exist without regard to exterior referents. Folk tales narrate the fates of heroes using an array of plots and details. While myths and legends are transmitted within particular geographical areas, folk tales are diffused throughout the entire world. Myths and legends always possess a serious aspect, but folk tales travel back and forth between the serious and the comic. In terms of basic narrative structure, however, it is impossible to clearly distinguish the elements of folk tales from those of myths and legends. Folk tales sometimes take on aspects of legends and myths, and the reverse is also far from uncommon. Korean folk tales have existed throughout history as mirrors of the collective wisdom and sentiments of the people. Folk tales are important as literary works themselves, but they also strongly influenced the development of the fictional narrative during the Chosŏn period. For example, the tale of the hare and the tortoise found in Samguk yusa and Samguk sagi inspired the creation of T’okki chŏn (Tale of the hare and the tortoise), and “Pang’i sŏlhwa” (Legend of Pang’i) developed into Hŭngbu chŏn (Tale of Hŭngbu). Attesting to the rich intertextuality of the Korean literary tradition, several folk tales survive in fictional retellings in modern times; “Namukkun kwa sŏnnyŏ” (The woodcutter and the heavenly maiden) has proved especially popular.

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Many Korean folk tales have been transmitted to us through documents. These tales are called document tales (munhŏn sŏlhwa). Folk tales were originally passed down as oral literature, but they disappear after the oral performance unless they are written down. Because most document tales were recorded in Chinese, they were, unlike other tale forms, enjoyed by a limited number of intellectuals—those who were literate in classical Chinese. Many traditional folk tales are recorded in Samguk yusa and Samguk sagi. They are also sprinkled throughout works of folk literature (p’aesŏl munhak), such as Ch’oe Cha’s P’ohan chip (Collection of supplemental stories; a supplement to Yi Illo’s P’ahan chip [Collection to dispel boredom]) and Yi Chehyŏn’s Yŏg’ong p’aesŏl (Tales of old man Yŏk), and in works of history like Koryŏ sa (History of Koryŏ) and local geographical surveys such as Sejong shillok chiriji (Gazetteer from the veritable records of King Sejong) and Tongguk yŏji sŭngnam (Survey of Korean geography). The first formally published collections of folk tales date from the fifteenth century. These include Sŏ Kŏjŏng’s T’aep’yŏng hanhwa kolgye chŏn (Idle talk and humorous stories in a peaceful era, 1477), Sŏng Hyŏn’s Yongjae Ch’onghwa (Compendium of Yongjae [sobriquet of Sŏng Hyŏn], 1525), and Kang Hŭimaeng’s later-fifteenth-century compendium Chondam hae’i (Humorous stories from the country). Also noteworthy are Ŏu yadam (Unofficial narratives of the Hall of Sighs), an early seventeenthcentury collection by Yu Mongin, and the nineteenth-century collections Kyesŏ yadam, Ch’ŏnggu yadam, and Tongya hwijip (see chapter 4). B. Folk Songs The Korean folk song (minyo) is a collective art form closely linked to the lives of the people. Minyo have been transmitted down through the ages, having sprung up naturally from among the populace, reflecting their lives and feelings in plain, everyday language. They are not the unique creations of individual composers, nor are they recorded by formal musical transcription. They are mostly transmitted from person to person, exhibit simple melodies, and are sung in a free style. They are sometimes accompanied by simple dance movements in rhythm to the tune. Minyo usually have several verses sung to the same melody (karak), with a refrain added to make the song more interesting. The texts of the verses are normally fixed, but depending on the time, place, or mood, the words to the song may be changed and new verses created. Words and melodies may vary by region of origin. Rice-planting songs are found in

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every region of Korea, but the version heard in Kyŏngsang Province differs from that heard in Chŏlla. Differences in locality have strongly influenced the shaping and performance of minyo. The most popular form of minyo is the work song (nodong minyo), sung by those engaged in physical labor. Because these minyo are sung in time with the movements of the workers, their forms vary with the environment, method, and nature of the labor. Minyo sung by farmers and fishermen are disseminated everywhere about the peninsula. Each domain of labor is accompanied by its own minyo: monaegi norae or moshimnŭn sori for rice planting, kim maenŭn sori for seaweed harvesting, pyŏ penŭn sori for rice harvesting, and kaesangjil sori for threshing. Fisherman have net-casting songs, rowing songs, and songs calling for a good catch. Minyo are also sung by women performing domestic labor such as weaving or needlework, their musical qualities varying from region to region. “Entertainment songs” (yuhŭi yo) are sung to enliven the atmosphere at recreational and cultural events, and there are ceremonial songs (ŭishik yo) as well. These songs also vary greatly in style from region to region. One of the best-known entertainment songs is “Kanggang sullae,” sung by a gathering of women performing in unison with simple movements to a measured rhythm. Ceremonial songs are sung to enhance the atmosphere at folk, seasonal, and other cultural events or at funerals. Among the most common varieties are songs for appeasing the earth god (chishin palpki), sung at ceremonies to pray for a bountiful harvest and happy home; bier songs (sangyŏ sori), sung while the departed’s coffin is being transported from home to the burial ground; and earth-tamping songs (talgu sori), sung while the earth spread over a grave is pounded firm with shovels. Songs for appeasing the earth god are customarily sung by the leader of a traditional farmers’ band hired for the ceremony. Bier songs and earthtamping songs are sung during funeral rites to mourn the dead and comfort the survivors. Minyo are the songs to which the Korean people traditionally labored, danced, and entertained themselves. They were sung at all types of ceremonies. The workers’ toil is expressed in their melodies together with the merriment of entertainment. Minyo eased the pains and sorrows of the laborer’s life. Their most important characteristic is the abundant humor in their words and the optimism they express. Among traditional verse that survives are minyo adapted from hyangga and Koryŏ kayo. In modern poetry as well, minyo melodies are given new life in some of the poetic rhythms of Kim Sowŏl’s verses. This shows that minyo and poetry enjoy a close relationship.

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C. P’ansori P’ansori is an art form born from the peasant class during Later Chosŏn. The precise origin of the term is unknown, but it is usually parsed as a combination of p’an (an area, usually outdoors, for mudang rituals, singing, and other performances), and sori (vocal song), thus “a song performance in an open area.” P’ansori is also referred to simply as sori and in the twentieth century took on the designation ch’anggŭk (“sung drama” or “sung theater”). The p’ansori narrative (sasŏl) is performed, partly in song and partly in speech, by a professional singer known as a kwangdae, who is accompanied only by a drummer (kosu). The kwangdae incorporates theatrical gestures to enliven the narrative (nŏrŭmsae or pallim) and responds to periodic shouts of encouragement from the drummer and audience (ch’uimsae) such as “Chot’a!” (Great!), “Ŏi!” (Go!), and “Ŏlsshigu!” (Wow!), adding drama to the performance. Viewed as a literary text, the p’ansori sasŏl reveals narrative properties little different from those of conventional fictional narratives. P’ansori developed from folk tales widely known and passed down from generation to generation by the commoner class. As we have seen in chapter 3, Ch’unhyang ka (Song of Ch’unhyang) emerged from a combination of the yŏllyŏ (devoted wife) and amhaeng ŏsa (royal inspector travels in disguise) motifs. Likewise, Shim Ch’ŏng ka (Song of Shim Ch’ŏng) combines motifs of hyonyŏ (dutiful daughter) and inshin kongyang (human sacrifice) tales. P’ansori developed into a fixed art form by creating stories expanding on and altering motifs from folk tales and singing them as songs. Thus, while p’ansori are performed by individual artists, they are not, strictly speaking, the works of individual authors. The singers developed the art from tales they heard from the mouths of the commoners. But some singers created their own narratives and styles in the process of developing their performance art, then passed down these performance traditions to other singers. P’ansori thus developed and was transmitted in the manner of a folk art. The satires and critiques of outmoded society contained in them are the greatest testament to p’ansori’s popular origins. By the late nineteenth century p’ansori works were enjoyed not only by commoners but also by the yangban class. P’ansori is considered the supreme art form of the Chosŏn period. It is believed that p’ansori first took root in the early 1700s. (The earliest extant p’ansori text is “Manhwabon Ch’unhyang chŏn,” from 1754.) During the reigns of Kings Yŏngjo (1724–1776) and Chŏngjo (1776–1800), the country was finally showing signs of recovery from the Japanese and

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Manchu invasions, and the once devastated economy was increasingly stable. Economic and social development during this period together with the growth of class consciousness among the commoners enabled the emergence of popular art forms like p’ansori. It was during this period that famous p’ansori singers such as Ch’oe Sŏndal and Ha Handam emerged, and p’ansori gained wide popularity. P’ansori sasŏl were also adapted into texts written in the Korean script. P’ansori fictional narratives (p’ansori kye sosŏl) were widely read, making p’ansori an even more widely loved art form. P’ansori reached its peak of popularity in the nineteenth century, when scholar Shin Chaehyo was active. During this period the yangban class also began to acquire a taste for p’ansori, and the social status of p’ansori singers rose accordingly. From the reign of King Sunjo (1800–1834), p’ansori singers such as Kwŏn Samdŭk, Song Hŭngnok, and Mo Hŭnggap enjoyed great fame, which contributed to the rise in popularity of the art form. The emergence of Shin Chaehyo was of monumental significance to p’ansori history. He took what was an unsystematized group of twelve basic p’ansori tales and classified them into six “standards.” The most acclaimed p’ansori works, such as Ch’unhyang ka, Shim Ch’ŏng ka, Hŭngbu ka (Song of Hŭngbu), Chŏkpyŏk ka (Song of the red cliffs), and Sugung ka (Song of the underwater palace) were among the tales he selected. Works excluded from the “standards,” such as Pae pijang t’aryŏng (Ballad of Pae the official), Karujigi t’aryŏng (Ballad of a ghost’s revenge), Ong kojip t’aryŏng (Ballad of a stubborn old man), and Changkki t’aryŏng (Ballad of a cock pheasant) were less developed, but their plots are known from various fictional narratives. P’ansori stories deal mostly with the lives of people of commoner status, offering positive and affirming messages about life, and always with a profound sense of the characters’ humanity. In Ch’unhyang ka the thirst for human liberation is evidenced in Ch’unhyang’s desire to free herself from her inherited status as a lowly kisaeng, a struggle told within the frame of a touching love story. In Shim Ch’ŏng ka the filial heroine inspires listeners with her noble character and tragic beauty in her act of giving up her life for her father’s sake, but the story also contrasts this by showing the greed of humans, as exhibited by the cunning, impulsive father, Shim Pongsa (Blind Man Shim), and the hag Ppaengddŏk ŏmmi. Hŭngbu ka contrasts the characters of the brothers Hŭngbu and Nolbu in a critique of materialistic desire. Chŏkpyŏk ka is a parody of the famous Battle at Red Cliffs scene from the Chinese Romance of the Three Kingdoms, in which the main character Cao Cao is an object of caricature, with most of the narrative weight placed on the attitudes and emotions of common soldiers.

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Sugung ga is an allegory that expands on the tortoise-and-hare (kut’o) folktale motif. Also, the power of the Dragon King, which is turned on its ear by the hare’s down-to-earth attitude, is exposed as empty bluster, suggesting that notions of loyalty had by this time lost much of their meaning in Chosŏn society. P’ansori works thus reflect the general state of Later Chosŏn society by satirizing and criticizing corruption and injustices perpetrated by the dominant bureaucrat class and lambasting the outmoded social system and its practices. They also contain an abundance of the aggressive spirit of commoners strengthening their awareness of themselves as a class. Because p’ansori works are mostly sung, the overall structure of their narratives is rhythmically patterned. But since they adopt the everyday language of the commoners, they have immediacy to them, with satirical and humorous elements that lend p’ansori a distinctive interest and character. With the fall of Chosŏn, p’ansori declined in popularity. But the repertoire continued to be passed down from generation to generation orally. Early in the Colonial period (1910–1945) there were unsuccessful attempts to revive p’ansori as a national theater (kukkŭk). The standard performance style of p’ansori is for the kwangdae to stand alone in the performance area while the seated drummer accompanies him or her, elevating the theatrical mood by shouting out ch’uimsae. In this respect the drummer is almost like a conductor for the sung performance. P’ansori requires no special staging. In the past, the performance took place in any open outdoor space where an audience could gather, or even in the reception hall of a yangban home, playing to a festive crowd of guests. That the kwangdae and drummer become one with the audience and create an air of excitement and amusement is an important feature of the art. Therefore, audience members steeped in the excitement of the performance also join in by shouting out ch’uimsae to the kwangdae. Performance tempos range from quite slow (chinyangjo) to rapid (hwimori), with several rhythms in between. Tempos are mostly fixed, depending on the scene or the melody, but the kwangdae may choose to alter a tempo during the performance of a scene or select the appropriate tempo in response to the mood of the audience. The slowest tempo is reserved for melancholy, sorrowful scenes. The next fastest tempo, chung­ mori, gives stability to the scene, while the faster chungjungmori stimulates interest and gives the story a refined air. Chajŭnmori imparts a light, cheery mood, and hwimori, intensity. While performing, the kwangdae occasionally breaks from song and narrates in a speaking voice. These sections are called aniri. Therefore, a p’ansori sasŏl consists of both song (ch’ang),

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performed in time with a rhythm, and spoken-word sections. Most of the ch’ang sections are descriptive. Aniri, by contrast, introduce new scenes or bridge one scene to the next. Alternating ch’ang and aniri sections may serve either to heighten narrative tension or to soften it. P’ansori singing styles have generally been transmitted in three schools: Eastern (tongp’yŏnje), Western (sŏp’yŏnje), and Middle High (chunggoje). These styles developed as p’ansori teacher-student relations became fixed into traditions sometimes referred to as yup’a or taegadak. The Eastern tradition is grounded in the singing style of renowned Chosŏn p’ansori singer Song Hŭngnok. This style was sung in the towns of Unbong, Kurye, Sunch’ang, and Hŭngdŏk in Chŏlla Province. The Western tradition is based on the style employed by the famed Pak Yujŏn and was sung in Kwangju, Naju, and Posŏng in the same province. The Middle High tradition is based in the singing styles of Yŏm Kyedal and Mo Hŭnggap and is preserved in Kyŏnggi and Ch’ungch’ŏng provinces. The Eastern style is a bold, vibrant mode of singing, performed in a relatively high register, and seems to come straight from the singer’s diaphragm. The rhythms are strong and rough. The Western style, by contrast, is softer and more graceful, using clear tones to produce a sadder quality. Middle High combines the extremes of the former two styles, in which the performance starts out level, rises in the middle section, then lowers again at the end. D. Mask Dance Korean mask dance (t’alch’um) is a kind of drama. In some cases, all characters appearing in the drama wear masks; in other cases, some do and others do not. The dances and songs are performed to musical accompaniment. The most drama-like aspects of the performance are the spoken lines and the gestures exchanged among the characters, which add conflict and tension to the scenes. Musical accompaniments are in the traditional folk-music style, and include Buddhist invocations, mudang chants, and popular folk tunes. Mask dance does not require special props or stage sets. Small burning torches are placed here and there for lighting, and audience members sit in a circle at the same level as the performance space. The performance usually began at dusk and lasted until daybreak and included not only the mask dance itself but also a twip’uri (reconciliation ceremony) in which audience, actors, and musicians participated together as one group. Masks were usually crafted from wood, gourds, or paper, but materials and styles are dictated by local tradition. Masks are more or less stylized in their

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shape, but with dramatically exaggerated facial expressions, which may vary greatly depending on the dynamic performance style of the dancer or on regional variations in character representation. The precise origin of the Korean mask dance is unknown. But in a hanshi by Ch’oe Ch’iwŏn from the Shilla period, the “five performed entertainments” (ogi) of the day are described as kŭmhwan, wŏlchŏn, taemyŏn, soktok, and sanye. The last three of these involved dancing by masked performers, which suggests that already by the Shilla period there existed a variety of entertainments of a considerably high cultural level. Mask dances are known to have been performed during the Koryŏ period during the p’algwanhoe rites offered up to folk deities, and at the yŏndŭnghoe festival, in which lamps were lit and hung for decoration at night on the first full moon of the first lunar month. Records reveal that at these special ceremonies a performance known as sandae nori took place. Other records show that both at the court and among the commoners, people would don masks on the final day of the third lunar month and enact a narye—a ceremony to chase away evil spirits from the preceding year. During late Koryŏ this ceremony became less associated with the expelling of evil spirits and more of a widespread entertainment (nori) called naryehŭi. Sandae nori (masked drama; sandae, “mountain platform,” refers to the makeshift setting of the entertainment) and naryehŭi sporadically appear in Chosŏn documents. Early in Chosŏn a special ministerial office called Narye to’gam was established to oversee the narye ceremonies. During the reign of Kwanghaegun (1608–1623), there was a permanent government office called Naryech’ŏng. Such an institution was needed during the Chosŏn period not only for the purpose of driving away evil spirits, but also because narye performances were adapted for entertainments welcoming royal envoys from China, for native court entertainments, and as an amusement together with other types of song and dance for royal visits. Also early in Chosŏn, kwangdae or ch’ang’u (another name for a professional singing entertainer) undertook responsibility for the entertainments performed at the narye ceremonies. This professionalization of narye had already begun in late Koryŏ. Records state that during the reign of the Koryŏ king Ŭijong (1146–1170), a government office managed and supervised performances of various kinds of masked drama. Kwangdae at the Koryŏ court were seen as social inferiors by the upper classes. They performed masked drama and narye for courtiers at special occasions and at receptions for foreign envoys, but spent most of the year wandering the countryside in groups performing for commoners in order to make a living.

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Judging from the few records available to us, mask dance originated in ceremonial sandae nori and in narye. These traditional ritual performances gradually lost their ceremonial context and became smaller in scale and grew popular chiefly as entertainments. Kwangdae came to be the chief performers of these entertainments, and the art became more or less fixed in form. It is thought that mask dances as they are performed today survive from Later Chosŏn. Mask dance spread to various regions of the country, resulting in different performance styles. Regional forms of mask dance developed in the Seoul–Kyŏnggi Province area; Hwanghae Province; North Kyŏngsang Province; South Kyŏngsan Province; the city of Kangnŭng, Kangwŏn Province; and South Hamgyŏng Province. Among these, the Pongsan mask dance of Hwanghae Province and the pyŏlshin kut nori of Hahoe Village, North Kyŏngsang, are probably the best known. All these variants have a common list of character types, including the Sinful Buddhist Monk, the Ruined Yangban, the Commoner, the Mudang, the Hermit, and the Servants. These characters plainly represent the corruption rife in Chosŏn’s outmoded social system, as well as the hardships and sorrows of the peasants who suffered the brunt of that corruption. The goal of mask dance, though, was not to divide the classes but to theatrically resolve the conflicts by first exposing them in parodic and comedic fashion before enacting group reconciliation at the end. The scenes in a mask dance, involving a variety of masks, are termed madang or kwajang. The content of a scene may differ with the region and in general the scenes display episodic independence. However, some scenes tend to be found across the broad spectrum of mask-dance styles, such as the demon-expelling scene (pyŏksa madang), the mocking-the-monk scene (chung madang), the aristocrat-and-hick scene (yangban madang), and the dancing-grandmother scene (halmi madang). Mask dances are based in the lived experience of common folk and accordingly are very earthy in content and performance style. They mock the corruption of Buddhist monks and the elite and express sexual desire in a direct manner. Vestiges remain of mask-dance origins in ceremonies for expelling demons and warding off illness, but today mask dance is widely enjoyed as a form of traditional entertainment. The Pongsan mask dance is a popular theatrical form that originated in Hwanghae Province and spread from the town of Pongsan to the plains and coastal area of the province. It is related to the sandae nori based in the middle region of the peninsula. It is highly comical and satirical. Episode 5, the Lion Dance, enhances our understanding of the joys and sorrows of the Chosŏn commoner, as well as the character of folk theater and traditional entertainment (see the “Readings” section of this chapter).

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E. Readings The Tan’gun Myth (Tan’gun shinhwa) The Wei su tells us that two thousand years ago, at the time of Emperor Yao, Tan’gun Wanggŏm chose Asadal as his capital and founded the state of Chosŏn. The Old Record notes that in olden times Hwanin’s son, Hwanung, wished to descend from heaven and live in the world of human beings. Knowing his son’s desire, Hwanin surveyed the three highest mountains and found Mount T’aebaek to be the most suitable place for his son to settle and help human beings. He then gave Hwanung three heavenly seals and dispatched him to rule over the people. Hwanung descended with three thousand followers to a spot under a tree by the Holy Altar atop Mount T’aebaek, and he called this place the City of God. He was the Heavenly King Hwanung. Leading the Earl of Wind, the Master of Rain, and the Master of Clouds, he took charge of some three hundred and sixty areas of responsibility, including agriculture, allotted lifespans, illness, punishment, and good and evil, and brought culture to his people. At that time a bear and a tiger living in the same cave prayed to Holy Hwanung to transform them into human beings. The king gave them a bundle of sacred mugworts and twenty cloves of garlic and said, “If you eat these and shun the sunlight for one hundred days, you will assume human form.” Both animals began to eat the spices and avoid the sun. After twenty-one days the bear became a woman, but the tiger, unable to observe the taboo, remained a tiger. Unable to find a husband, the bear-woman prayed under the Altar tree for a child. Hwanung metamorphosed himself, lay with her, and begot a son called Tan’gun Wanggŏm. In the fiftieth year of the reign of Emperor Yao, Tan’gun made the walled city of P’yŏngyang the capital and called his country Chosŏn. He then moved his capital to Asadal on Mount Paegak, also named Mount Kunghol, whence he ruled for fifteen hundred years. When, in the year kimyo (1122  B.C.E.), King Wu of Chou enfeoffed Chi Tzu to Chosŏn, Tan’gun moved to Changdangyŏng, but later he returned and hid in Asadal as a mountain god at the age of 1,908. Translation by Peter H. Lee Pongsan Mask Dance (Pongsan T’alch’um) Fifth Episode: The Lion Dance The lion threatens to devour the monks for leading a venerable old monk astray. As the monks run away, one monk, who is also a horsegroom, remains and explains to the lion that the prodigal has made the monks go astray. He promises that all the monks will fulfill their religious vows from that day on. The lion and the monk rejoice together.

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EIGHT MONKS: A beast is chasing us! MONK-HORSEGROOM: Hush! A beast? What kind of an animal is this? This creature resembles neither a deer nor a stag, nor a tiger. Well, better ask the creature. What kind of animal are you? We never saw you around here before, even in my ancestor’s time. Are you a deer? If you are not a deer, a stag? Not a stag? Then a tiger? Neither this nor that? Well, you must have screwed yourself and you are your own grandfather. Aha! I’ve got it right this time. It was in the time of the prosperous Tang Dynasty. People in Oge were, however, suffering from the drought. The King of the Dragons favored you with magic power that enabled you to produce some rain. The King of Oge gave you a great reward, an extravagant entertainment. You are that very lion, aren’t you? You buried the King of Oge alive in a well, and for three years you were on the throne disguised as the king. You are the very lion who played favorites when you accompanied Bodhisattva Munsu to India in search of Buddhist scripts. I’ve got it right this time, don’t I? Have you come here to dance to the melodious tune and hide from the eyes of the Bodhisattva, which have been on you since the incidents of the palace of Oge? You, Lion! Be frank. Were you sent here by the Bodhisattva to punish us for our sin of leading the venerable Old Monk into the Apostate? Are you going to eat all of us up? Help! Hush! Hush! Hush! You, Lion, listen to me carefully. We are not guilty of corrupting the old monk. It was a trick that the prodigal, Ch’wibari, played on him. We are innocent. I promise that we will be good from now on. Could you forgive us all? As we part company, let’s rejoice together to the tune of T’aryŏng. In the Plum-Blossom Tavern in the east of the capital, Nagyang…. Hush! Hey, you Lion. Let’s dance to the tune of Kutkŏri. Translated by Theresa Ki-ja Kim, edited by Geoffrey Paul Gordon

F. Suggestions for Further Reading Han, Suzanne Crowder. Korean Folk and Fairy Tales. Rev. ed. Carlsbad, Calif.: Hollym International, 2006. Park, Chan E. Voices from the Straw Mat: Toward an Ethnography of Korean Story Singing. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2003. Pettid, Michael J. “From Abandoned Daughter to Shaman Matriarch: An Analysis of the Pari Kongju muga, a Korean Shamanistic Song.” Ph.D. diss., University of Hawai’i, 1999. Pihl, Marshall R. The Korean Singer of Tales. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1994.

Part II:  Modern Literature

SIX

Introduction to Modern Literature

Modern Korean literature emerged during Korea’s modernization. Scholars continue to debate the origins of modernity, modernization, and a modern Korean literature, some finding sprouts of the modern in the writings of the Practical Learning scholars of the 1700s, but most agree that the modernization of Korean literature began to take root during the Enlightenment period (kyehwa kyemong shidae, or kaehwagi) of the late 1800s and early 1900s. As outmoded social practices gave way to modern modes of life, modern literature replaced premodern literature as a cultural base for the social system. However, modern literature was not limited to being the medium of expression for the ruling class, as premodern literature in Chinese had been, nor was it the property of any single class. Based in hangŭl, the Korean script, it was popularized through the medium of the people’s native language. Furthermore, it connected with a broad readership through newspapers and magazines then fast gaining prominence as mass media. Modern literature is based in writing and reading in Korean, and may be seen as a form of writing culture. The key component in traditional literature was the oral tradition. In premodern times, verse forms were meant to be sung. Traditional fictional narratives also included much content passed down by word of mouth. But modern verse forms developed independently from music, and modern fiction was the creation of professional writers. Whereas Korea’s premodern literature was based in the local conditions of East Asia, its modern literature marked a revolutionary departure from the past and owed its form and inspiration largely to European influence. Literature up to the Koryŏ period was influenced greatly by Buddhism, and Chosŏn literature by Neo-Confucianism. But modern literature grew from Korea’s interaction with elements from the West, including Christianity and many other cultural currents. Korea’s modern literature pursued Western modernity as a new universal knowledge, while preserving

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its foundation in East Asian tradition, the “soil” in which Korean modernity grew. The world of modern literature is that of human subjects experiencing everyday reality. Premodern literature employs a mythic imagination to capture human life and the super-real world of the divine in a single dimensionality. But the worldview of modern literature encompasses only the realities of human life, and for the most part excludes the existence of gods or supernatural fantasies. Founded upon the experience-based ration­ality of the modern subject, it tends to reject the other-worldly. This rejection of gods and magic is part and parcel of the modern “enlightenment” undergone by Koreans from the later nineteenth century. Modern Literature and the Korean Language Modern Korean literature employed the Korean language as the vehicle for its expression. Korea’s Enlightenment period saw the emergence of a far-reaching movement to rediscover and popularize the use of the Korean script and native language, giving them a “national” meaning. Writing in Chinese became an outmoded activity, and liberation from the dominance of the Chosŏn elite culture became the goal of the new National Language Movement (kugŏ undong). With the abolition of the state examination system and the acceptance of “new” or modern education popularized through the Korean language, Chinese-centered culture lost its political meaning and cultural function. The Korean script, easy to learn and possessing great practical value, became the new, universal form of writing. Knowledge, information, culture, and humanities education during the early modern period were reproduced and widely circulated in the Korean language, allowing the Korean people to free themselves from the old, oppressive, Chinese-centered way of thinking that was characteristic of Chosŏn culture, and to adopt a new, European-centered system of thought. What transformed them was not power and authority, but knowledge imparted to them through the medium of Korean. The National Language Movement enabled the beginnings of cultural democracy. The National Language Movement universalized the Korean script in the writing practices of Koreans, a development that encouraged exploration of new modes of writing. Writing in Korean enabled Koreans to achieve a correspondence between their speech and their writing (ŏnmun ilch’i). The variety found in speech forms could now be captured in writing, leading to various methods and forms that could produce events, meanings, ideas, and emotions from daily speech. The editorials (nonsŏl) and narrative pieces that were popular features of newspapers and magazines

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in the early modern period were original modes of writing enabled by the use of hangŭl. New values and ideas discussed in the editorials in particular were a very important sociocultural phenomenon marking an expansion in the Korean script’s day-to-day applications. Modern Korean literature, therefore, was based in the use of the Korean script. This Koreanization of literature involved two fundamental changes in how literature was conceived and practiced. One was the shift from the traditional form of the tale, which was proper to oral literature, to a “literariness” (munjasŏng) proper to a written literature. The second change was a shift from fixed forms to a liberalization of forms. The abandonment of orality as the dominant feature of literature meant that modern literature was newly established through the writing and reading practices of individuals rather than the traditions of the group. This movement to liberalize the literature signaled the overthrow of the fixed nature of premodern literature and the emergence of new literary forms. Literary pursuits became liberated both in form and in spirit. This was the goal toward which modern literature strove. The Systematization of Literature Based in the Korean language, modern Korean literature was quick to establish itself. In the traditional mode of sinograph-based writing there was no concept of munhak meaning literature. Instead there was the general concept of mun, which encompassed both reading and writing and in its broadest sense meant education and knowledge. Reading and writing were viewed as a kind of discipline to become educated about human life. Writing belonged not to the realm of human emotions and desires but rather to the realm of fundamental values. In the parlance of the period, it was a “vessel containing the proper way to live as a human being.” Therefore members of the Chosŏn ruling class strove to master Chinese writing practices in expectation that they would thereby be educated to become good human beings. Such was the authority and dignity that literature in Chinese represented to Koreans in the premodern era. Munhak (literature) was based in the Korean language and emerged in a variety of forms. Early modern author Yi Kwangsu used the word munhak to translate the Western concept of literature—though he was likely also influenced by contemporary Japanese aesthetics—defining it as “writing containing emotional elements.” He then categorized poetry, fiction, and drama as literature. This marked a departure from premodern terminology for “writing” (native Korean kŭl and Sino-Korean mun) and a redefinition of literary activity as belonging to the emotional (chŏngjŏk) realm.

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Yi’s preference for the new munhak, which emphasized writing, over the traditional mun, which emphasized reading and writing (in classical Chinese) as a means of moral cultivation, also signaled a conversion from old values and morality to a new paradigm prioritizing feeling and taste. This paradigm involved a conscious division between mun as erudition, education, and virtue and munhak as an artistic product born of human imagination and creativity. Aesthetics thus took its place as a central value in human life. This new perception and interest was also reflected in the taxonomies adopted for the new literary forms then emerging. Fictional narratives of the sort read during the Chosŏn period were now referred to as ku sosŏl (old fiction), and fictional narratives produced in the modern age were called shin sosŏl (new fiction); poems from the modern period were likewise called shin shi (new poetry). The prefixes ku and shin were not simply chronological markers, but also designated differences in literary content and form. Literary works marked as shin broke with existing content and form, incorporating modern life as an important component of their narratives. The new fiction and the new poetry were the creative products of a new class of professional writers. The emergence of writing as a profession was linked to the expanded readership resulting from the successes of the National Language Movement. Also nurturing the emergence of professional writers was a system of capitalistic circulation centered in book publishing and distribution targeting that new readership. The newspaper and magazine companies founded in the early modern period fostered the emergence of professional reporters and fiction writers to provide content for their publications. Their reason for writing was distinctly different from that of premodern intellectual practitioners of writing, whose concerns were steeped in the concepts of “education to become good men” and the “accumulation of virtue.” The new cultural production pursued more realistic literary aims. Newpapers and magazines were the two greatest contributions to the establishment of modern literature in Korea, providing a social base for the formation of a professional writing class. Commercial publishers formed partnerships with professional writers, supporting them and giving them a means for livelihood that allowed them to pursue their craft. They employed the writers as reporters for their own companies, or acted as intermediaries linking the writers and their readers. The texts that the professional writers produced were published as books by publishing companies and offered for sale to the general public. Customers purchased reading materials in accordance with their tastes and desires, whereupon publishers passed on a portion of the profits to the writers. The new fiction

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of the early modern period, published in book form following serialization in newspapers, was the first example of a modern “literary product” created with the desires of a popular readership in mind. Works of new fiction were intellectual creations, commodified and brought into contact with readers via commercial circulation. In an age when language and letters were newly liberalized through the spread of the Korean language, modern fiction took on “modernity” vis-à-vis modernizing changes in the social system. How Korea’s Modern Literature Developed Modern Korean literature is scarcely a century old. Yet this short history encompasses three general periods that we might conceptualize as (1) the age of transition (mid-1800s to 1910), (2) the Japanese Colonial period (1910–1945), and (3) the period of national division (1945 to the present). The last of these periods might in turn be divided into an era of authoritarian rule (1945 to 1987) and an era of democratization (1987 to the present). Each period is marked by a very different set of sociohistorical conditions with distinct trajectories of literary development. The age of transition is the period in which modern Korean literature was first established. Beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, revolutionary changes appeared in all areas of society as Koreans strove to overcome the limitations and contradictions of the outmoded social structure. During this period, a movement based on the goals of national self-strengthening and national independence arose among Korea’s intellectuals in response to the threat of encroaching foreign powers and gradually expanded in influence across society. In the political dimension, this movement toward modernity was evidenced in the Kabo Reforms (kabo kaehyŏk), instituted in 1894, while an emerging popular consciousness was made manifest in the Tonghak Peasant Rebellion, which broke out the very same year. Social institutions such as the Independence Society (Tongnip hyŏphoe), founded in 1896, were formed, and civil rights movements (minkwŏn undong) organized. Many Korean intellectuals actively supported the Patriotic Enlightenment Movement (aeguk kyemong undong), which emerged in opposition to the loss of national sovereignty at the beginning of the twentieth century. This transitional stage culminated in the Enlightenment period of the late 1800s and early 1900s. The modes by which those in premodern Korea enjoyed literature were revolutionized as Korea transitioned into modernity. During this period, the values, ideals, and spirit of literature were transformed, as were the methods and techniques used to produce it. Just as the new newspapers and magazines functioned as an expanded popular base for literature’s

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emergence, new modes of writing coalesced in a national literature containing themes that met the demands of the times. The new fiction took its place as the popular literary form of the day, and poets experimented with new forms such as free verse (chayu shi). It was also during this period that modern theater performances were first staged. But Korean literature’s development ran into decisive limitations with the invasion of the Japanese in the early twentieth century. With the colonial presence in Korea between 1910 and 1945, Koreans were robbed of their autonomy and possessions, as the Japanese attempted to eradicate the Korean collective and its spirit. The result was a colonial culture distinguished by the ambivalences of imitation and obedience, creativity and resistance. Modern Korean literature, rooted in a critique of coloniality and its effects, adopted various literary forms and styles in its aim to establish a Korean national identity (chuch’e). Literary circles formed early on, spawning novels employing a spectrum of themes addressing problems of the individual and society and of the nation and social classes, as well as short stories experimenting with diverse literary techniques and narrative aesthetics. Free verse developed into a distinctive poetic form that continues today to be one of the most potent vehicles for expressing the lives and feelings of Koreans. A new drama literature also emerged as a rich source for modern Korean performance art. Korean literature was a fortress withstanding the force of the imperialist language of Japan during the Colonial period, the spiritual base that preserved Korean cultural identity. Korea’s liberation from colonial rule in 1945 presented an opportunity to establish a new direction and new aims for a national literature. It was imperative that anti-national remnants were excised from the culture, and a new Korean state and literature established. But the outbreak of the Korean War five years later led to a hardening of an ideological rift in Korean society and hastened a descent into a divisionist logic and the erasure of aspirations for a fully formed national life. The April 19, 1960, Student Revolution offered new hope for meaningful breakthroughs in overcoming the victimization mentality and spiritual decay lingering from the war years. From this period Korean literature began to experience changes in sensitivity, with a new, broad concern for problems of individual life and social reality. With the nation’s rush to industrialize against the violent backdrop of the 1970s dictatorial regime, literature took a radical stance in opposition to the dominant politics of the day, pointing instead to social democratization. A theory of a people’s literature (minjok munhak) emerged, paving the way for a cultural movement that opposed the military government and sparked debates about the viability of minjok munhak as a definition of Korean literature. Poetry

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during this period held fast to the reality of daily experience, while fiction encompassed problems of the national division and attendant issues while increasingly expanding its thematic scope. The Kwangju Uprising of May 1980 marked a new effort to restore democracy, but not until 1987 did Korean society near completion of its sociopolitical democratization. No sooner had this goal been achieved than the nation had to deal with the inevitable chaos attending industrialization, perhaps most notable during the International Monetary Fund crisis of the mid-1990s, which jolted Asia in general and Korea in particular. Replacing the fierce historical consciousness and critical spirit pursued in literature during Korea’s social democratization, there appeared movements to raise the artistic value of literature itself, as well as a movement toward gender equality in the production of Korean literature. In the new millennium Korean literature is moving beyond the parameters of Korean attributes, taking on transformations within world literature, and giving greater attention to the substantial values of global universality.

SEVEN

Poetry

Written in the native script, modern Korean poetry began to come into mass popularity during the Enlightenment period. During the Chosŏn period, poetry existed in the dual forms of hanshi (poetry composed in Chinese) and kungmin shiga (native verse). The dominant mode was the former; native forms, such as shijo and kasa, were marginalized in comparison. When Chosŏn intellectuals wished to write poetry, they wrote in Chinese. When they wished to sing, they composed shijo. But with the popularization of the National Language Movement, Chinese-dominated poetry lost its importance, and new poetry forms based in Korean writing rose up in its place. This was the advent of shin shi (new poetry). The new poetry forms were free from formal rules governing structure and content. Through this freedom the revolutionary modernization of traditional Korean-language poetry forms, represented by shijo and kasa, took place. The many Enlightenment kasa and shijo published in newspapers and magazines during this period clearly reveal a departure from the musical compositions that were the traditional kasa and shijo. Abandoning the fixed nature of traditional poetry, they pursued freedom in form. Free verse (chayu shi) was the starting point for Korean modern poetry. Modern Korean poetry from its inception looked to Western poetic techniques as models. Insofar as modern Korean poetry is written in the Korean language, it is an expression of Korean sentiments, but it did not develop autonomously, nor was it unaffected by outside influence. The Korean poets who developed modern verse writing in the early stages of Korean modern literature were for the most part students in Japan, where they cultivated professional knowledge of and received education in Western literature. Their interest was largely occupied with the problems of poetic form and rules. They dispensed with fixed poetic forms such as kasa and shijo and adopted Western free verse, bringing formal balance and structural harmony to the creation of a new poetry tradition in the Korean language.

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The historical development of modern Korean poetry may be explained in terms of several stages. In the first stage, poets imported the free-verse form and experimented with new approaches to poetry-making. This stage extended from the Enlightenment period through the first half of the Colonial period. During this time poets adopted free verse and experimented with prose poetry (sanmun shi) and long verse (chang shi). Some among them also launched a movement to modernize shijo, maintaining the fixed rules of this form but modernizing the content. Great effort was also spent in imbuing poetic works with national sentiment. The second stage spanned the second half of the Colonial period. During this stage Korean poetry, influenced by Western literary modernism, emphasized spatial organization and actively embraced new intellectual themes. The third stage began with Liberation in 1945 and lasted until the mid1960s, when a division appeared between poetry in the traditional lyric forms and poems that expressed an active interest in history and reality. The fourth stage covers the industrialization period from the mid-1960s through the democratization period. This stage is marked by the rise of poetries of contending ideological thrusts, such as pure poetry (sunsu shi), engagement poetry (ch’amyŏ shi), and populist poetry (minjung shi). In some cases, transcendence and realism were brought to bear on a single poem. A. The Transitional Period The Enlightenment period, which involved the culmination of the transition from a classical to a modern literature, saw the evolution of traditional poetic forms as well as efforts to create a new poetic form. Kasa and shijo, the twin pillars of vernacular verse during the Chosŏn period, underwent changes in both form and theme. These changes appeared in the kasa and shijo widely carried in the newspapers and magazines newly appearing under the banner of modern media publications in the Korean language. Enlightenment kasa may be divided into several thematic categories. There were ch’angŭi ka, songs praising the patriotic grassroots armies (ŭibyŏng, literally, “righteous armies”) that rose up in defense of the homeland; tonghak kasa, songs extolling the teachings of the new Tonghak religion; and aeguk ka, patriotic songs published in newspapers such as the Tongnip shinmun (The Independent) and the Taehan maeil shinbo (Taehan daily news). Tonghak kasa are mostly religious songs embodying the ideals of the Tonghak movement. These songs were recited by the masses of Tonghak believers from the peasant class. Ch’angŭi ka were created by conservative intellectuals to encourage the righteous armies in their anti-imperialist

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activities. Enlightenment kasa were written by progressive intellectuals on substantive social issues of the day. The appearance of their kasa in newspapers and magazines assured them a great number of readers. While preserving the standard four-four rhythm of classical kasa, these newer kasa were divided into stanzas, the better to render the new thematic content. Major changes in the kasa form appeared around the time of Chosŏn’s formal annexation by imperial Japan. The four-four pattern was discontinued in favor of a new set of versification rules. The form that grew out of these changes is usually called ch’angga (“sung songs”—as opposed to kasa, “sung lyrics”). The majority of these new songs were composed by the pioneering literary figure Ch’oe Namsŏn. His ch’angga such as “Kyŏngbu chŏlto ka” (Song of the Kyŏngsŏng–Pusan rail line) and “Segye ilchu ka” (Song of a journey around the world) are different from Enlightenment kasa, featuring a seven-five rhythmic pattern, bespeaking the flexibility in structure and length that has always been a drawing point of the kasa form. Choe’s ch’angga show the influence of a Japanese counterpart, shōka, which blended Japanese and Western elements, a form to which Ch’oe was exposed while studying in Japan. But rather than classifying ch’angga as an independent form, we should regard them as a variation of the kasa form. Enlightenment shijo were also very popular. Most were short, anonymous pieces with titles and were published in newspapers and magazines; all were written in Korean. They were composed without regard for music, unlike the classical shijo, which were conceived as songs to be sung. These newer shijo had a profound influence on the course of poetry in Korea. Their formal changes can be seen in Ch’oe Namsŏn’s shijo, many of which appeared in the magazine Sonyŏn (Boys), which Ch’oe edited and published himself. He mostly employed the yŏn (linked) shijo format, created by joining numerous p’yŏng (standard) shijo. Linked shijo represent an expansion in both length and theme of the standard format, whose length was fixed. Shijo experienced a resurgence later in the Colonial period, thanks in great part to the work of Yi Pyŏnggi. A classic shijo from this time is Han Yongun’s “Shimujang” (Looking for the Cow, 1937; see the “Readings” section of this chapter). Other practitioners of the form included Cho Un, Yi Ŭnsang, Kim Yŏngjin, Kim Onam, and Ko Tudong. In 1953 Ko would launch a journal devoted to shijo. Breaking free from the fixed forms of traditional kasa and especially shijo, Enlightenment poetry began to experiment with structures. As we have seen, the new kasa were segmented into multiple stanzas, and the new

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shijo form divested itself of formal restrictions on length. Such were the first steps toward the modernization of Korean verse. These changes led to the emergence of shin shi and in particular to shinch’e shi (new-form poetry). Ch’oe Namsŏn’s “Hae egesŏ sonyŏn ege” (From the Sea to the Children, 1908) is the first Korean poem written in an entirely modern form. It and other new-form poems are characterized by their break from fixed poetic rules and their compositional variety. Although Ch’oe described his own poems, which do not adhere to fixed rules, each having its own organic formal composition, as shin shi, that classification applies more specifically to verse that integrates the formal freedom of Enlightenment kasa and the superb formal attainments of Enlightenment shijo. One of the hallmarks of the new-form poetry was its poetic line (shihaeng). The concept of dividing a poem arbitrarily into lines to produce different effects is not characteristic of traditional Korean verse. In Ch’oe’s conscious incorporation of modern line division in his new-form poetry, he acknowledged this essential element of modern versification. But while Ch’oe made great headway in introducing free verse to Korea through such discoveries, he failed to apply the same formal freedoms to his apportioning of stanzas (yŏn), which also bears upon a poem’s semantic structure. His poems, while freer in form than any Korean poem preceding them, still cannot be said to be organically complete when measured by the yardstick of literary modernity. This was a limitation of his experiments in creating new-form poetry. B. The Colonial Period It was under Japanese colonial rule that Koreans were exposed to literature from the West. Korea’s first modern poetry circles were formed by poets such as Kim Ŏk, Hwang Sŏg’u, O Sangsun, Pyŏn Yŏngno, Chu Yohan, No Chayŏng, Yang Chudong, and Yu Yŏp, most of whom had acquired their training in literature as students in Japan. In their disappointment at the suppression of the March 1, 1919, Independence Movement, these men awoke to the importance of cultivating a national consciousness and focused on bringing Korean sentiment to their poetic creations. Their discoveries of new forms with which to write poetry in Korean, as well as their special interest in how to use new poetic rules for optimal expression, reflect the great influence free verse had on Korean poetics at that time. Enhanced by poets like Kim Sowŏl, Yi Sanghwa, and Han Yongun, modern Korean poetry was able to fully adapt free verse to the task of expressing poetically the sentiments of the people. T’aesŏ munye shinbo (Western literary arts), a weekly newspaper launched in 1918, specialized

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in reportage of artistic trends, carrying Western poems in its pages and contributing to the development of modern poetry in Korea. The appearance of coterie arts magazines such as Ch’angjo (Creation, 1919), P’yehŏ (Ruins, 1920), Changmi ch’on (Rose village, 1921), Paekcho (White tide, 1922), and Kŭmsŏng (Gold star, 1923) gave poets the opportunity to pursue any artistic style they found to their liking, leading to more poetic creations by an increased number of poets. Kim Ŏk, in addition to writing his own poetry, introduced French Symbolist poetry in the T’aesŏ munye shinbo. Most important among Kim’s poetic pursuits was poetic form and poetic rhythm. He attempted a break from the rhythms of traditional poetry that Ch’oe Namsŏn had carried over into his poetry without realizing it. Kim’s early poems are almost free of the fixed form found in shijo and kasa. Through his translation projects Kim gained deep familiarity with poetic lyricism. Active use of colloquial Korean in his poetic language, as well as his varied use of metaphorical expressions, had a great influence on subsequent developments in Korean poetry. Kim also published three collections of his own poetry in the 1920s alone: Haep’ari ŭi norae (Jellyfish song, 1923), Pom ŭi norae (Spring songs, 1925), and Ansŏ shijip (Poems by Ansŏ [his pen name], 1929). One of Kim’s most important contributions was his pursuit of new poetic forms. He experimented with tension and release, varying the lengths of his poems. He took a special interest in the four-line poem, and nearly all of his later poems exhibit the four-line structure. Ch’oe Namsŏn experimented with freedom of form and content in his new-form poems. In the 1920s he spearheaded a movement to revitalize shijo by imbuing it with modern content. Poets like Yi Pyŏnggi and Yi Ŭnsang followed Ch’oe’s lead, and Yi Kwangsu, Chu Yohan, and Kim Tonghwan also composed in and theorized about the new poetic style. This transformation brought about a rediscovery of the elegance of the shijo form. Ch’oe and his colleagues explored the potential to poetically embody the national spirit in a modernized shijo form. Ch’oe warned that the shin shi movement amounted to little more than indiscriminate absorption of Western versification. Korean poetry, he insisted, must have “Koreanness.” He considered shijo “a necessity for expressing the land, people, language, and rhythms of our country.” Such were the new possibilities that Ch’oe saw in modern shijo. Putting theory into practice, he published a collection of modern shijo titled Paekp’al pŏnnoe (108 afflictions, 1926). In an attempt to overcome the limitations imposed by the brevity of the p’yŏng shijo form, he adopted the linked shijo form. But doing so meant sacrificing the artistic flawlessness often observed in conventional

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shijo. Linkage alone, therefore, could not ensure success; tension and the unity of the work were also necessary, and these criteria proved to be his stumbling block. Poetic Discovery of the National Spirit Kim Sowŏl harmonized poetic spirit and form in his creation of the quintessential Korean lyric poem. The majority of his poems are centered in the poet’s emotions, or what might be called the provenance of the lyric verse. While singing of nature he does not treat nature as an object of enquiry, but rather pulls nature into his own emotional world. His best-known poems, “Chindallae kkot” (Azaleas, 1922; see the “Readings” section of this chapter), “Sanyu hwa” (Mountain Flowers, 1924), “Yejŏn en mich’ŏ mollassŏyo” (Long Ago I Didn’t Know, 1925), and “Chŏptong sae” (The Cuckoo, 1925), all share this characteristic. The context of “Chindallae kkot” is the thought of both the loved one, who has grown weary of the speaker, and the speaker, who gently sees him off. Instead of being angry at the departing loved one, the speaker lyrically expresses only unchanging love, through the symbol of azaleas. Blanketing the mountains and fields each spring, azaleas in full bloom are a familiar sight to Koreans, and the azaleas blooming on Mt. Yak in Yŏngbyŏn would have been easily visualized by Sowŏl’s readers. Such poetic expression, based in the truth of experience, continues to evoke fresh responses from readers. Kim enjoyed writing poems about the loved one who has gone away, or the ancestral home that the speaker dearly misses—neither of which exists in reality. The images of the heart of the speaker who yearns for the loved one and the ancestral village are overall retrogressive. But the poems are also romantic, as the speaker sings of his or her desire to doggedly pursue the long-lost object of longing. Kim’s poetry uses native Korean vocabulary to a high degree of aesthetic effect. Employing ordinary, everyday language in his verses, Kim seeks the depths of human emotion and the breadth of lived experience. Plain language gives the poems the sense of being direct emotional responses to reality, and therein lies their popular appeal. The poetic tone reflects Korean sentiment not through laborious descriptions but through a concise and easy musicality. Depth and breadth of poetic emotion are among the highest attainments of the modern Korean lyric. While Kim’s poetry is often said to express resentment (chŏnghan) over frustrated dreams, that resentment is overlaid with sympathy for colonial Korea and a yearning for the lost nation. Han Yongun is a unique figure in the formation of modern Korean poetry. A monk who strove to modernize Korean Buddhism, he remained

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aloof from contemporary poetry circles. He was also a fierce intellectual who fought for Korean independence from colonial subjection. But one of his greatest achievements is surely the body of poetry he wrote throughout his life. In light of his background—he was also a student of traditional herbal medicine and received only scant training in a modern educational institution—poetic works such as “Nim ŭi ch’immuk” (The silence of the loved one, 1926; see the “Readings” section of this chapter) are all the more surprising in their aesthetic attainment. Nim (the loved one) is an object of desire throughout Han’s poetry. Indeed, all of his poetic focus is on the concrete existence of nim, which in his poems is undercut by the theme of silence. The speaker accepts the reality of nim’s absence without self-delusion or rationalization. That absence is tragic, but nim’s existence is delineated more fully through his or her conception within the tragic space of absence. Han’s poetry thus does not dwell in the emotions of grief and resentment. Sadness resulting from nim’s absence is acknowledged, but that sadness is overcome by emphasis on hope and expectation for his or her return. Han does not write of individual emotional turmoil born from tragic reality, choosing instead to sing about the essence of existence and prospects for a new life. His verses are willful and reflect strength in their tone. These qualities may be traced to the poet’s own revolutionary personality, but also important are the ways in which they reflect the poet’s penetrating historical consciousness. Yi Sanghwa’s poetic career began during his affiliation with the coterie magazine Paekcho. His earliest works are steeped in a near-morbid carnal desire and moral decadence. These dark desires are rooted mostly in the reality to which he refers in his poems, that is, the colonial Korea of his day. In one of Yi’s most important early poems, “Na ŭi ch’imshil lo” (To my bedroom, 1923), the speaker unburdens his pitiful desires to a counterpart referred to as madonna, the agent of his salvation. The carnal qualities of the poem are not limited to lust and desire. That the poem freely expresses the intensity of the speaker’s inner emotions and desires through poetic language represents a major step forward in modern Korean poetry. Yi subsequently extended his poetic interest from his inner emotional state to the realms of history and society. His poems from later in the 1920s, such as “Ppaeatkin tŭl e to pom ŭn onŭn’ga?” (Does Spring Come to Stolen Fields? 1926), dynamically focus on the real world while earnestly pursuing the possibility of a new world to replace it. This poem uses the perspective of individual experience to sharply foreground disjunctures in colonial space arising between the natural order (seasonal change) and the realities of human history (imperialism). By juxtaposing natural time (the returning spring) and realistic space (the “stolen fields”),

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the poet emphasizes that although the fields have been stolen, spring will definitely come again. A sense of loss of the motherland and a fierce will to regain it are expressed through strong rhythms. By critiquing colonial reality through poetic narration of its irrational structure, Yi expressed not only a new historical consciousness but also hope for the future of the people. The Emergence of Proletarian Poetry Modern Korean poetry’s response to class ideology during the Colonial period appeared spontaneously during the growth of the class literature (kyegŭp munhak) movement centered in the Chosŏn p’ŭrollet’aria yesul tongmaeng (Korean proletarian arts league; better known by the acronym KAPF, derived from the Esperanto name of the group—Korea Proleta Artista Federatio), formed in 1925. Among the fruits of this movement are poems by Pak Seyŏng, Pak P’aryang, Im Hwa, Kim Haegang, and Kim Ch’angsul. The subject matter of Pak Seyŏng’s early poetry included the oppressive colonial domination of Korea by Japan and the wretched lives of impoverished farmers. Poems such as “T’ajak” (Threshing, 1928) and “Sankol ŭi kongjang” (Backwoods workshop, 1932) describe the grim situation of exploited tillers of the soil and other rural denizens, while works such as “Hyangsu” (Longing for home, 1936) and “Ch’oehu e on soshik” (The final piece of news, 1936) portray the tragic lives of Koreans forced to leave their ancestral village to eke out a living on the plains of Manchuria. In other poems from the 1930s such as “Hwamunbo ro karin i ch’ŭng” (Second floor hidden behind a flower-print cloth, 1935) and “San chebi” (Mountain swallow, 1936), ideological messages are transfigured by an exalted poetic spirit. The achievement of these poems is reflected in San chebi (1938). This collection reveals an introspective quality that began to dominate proletarian poetry after the movement declined from its early passion for social causes and suffered organizational and ideological fissures. The poetic messages are delivered through descriptive narratives that alleviate the tension of their political content. The poet seeks to popularize the tenets of the proletarian movement not through direct critique but through a language of inner reflection. Pak P’aryang, though a member of the class literature movement, wrote a great many lyrical poems. But poems such as “Pam ch’a” (Night train, 1927) and “T’aeyang ŭl tŭngjin kŏri u esŏ” (Out on the street, back to the sun, 1928) provide sharp observations and keen diagnoses of colonial conditions in Korea. Pak’s concern with reality appears in his treatment of darker aspects of society such as poverty and the excesses of modern urban culture. Delivering the perspective of a powerless intellectual in a

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gloomy colonial society, the poet gives a detailed picture of his inner poetic mind. These aspects of Pak’s poetry are estranged from progressive class consciousness or confrontational politics, but in such poems as “1929nyŏn ŭi ŏnŭ toshi ŭi p’unggyŏng” (Scenes from a city, 1929), “Chŏmgyŏng” (Sketches, 1933), and “Haru ŭi kwajŏng” (The course of a day, 1933), proletarian advocate Pak portrays the ordinariness, ennui, and melancholy of the city to very unusual effect. After the mid-1930s Pak reversed direction, abandoning urban themes to seek the meaning of life in nature and find inspiration in the pastoral life of the Korean countryside. His nature poems are contained in his collection Yŏsu shi ch’o (Poems of Yŏsu, 1940). Pak published at least three volumes of poetry after migrating to presentday North Korea. Im Hwa’s poetry is most often discussed in connection with the poet’s desire to produce proletarian literature. Narrative poems like “Negŏri ŭi Suni” (Suni at the crossroads, 1929) and “Uri oppa wa hwaro” (Big brother and the charcoal brazier, 1929) were reprinted in the proletarian anthology K’ap’ŭ shiin chip (Verse by KAPF poets, 1931), at a time when debates developed about the political advance and popularization of the class literature movement. Im’s poems are typical of proletarian verse written during that period. They elevated his status in proletarian poetry circles, achieving a degree of success for their insight into the realities of working-class life. “Uri oppa wa hwaro,” for example, narrates the hardships of siblings in a working-class family through the eyes of the younger sister. The image of her brother’s broken brazier, which appears as the sister recounts her older brother’s arrest for his activities in the proletarian movement, lends the poem a concrete poignancy. The image of the fire pokers hanging on the wall heightens the pathos of the siblings who are left behind in the brother’s absence. Such circumstances resonated clearly with the social inequalities faced by the proletarian class. The image of the younger siblings vowing to hold out until their brother’s return communicates the will of the poem’s narrator to the reader. “Negŏri ŭi Suni” relates an older brother’s view of his younger sister. Its tone resembles that of “Uri oppa wa hwaro.” The speaker recalls the past when people used to help each other in times of trouble, and pleads for the same cooperation in responding to the plight of proletarian youth detained by the police. Im’s poetry succeeds in being moving as it seeks to capture the plight of the proletarian class. Im’s poetry from the latter half of the 1930s, after the dissolution of KAPF, is collected in Hyŏnhaet’an (The Korea-Japan Strait, 1938). With pronouncedly more lyrical quality these later poems, which bemoan the fate of the people and sound a call to overcome the colonial plight, differ in flavor from his earlier proletarian poems.

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But it is through his vast body of literary criticism that Im contributed most to modern Korean literary history. From 1926 until he migrated north to present-day North Korea in 1947, he published well over two hundred critical essays. He is one of the fathers of modern Korean literary criticism. Changes in Poetic Spirit and Sensibilities The latter years of the Colonial period, from 1930 to 1945, were a time of increasing military activity and warfare, ranging from the expansion of Japanese militarism and the Manchurian Incident of 1931 to the end of the Pacific War. During this time Japan pillaged the Korean economy and mobilized Korean labor in support of the war. From the mid-1930s Korean society was thrown into an atmosphere of darkness. Following the dissolution of KAPF, just one example of how the Japanese suppressed groups deemed guilty of subversive thought, no tolerance was shown in the domains of culture and art for any discussion of ideologies involving class or “the people.” The poetry of this period was produced mostly through small-scale coterie magazines such as Shimunhak (Poetic literature), launched in 1930 by Chŏng Chiyong, Kim Yŏngnang, Yi Hayun, and Pak Yongch’ŏl; Samsa munhak (3.4 literature, 1934; Shin Paeksu, Yi Shiu, Chŏng Hyŏnung, Cho P’ungyŏn, and Chang Sŏŏn); Shiwŏn (Poetry garden, 1935; Pak Yongch’ŏl, Kim Sangyong, No Ch’ŏnmyŏng, Mo Yunsuk, and Shin Sŏkchŏng); Shiin purak (Poets’ village, 1937; Sŏ Chŏngju, O Changhwan, Kim Tongni, Ham Hyŏngsu, and Kim Talchin); and Chaosŏn (Meridian, 1937; Kim Kwanggyun, Yun Kon’gang, Yi Yuksa, Shin Sŏkch’o, and Yi Pyŏnggak). Tanch’ŭng (Dislocation, 1937) and Maek (Barley, 1938) were published by smaller poetry circles. The tendencies observable in the poetry of this period may be summarized as follows: experimentation with linguistic techniques, the adoption of an intellectualist standpoint, a turning away from subjective emotion, the presence of an urban sensibility, and increased attention to the construction of images. These characteristics are sometimes linked to Western literary modernism. The term modernism is applied to a wide variety of contexts and meanings, but in the case of Korean poetry circles in the 1930s, these trends developed in large part from the introduction by scholar-critic Ch’oe Chaesŏ and poet Kim Kirim of theoretical concepts from neo-classicism and imagism in English and American literature. Ch’oe in particular emphasized neo-classicist approaches to art and scientific methodologies for criticism. Stressing the importance of a modern consciousness in creating poetry, he focused on constructing ideas and emotions through the intellect. Kim’s theories of modernism differed from Ch’oe’s in that he stressed the concept of modern poetry as pratique.

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His theories are concentrated in essays such as “Shijak e issŏsŏ ŭi chuji chuŭi-jŏk t’aedo” (The intellectualist attitude in poetic creation, 1933) and “Modŏnijŭm ŭi yŏksajŏk wich’i” (The historical position of modernism, 1935), which consist mostly of his critical discussions of poetry. Kim asserted that the modernist movement negated and resisted two literary historical trends: it opposed the sentimentality of romanticism and critiqued the politicality of the proletarian movement. Contextualized as they were within modern Korean literary trends, these declarations had great resonance. Chŏng Chiyong pioneered the development of poetic language in modern Korean literature. The bulk of his works are contained in two poetry collections, Chŏng Chiyong shijip (Poems of Chŏng Chiyong, 1935) and Paengnoktam (White Deer Lake, 1941). His verses capture a multitude of sensory experiences in their explorations of nature, often through vivid imagery and restraint in language. They are sharp but also reveal the subtle linguistic sensibility of the poet. Sensitivity to poetic language was also a characteristic of poets such as Kim Sowŏl and his contemporary Kim Yŏngnang, but those two re-created rhythmic language in accordance with traditional Korean sentiment. Chŏng, on the contrary, focused not on rhythm but on the molding of language to achieve new and original effects. He employed poetic language not so much for musicality or meter but to create aesthetics of space within the poem. His efforts to explore the sensory possibilities of language are seen in his “P’ada” (Sea) and “Yurich’ang” (Window; see the “Readings” section of this chapter) series of poems. Another important aspect of Chŏng’s poetic technique is his negation of subjective emotion and balanced use of poetic sentiment. His poems tend to exclude the individual and the emotional, instead comprehending objects and phenomena as pure concepts. He brought this technique to near perfection in the Paengnoktam poems. The world of this new poetry of suppressed emotion and contemplation of the poetic object is at variance with the root desire of traditional poetry, which seeks to meld or join with the natural world. Rather, Chŏng distances himself from nature and thereby discovers it anew. Objectivizing nature by pursuing its order and beauty just as they are, he roughly reconstructs it through poetic language. The nature discovered thereby may be said to be existence itself. Kim Yŏngnang debuted in the coterie magazine Shimunhak in 1930. His early poems, collected in Yŏngnang shijip (Poems of Yŏngnang, 1935), employ subtle language in creating a pathos that wells up from the deep interior of the poetic self. Emotive words such as sŭlp’ŭm (sadness) and nunmul (tears) recur throughout the poems, but these are not the exclamations or sentiments of inflated rhetoric. Rather, they reveal a poetic

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world of subjective emotionality, expressed in language that is in balance with the moods the poet seeks to convey. Most notable in Kim’s poetry is the poet’s subtle feel for language, as well as his consciousness of the rhythm that sustains it. That Kim expresses deep emotion through soft language does not mean he always adheres strictly to formal balance for that purpose. In poems like “Moran i p’igi kkaji nŭn” (Till the peonies bloom), the poet pursues freedom of form, enabling him to liberate language and rhythm while juxtaposing the sentiments of grief and waiting, then transcending them through language of melodious beauty. But as life during the Colonial period grew increasingly intolerable, he could no longer focus only within himself and instead expanded his poetic interest and hopes to problems of society and life. His poems thereafter reveal a strong human will. This turn in Kim’s poetry emerged in poems like “Kŏmungo” (Zither) and “Tok ŭl ch’ago” (Heart full of poison), written in the late 1930s. Yi Sang’s poetry began as a rejection of existing literary styles and forms. His revolutionary sense of space is prominent in his Ogamdo (A crow’s-eye view, 1934; see the “Readings” section of this chapter) series and in “Kŏul” (Mirror, 1933). This sense of space shows the existential danger of the subject, but in terms of literary technique it is mobilized in some cases to diffuse images and in other cases to reinforce oppositional relations between symbolic meanings. Most scholars characterize Yi’s sense of space as geometrical or architectural, tracing this characteristic to his training in architecture. Indeed, “mathematicality” is universally recognized as one of the signal features of Yi’s poetry. Numerals are arranged according to mathematical rules in the Ogamdo poems and in “Sŏn e kwanhan kaksŏ” (A memorandum on lines, 1931). Significant in these mathematical arrangements is the structural relationship between the elements bound together by the rules, and the totality of the whole. When elements are bound together with a totality, they cannot separate from the totality. But instead of emphasizing the rules that bind the totality, he strongly suggests that the rules are meaningless. From this pessimistic standpoint, Yi spatially outlines the incongruity between individuality and totality. Yi Sang ultimately wishes in his poetry to negate all things modern. Modernity values the absolute self and places trust in the rational. Yi’s thematizing of the split self is a negation of the absolute self that modernists hold inviolable. Yi frequently uses geometric elements and algebraic principles to negate rules held to be absolute. By intentionally subverting rules and principles he allows not only for their negation but also for the application of that negation to new perspectives on reality. It is precisely through its transcendental imaginative power that Yi Sang’s poetry opens possibilities for the discovery of new worldviews.

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Paek Sŏk’s verse collection Sasŭm (Deer, 1936) uses an earthy regional dialect to realistically portray the joys and sorrows of life under harsh Japanese colonial rule. Paek’s experience of hometown life was such that the rural ancestral village occupies much of the space in his works. At the same time, his poetry is imbued with a rejection of modernity and modernization, as represented by urban civilization. Thus, the image of the ancestral village in his poems is not always one of beauty; rather, the village may already have been influenced or corrupted by the modern. In such poems as “Kobang” (The storage shed), “Kajŭrang chip” (The home at Kajŭrang Pass), and “Yŏu nan koltchok” (The people of Fox Hollow), the poet expresses his deep love for the landscape of home and wills the recovery of what has been spoiled by modernity. He thereby seeks broad understanding of the love and humanity surviving in the lives of country folk. More than simply longing for home and the “good old days,” Paek speaks of his fervent desire to recover the humanity embodied in that former space and time. Paek’s “Ch’ilwŏl Paekchung” (July, Paekchung) realistically depicts the simple character and abundant vitality of country folk. The poem describes a group of girls making a journey to a spring on Paekchung, the Buddhist All Souls Day. They bustle about in their country garb, a flurry of energy as they cross the hills and arrive at the spring, where other distinctive village folk are gathered. Situating the objects of description in the physical space of a spring and the temporal space of a day on which the dead are remembered heightens the poetic interest. While spatially arranging the poetic images, the poet embellishes the space itself with a story, thereby expanding the sensory scope of the space. Life associated with the ancestral village thereby becomes the site of primordial experience. This method of poetizing increased the subtlety and emotional depth of modern Korean verse. Yu Ch’ihwan’s poems are direct in their expression and bold in tone. His poetic output is exemplified by Ch’ŏngma shich’o (Verse by Ch’ŏngma [his pen name], 1939) and the post-Liberation collection Saengmyŏng ŭi sŏ (The book of life, 1947). Early poems such as “Pakchwi” (The bat), “Kippal” (The flag), and “Kamagwi ŭi norae” (A crow’s song) reveal an active imagination in their images of wind and wings. Tension is added through poetic objects such as flags and birds. “Kippal,” one of Yu’s signature poems, suggests the trajectory of his imagination. The trope of the flag symbolizes the ideal world, and the earnest wish for the unrealizable ideal is expressed through the emotion of sorrow. While Yu’s poetic imagination seems to thirst for endless movement and wandering, it also aims for balance by showing the strength to boldly stand one’s ground. Imagery in poems such as “San” (The mountain) and “Pawi” (The rock)

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is centered in shape and solidity, while themes involve individual beliefs about life and the will to live it fully. Such themes are expressed in a masculine tone rather than the feminine tone used as a rhetorical device by poets dating back at least to Chosŏn times. Poetic Resistance and Self-Sacrifice In the 1930s colonial rule grew increasingly despotic as Japan’s nationalist militarism expanded on the East Asian mainland. The period following the Manchurian Incident was especially cruel for the Korean people. Poets responded in a variety of ways. Yi Yuksa embodied a spirit of resistance in both his life and his poetry. By establishing subjecthood and affirming the self under the grim conditions of colonial society, Yi instilled a politics of anti-colonialism in verse such as “Nojŏng ki” (My itinerary, 1937), which contains painful recollections from his own life. His uncompromising spiritual stand against colonial oppression is reflected in “Chŏlchŏng” (The Vertex, 1940). Here the subjective self poses a sharp challenge to the reality of colonialism. The social and political conditions in which the speaker makes his stand are at the extreme of oppression, such that the self cannot afford to lose even “a single step of ground.” The poet suggests, however, that this situation, perilous though it is, can serve as a threshold to transcendence. This loftiness of spirit is also embodied in Yi’s famed poem “Kwangya” (The wilderness). The notion of spiritual transcendence is reinforced in poems such as “Ch’ŏng p’odo” (Grapes, 1939) and “Kkot” (Flowers), in which the poet sings of hopes and expectations for the distant future. Yi was incarcerated by the Japanese police and spent his last days in a Beijing prison, but the self-confirmation he was able to achieve through his poems is embodied in the poet’s will to spiritually transcend the pain of harsh colonial conditions. Yun Tongju’s poetry is usually understood as resistance literature because it contains a thorough recognition of colonial reality and reflects a national identity. Yun’s poems generally understand life as tragic. The colonial ideology that negated the absolute concepts of people (minjok) and state (kukka) is a distortion of history, a barren field. Yun’s poems challenge the colonial view of history and utilize art as a mode to critique it. In “Shwipke ssŭyŏjin shi” (An easily written poem) the colonial problem is given full focus. The poet is aware of the contradictions of colonial society and ashamed that he is unable to act on what he feels. Self-reflection cannot lead to external action, but the poet demonstrates that individual response to reality is nonetheless possible through ceaseless examination of one’s life. Yun’s “Chahwasang” (Self-portrait) and “Sŏshi” (Prelude; see the “Readings” section of this chapter) are also thoroughgoing examinations

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of the self. At bottom they are immersions into the mind, searches for the pure self. The pains inflicted by the world invade the poet’s consciousness, which has already been weighted down by the ironies of history. The logic of this thematizing of the self (chagihwa) permits no disparity between the beliefs one holds and the will to take action on them. Pure will is the only means by which one may respond to the torments of life in order not to compromise one’s strict moral stance. The determination not to permit even “the smallest embarrassment” is all the more tragic for its purity. One must possess uncompromising self-judgment in order to protect the purity of the will amid the pain of reality, and one must keep to one’s path regardless of how external circumstances may try to interfere. Yun’s death in a Japanese prison prevented him from fully developing this poetic world. Still his poetry succeeds in capturing the suffering of his day, internalizing the difficulties of life and the vexations of the world, and in sustaining poetic tension. C. The Period of National Division Following Korea’s liberation from Japanese colonial rule in 1945, Korean poetry sought to recapture the language and spirit it had lost. Many poets during this period believed that politics was the only realm in which one could seek methods to construct a new Korean state and to stave off social chaos and disorder. Trends in poetry during this period embraced ideological opposition, and politicized poetry incited fierce social debates. The period is therefore known as Korean poetry’s “political period.” Major poets of the post-Liberation period include right-leaning writers Pak Chonghwa, Kim Kwangsŏp, Sŏ Chŏngju, Pak Tujin, Pak Mogwŏl, and Cho Chihun; and leftist writers Im Hwa, Pak Seyŏng, Pak P’aryang, Kim Kirim, Chŏng Chiyong, and O Changhwan. These two groups developed their art along oppositional ideological lines. Soon after Liberation these poets published two anthologies that conveyed in a true-to-life manner the deep emotions and passions of the people: Haebang kinyŏm shijip (Poems commemorating Liberation, 1945) and Hoaetpul: Haebang kinyŏm shijip (Torch fire: Poems commemorating Liberation, 1946). These two collections reflect the ideological split in Korean poetry circles after Liberation, but also the toil of poets striving to establish a direction for the Korean people and for the construction of their new state. Haebang kinyŏm shijip was compiled for the stated purpose of establishing a “guidepost for new poetry on the road to reconstruction.” Most major poets active immediately after Liberation participated in this project. The poems are far less about ideology than they are emotional responses to Liberation. Hoaetpul for its part was compiled by poets belonging to the Chosŏn munhakka

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tongmaeng (Chosŏn writers league), a leftist organization. The anthology was intended “as a dedication to those revolutionary warriors who fought for the liberation of the fatherland.” Many of the works contained in it are rooted in notions of class conflict and advocate revolutionary responses to the political situation. The dominant theme taken up by post-Liberation poets was the relationship between poetry and politics. Imbued with heightened concern for the political situation of the day, public debates emerged about the proper role of political poetry (chŏngch’i shi) in society. These ideological debates came to an end with the formation of the Republic of Korea and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in 1948, the majority of poets who favored linking poetry and politics having already migrated north of the demarcation line. But even as they experienced liberation, division, and civil war, Korean poets sought to reclaim the sensibility and techniques of their native tongue and sound out its new possibilities in their poetry. Poems are songs that never cease to be produced as part of popular life, their language and form revitalized according to the spirit of the poems and their creators. Clear evidence of this is seen in the history of the modern Korean poem following Liberation. The World of Pure Literature and Lyricism Despite the chaos of the years from Liberation to the outbreak in 1950 of the Korean War, lyric poetry continued to develop. Sŏ Chŏngju, Yu Ch’ihwan, Shin Sŏkchŏng, Pak Tujin, Pak Mogwŏl, Cho Chihun, Pak Namsu, and others kept alive the tradition of lyric poetry and poetic conviction carried over from the previous decades. Each poet is distinctive but all may be categorized as belonging more or less to the same artistic trend in their shared aim to harmonize humanity and nature, or in their employing of the language and rhythms of traditional lyricism. Sŏ Chŏngju’s first poetry collection, Hwasa chip (Flower snake poems, 1941), combines a carnal sensibility with a nihilistic view of life; the poet acknowledged the influence of the French poet Baudelaire in these poems. But in Kwich’okto (The cuckoo, 1948), conflict and sensuality are replaced with a balanced lyricism in which traditional sentiments are woven abundantly into the fabric of the verses. This change brought Sŏ’s poetry to the center of the lyric tradition, resulting in poems such as “Mir’ŏ” (Secret language, 1947) and “Kukhwa yŏp esŏ” (Beside a Chrysanthemum, 1948), in which the poet takes traditional rhythm to a deeper level, losing himself in Korean native sentiment and devoting his poetic spirit to the creation of native modes of verse. After the war Sŏ began to explore the vocabularies of regional speech, and sought to harmonize poetic form and melody. He also became

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fascinated with the mythic world of Shilla, the home of Korean tradition and realm of Buddhist mystery. This change in focus is evident in collections ranging from Shilla ch’o (Poems of Shilla, 1961) to Tongch’ŏn (Winter sky, 1969). Shilla ch’o reflects Sŏ’s new interest in tradition and East Asian Buddhism. He located Shilla as his ideal poetic world. While some have criticized the poet’s interest in Shilla as an escapist worldview, that interest is significant in that the ancient kingdom serves much like an ancestral home discovered by the poet’s own imagination. Shilla is not understood by means of emotion, but takes its poetic meaning from its depth. The world of Buddhist tales is represented as a harmonious, eternal space that leads one to discover the profound meaning of perpetually reincarnating existence. Construed as one poet’s transference of the world of the Buddhist tale to the art of poetry, Shilla as reconstructed by Sŏ’s imagination is not historical but mythical. Moreover, the addition of Buddhist themes lends the mythical kingdom even more mystery. But the space of perpetual cycles pursued by the poet also produces a self-destructive nihilism. Ultimately Sŏ abandoned the theme of ancient tales, and in Chilmajae shinhwa (The myth of Chilmajae, 1975), written after a thirty-year life journey starting from the publication of Kwich’okto in 1948, he turned his attention to his ancestral home in the real world. The poetic world of Ch’ŏngnok chip (Blue deer poems, 1946) is a direct reflection of modern Korean history. The three poets represented in this collection, Pak Tujin, Pak Mogwŏl, and Cho Chihun, debuted at the end of the Colonial period and emerged after Liberation as leaders of the rightist literary movement. Published as a three-poet project, Ch’ŏngnok chip represents a rediscovery of Korea’s natural beauty and displays as well the historical context of lyric poetry during the Colonial and post-Liberation periods. The collection is expanded and deepened by the presence of each poet’s poetic universe: Pak Mogwŏl’s rusticality, Pak Tujin’s search for the ideal, and Cho Chihun’s classical spirit. Pak Tujin employs recursive, exquisitely melodic language in poetry collections such as Odo (Afternoon prayer, 1953) and Pak Tujin shisŏn (Selected poems of Pak Tujin, 1956) to convey a sense of the poet’s will. In these poems he sings of the vitality of life and of human will by introducing images from nature. Poems with nature as their object, such as “Ch’ŏngsando” (Green mountain way), are in some cases prayers offered by a speaker wandering the abyss of existence, and in other cases expressions of awe at life. His daring use of onomatopoeic expressions and direct metaphors, and his unprecedented technique of delivering poetic declarations in prose form, make an intense emotional impact. In “Kŏmi wa sŏngjwa” (Spiders and constellations, 1962) and “Ingan millim” (Dense human forest, 1963), Pak began to actively critique negative

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aspects of life. Experiencing the agitations of life, he places more trust in a strong will to live and an aggressively critical consciousness than in transcendent beliefs. The poetic will that emerges so strikingly in “Ki” (Flag), “Pom e ŭi kyŏk” (An appeal to spring), and “Kkot kwa hanggu” (Flowers at the harbor) reveals new inspiration gained from Korea’s experience of the April 19, 1960, Student Revolution, which brought the downfall of the nation’s first president. Pak’s poems from this period liberate the emotions in a dynamic manner and urgently call for action. Their poetic forms are freer, their linguistic liberties more excessive. This combination of a new, liberalized form and overflowing sentiment produced a poetry both willful in spirit and persuasive in tone. While criticizing the values of his day, Pak was not content merely to employ idealism in the pursuit of absolutes. In his later poetry he is even more determined to use this pursuit as a base from which to sublimate and reform the values of the world. In poems ranging from “Ingan millim” to his 1973 collection Susŏk yŏlchŏn (The lives of the stones), poems rooted in his own private understanding, Pak creates an absolute sphere within which he roundly surveys infinite time and infinite space. Especially in Susŏk yŏlchŏn the poetic spirit corresponds with physical objects found in nature. The stones, formed at the genesis of the universe, are conceived as perfect creations possessing temporal secrecy. Pak’s poetic world fuses the image of these creations, which possess the harmony and mystery of nature, with human life and its agitations to create new values in poetic expression. Pak Mogwŏl, in the poetry collections Sandohwa (Blossoms of the mountain peach, 1954) and Ran, kit’a (“Orchids” and other poems, 1959), evokes a distinctive emotionality and rich lyricism through subtle poetic sensibility, yet fills his poetic world with everyday reality and the experience of human life. The pure realm of nature in Pak’s contributions to the Ch’ŏngnok chip volume reappears as a kind of sensual space in poems like “Ch’ŏng noru” (Blue deer) and “Chahasan” (Mt. Chaha). Turning an eye to lived reality, the poet discovers a materially poor yet happily simple life, and the goodness of humanity found within it. In poems like “Soch’an” (Humble repast) and “Tang’in-ni kŭnch’ŏ” (Near Tangin Village), he is cognizant of the ups and downs of life yet is content to pass his days in freedom and ease. He no longer seeks to merely contemplate nature as in his earlier poems, but situates himself in the affairs of everyday life and enjoys the small happinesses he experiences there. His family, a presence central to his existence, is often the subject matter in this period. The poems appeal to readers with great effectiveness through images drawn from real life and through the endless expression of simple emotions.

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In later poetry such as the Kyŏngsangdo ŭi karangip (Dead leaves in Kyŏngsang, 1968) collection, Pak’s posture as life philosopher emerges even more clearly. Employing rusticisms from Kyŏngsang dialect, he reminisces about the folk of his home province. The outstanding feature of this collection is the poet’s adoption of the color and rhythmicality of countryside speech as an apparatus and technique for poetic expression. Borrowing the rusticisms of his hometown dialect, he expresses the naivete and humanity of the people in the region. But it is not only local folkways that the poet wishes to capture; he also concentrates on finding an originary mode of human existence. His poetry looks at life and death with increased latitude to render a deeply felt pathos of emptiness. The poems therefore evoke a sharp awareness of death and a deep sense of futility. Their language reflects the changes in the poet’s own worldview as he turns back to his ancestral home, the foundation of his life, for inspiration. Cho Chihun, from his debut, focused on comprehending the domains of tradition and history. His poetry effected unique achievements through balance of poetic form and restraint in emotion. Not only his poetry from Ch’ŏngnok chip but many other works written after Liberation confirm his desire to realize through poetry a world in which order and harmony reign. In early works such as “Kop’ung ŭi sang” (Old-style clothing, 1939), the poet sings of the refined classical tastes of Korean tradition, while in “Sŭngmu” (The monk’s dance, 1939) he lyrically expresses through depiction of the motions of a Buddhist dance the spiritual beauty inherent in sublimating the suffering of the secular world through faith in Buddhist creeds. The objects of which Cho sings often are more static than active. His poems have a markedly contemplative character as well as a poetic tension deriving from an attempt to contain diverse emotional impulses. The difficulty of employing restraint in language and balance in emotion to achieve harmony between intellect and passion is implicit. Following the publication of P’urip tanjang (Leaves of grass: Literary fragments, 1952), Cho set his postwar poetic world in order in collections such as Cho Chihun shisŏn (Selected poems of Cho Chihun, 1956) and Yŏksa ap esŏ (In the presence of history, 1959). Having lived through the postLiberation chaos while advocating the pursuit of a premodern spirit, the poet now sings of nature and engrosses himself in subjective awareness through poems of restraint, balance, and harmony. In the title poem from P’urip tanjang Cho had reconceptualized the meaning of nature and life. Wind and snow, grass, rocks, clouds, and even humans are all depicted in their ordinariness as natural phenomena imbued with rich vitality by the hand of some mysterious principle. But amid wartime suffering Cho expanded his field of interest to the realities of the society around him, resulting in poems such as “Tabuwŏn esŏ” (At Tabuwŏn). This work

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remains the quintessential Korean war poem for its realistic depictions of the horrors of warfare. But while the subject matter of his poetry may have changed, the poet’s tone, posture, and voice remained the same. Whether poeticizing nature or pondering the past, whether looking hard at reality or absorbed in his own gaze, he reveals no variation in tone. We hear one voice, and that voice alone. This consistency is the most important aspect and the central force of his poetry. Korean poetry from the postwar period, embodied in a generation of poets some established but most newly arrived—Ko Ŭn, Ku Sang, Kim Kwangnim, Kim Namjo, Kim Suyŏng, Kim Chongsam, Kim Ch’unsu, Pak Chaesam, Chŏn Ponggŏn, Chŏng Hanmo, Cho Pyŏnghwa, and Hong Yunsuk—boasted many new trends. Some poets strove to build upon the traditional lyric form, while others devoted themselves to realizing new poetic language and consciousness. The poets of this new generation were known as postwar poets (chŏnhu p’a), and their poems embody the spirit of their age. Ku Sang is a major figure whose career ranged from the post-Liberation period into the new millennium. His self- and society-referential poem “Shame” (see the “Readings” section of this chapter) is central to modern Korean poetry. Kim Ch’unsu, from his first collection of poetry, Kurŭm kwa changmi (Clouds and roses, 1948), embarked on an exploration of the meaning and value of existence. But by the time Kkot ŭi somyo (Sketches of flowers, 1959) was published, he had begun broadening his understanding of existence to include the real world. His primary concern remained the question of how to poetically understand the object. For him, the proper task of poetry is to grasp ideals through the medium of feeling (kamgak), and in Kkot ŭi somyo the world of ideals he had pursued could finally take shape. Kim believed that the world of ideals could be expressed through the form of the poem, and knowing that ideals exist on the far shore of language, he placed his reliance on language as the “home of existence.” In Kim’s T’aryŏng cho, kit’a (“Song of lament” and other poems, 1969), the language that once pursued ideals lapses into technique in some poems, and in other poems deconstructs meaning. The purpose of this strategy is to recover the naturalness of language. As a result Kim transitioned from pursuing ideals to conducting experiments of feeling, arriving at the style that came to dominate his work, “the meaningless poem” (muŭimi ŭi shi). In his 1974 collection Ch’ŏyong, Kim uses an encounter with the character Ch’ŏyong from the old folk tale to adopt a calming poetic voice. When all is left to language, the consciousness is set free in infinite space. Kim termed this state “free association” (chayu yŏnsang). A set of linked poems from this volume, “Ch’ŏyong tanjang” (Ch’ŏyong

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fragments), may be seen as the crystallization of the poet’s unconscious. Kim does not try to show self-consciousness in his works, instead letting language, rather than the poet, write the poem. Things exist because they are; they are not perceived by the poet’s consciousness, nor are they given meaning by the poet. Kim does not try to reach existence through poetry, believing that existence openly reveals itself. Pak Chaesam, from early in his career, expanded the range of the traditional poem through sentiment rooted in classical aesthetics and nostalgia for the countryide. In such poems as “P’iri” (Reed flute), “Urŭm i t’anŭn kaŭl kang” (Autumn river in burning tears, 1959), and “Ch’uŏk esŏ” (As I recall, 1961), sorrow occasioned by the emptiness of life is represented through melodic language. The sorrow of which Pak sings is not a negation of life, nor is it a form of desperation. Rather, it is an emotion basic to our life experience. Pak’s debut collection, Ch’unhyangi maŭm (Ch’unhyang, heart and soul, 1962), features a series of linked poems inspired by Ch’unhyang ka, the p’ansori version of the Ch’unhyang story (see chapter 5). Among the poems in the series, “Sujŏng ka” (Song of a pure heart), “Param kŭrimja rŭl” (Regarding wind shadows), “Maemi urŭm e” (On hearing the cicadas sing), “Chayŏn” (Naturally), and “Hwasangbo” (Genealogy of a romance) are superb. Here, Ch’unhyang represents traditional ethics, values, and aesthetics as well as the emotions of love and han (a difficult-to-translate term usually understood as involving frustration, resentment, bitterness, and regret, along with a desire for whatever might assuage those feelings). Pak adds a new poetic sensibility to the tale’s classic beauty, replacing traditional morality with bold desire and modern sensuality. The emotion of han is exploited to the fullest to create an aesthetic of pathos and tears. Notable among Pak’s subsequent poetry collections are Haetpit sok esŏ (Among the sunbeams, 1970), Ŏrin kŏt tŭl yŏp esŏ (With the kids, 1976), a selection of shijo titled Nae sarang ŭn (The one I love, 1985), and Tashi kŭrium ŭro (Again the longing, 1996). During Pak’s long career, nature never ceased to be his poetic object. Nature for Pak is the perfect embodiment of life’s principles, a world of eternal, immaculate beauty. The poet derives comfort and wisdom from nature but sometimes falls into despair at the failings that distance humans from nature’s perfection. Affinity with the Korean language and depth in his interpretations of traditional sentiment contributed to Pak’s attainment of a consummate level of poetry following the war. In Kim Namjo’s first verse collection, Moksum (Life, 1953), she revealed herself as a poet of major significance. Poems like “Hwanghon” (Twilight, 1954), “Nagil” (Sunset, 1955), and “Man’ga” (Elegy, 1954) absorb the poet’s

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sharp confidence in humanity and her passion fueled by a strong vital energy. Moksum perfectly harmonizes Catholic piety and the raw voice of human experience. In Kim’s third collection, Namu wa param (Trees and wind, 1958), her persistent focus on self, characteristic of her early poems, gives way to a concern for achieving emotional balance in her work. And in Chŏngnyŏm ŭi ki (Flag of sentiments, 1960), the poet effects a complete departure from her earlier work. All the poems in this collection share as a theme the quest for love, the poet seeking comfort and peace through an understanding of love at the spiritual rather than the carnal level. The title poem, “Nŏ ege” (To you), and “Kaŭl ŭi kido” (Autumn prayer) are especially compelling for their swift dissolution through poetic language of the intense struggle to overcome the afflictions of life. Certain of her poems investigate human suffering and the desire for life; reading like fervent prayers, they further evoke the poet’s deep piety and heighten the resonance of her work. Kyŏul pada (Winter sea, 1967) reveals a tidy balance of abundant imaginative power and poetic sentiment. Richness of poetic spirit cultivated through harmonious blending of sensual language and lively images is this poet’s greatest virtue. An edition of her complete works was published in 1983, but the poet continued to write in the decades following, augmenting her legacy of capturing emotional subtlety within the framework of religious faith. Poetry Engaging Reality Korean poetry underwent major changes following the April 19, 1960, Student Revolution, which brought an end to the increasingly authoritarian rule of President Yi Sŭngman (Syngman Rhee). Attitudes toward literature altered greatly in accordance with new approaches to reality stemming from changes in the social system. Attitudes changed in respect to poetry itself, and the attitudes of the poets also changed. Whereas poetry had formerly been conceived as “pure”—that is, as poetry and nothing more—it was now called on to meet the needs of the times by adopting vitality, will, and the power to move readers. Some poets began rejecting what they considered the narrow vision inherent in postwar poetry and clamored for more engagement with reality. Here, engagement or participation (ch’amyŏ) is an expression of the will to realize a new set of values that account for the conditions of real life. Kim Suyŏng’s poems are examples of this new form of poetry. Saeroun toshi wa shimin tŭl ŭi hapch’ang (Chorus for a new city and citizenry, 1949), which also includes poetry by Kim Kyŏngnin, Pak Inhwan, and others, revealed him as a modernist. His debut collection, Tal nara ŭi changnan (Mischief on the moon, 1959), employs a modernist sensibility to depict

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the sorrows of the urban subject living in the postwar milieu. The most celebrated of these poems are “Hellik’opt’ŏ” (Helicopter) and “P’okp’o” (Waterfall). Kim’s poetry took a major turn after April 1960. The cynical tone and nihilism of his postwar poems disappeared in favor of his personal views about society. This change is clearest in his poems “Yukpŏp chŏnsŏ wa hyŏngmyŏng” (Statute books and revolution, 1961) and “P’urŭn hanŭl ŭl” (Blue sky). Themes of love and freedom appear in the brooding “Na ŭi kajok” (My family), while poems such as “Chŏlmang” (Despair) and “Ŏnŭ nal kogung ŭl naomyŏnsŏ” (Emerging from an old palace, 1965) embody Kim’s expanded interest in societal reality. The will to engage with reality that appears in Kim’s poems originates in the concept of freedom. For Kim it was the lack of political freedom that accounted for the fearsome violence he saw destroying the diversity and vitality of Korean culture. Jarred awake to the true meaning of freedom through firsthand experience of the Student Revolution, Kim was deeply disillusioned when the revolution’s aims were frustrated by the May 1961 military takeover that brought Pak Chŏnghŭi (Park Chung Hee) to power. Wavering between hatred for the enemy who disallows the possibility of freedom, and antipathy for the reality that disallows challenges to that enemy, he wrote “Kŭ pang ŭl saenggak hamyŏ” (Thinking of that room, 1960) and “Chŏk” (Enemy, 1962). Other poems, such as “Kŏdaehan ppuri” (The giant root, 1964), “Hyŏndaeshik kyoryang” (Modern bridges, 1965), and “Sarang ŭi pyŏnju’gok” (Love rhapsody) emerged from his passionate interest in history. The posthumously published “P’ul” (Grasses, 1968; see the “Readings” section of this chapter) for its part set the pattern for the populist poems (minjung shi) of the 1970s. Kim’s ideals about poetic engagement with reality may be found in his critical essays “Shi yŏ, ch’im ŭl paet’ŏra” (Spit, poetry! 1968) and “Panshiron” (A theory of the anti-poem, 1968). Here he insists that poetry is something to be written not with the mind or the heart but “with the full weight of your body as you push forward.” Engagement poetry is a response to a society that does not admit political and individual freedom. A society that does not allow freedom of content likewise disallows freedom of form. In this sense, to write poetry is to fulfill one’s freedom in a spirit of adventure. This perspective amounts to an extreme declaration of self-parody by the poet, aimed at the passive attitudes of urbanites whose hopes for a more open society in the wake of the April 1960 Revolution were dashed by the May 1961 military coup. Shin Tongyŏp unites traditional lyricism and historical consciousness in his poems. His debut collection, Asanyŏ (The maiden Asa, 1963),

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contains works such as “Chindallae sanch’ŏn” (Azalea landscape), “Kŭ kaŭl” (That autumn), and “Nae kohyang ŭn aniŏssŏnne” (That wasn’t the home I knew), which problematize the destruction by the cataclysm of history of traditional Korean communal life. Also worthy of note are “Nu ka hanŭl ŭl poatta hanŭnga” (Who said he saw the sky? 1980), “Choguk” (Fatherland, 1969), and “Kkŏptaegi nŭn kara” (Away with the shell! 1982). The last of these poems, instead of singing of a resentment-filled history, exposes the vacuity of history and reality and urges the realization of the ideals of the minjung (popular collective) as a means to overcome that history. Shin’s epic poem Kŭmgang (The Kŭm River, 1967) is a sublime combination of historical consciousnesss and artistic creativity. The context of the poem is the Tonghak Peasant Rebellion of 1894, but its purpose is to illuminate modern Korean history from the Colonial period until the Student Revolution from the perspective of the minjung. The poem suffers from a labored objectivity common to descriptive poems, as well as an imbalance in the development of the poetic subject and awkward changes in tone, but the poet’s comprehensive understanding of the Tonghak Rebellion and his use of the power of imagination to imbue the poem with poetic tension and balance are noteworthy. Kim Suyŏng and Shin Tongyŏp began their poetic careers from different standpoints, but their poetry shares a common trajectory. Kim’s urban settings and intellectual language are radically different from Shin’s lyrical properties rooted in native Korean sentiment. But both poets made a transition to the discovery of real life and injected that awareness into their poetic world, leading them to the same place. Their achievements in crafting a new “engagement poetry” would serve as a model for subsequent poets who took up the banner of participation in social reality. Minjung Poetry and the Collective Imagination Poetic engagement with reality would become the single greatest topic of debate in the history of modern Korean poetry. As Korea began to industrialize, the concept of engagement expanded to include the categories of poetic object (shichŏk taesang) and poetic epistemology (shichŏk inshik). Even as they emphasized the need for engagement, poets were more interested in cultivating lyricism. Yet while stubbornly continuing to recognize the purity of language they also made every effort to thematize the everyday life of the individual. This phenomenon shows that what most interested poets was the pursuit of fidelity to their own experiences. The poetry circles of the industrialization period were caught up in a sweeping cultural trend to serve, through verse, the needs of the popular

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collective. Minjung poetry encapsulated several characteristics of the society of the time, a society endlessly reeling from chaos caused by the effects of authoritarian politics and the rush to industrialize. Poetry began to criticize and parody reality, and portray the lives of the alienated minjung. The moral passion with which individual poets observed reality became bound by a progressive poetic spirit and radical language, and often seemed to venture into areas considered overly ideological. Minjung poetry was established through the efforts of Shin Kyŏngnim, Yi Sŏngbu, Cho T’aeil, and Ch’oe Harim and was further energized by the innovations of Ko Ŭn and the satiric critiques offered by Kim Chiha. Following the appearance of “Ojŏk” (Five bandits, 1970), a poem-tale (tamshi) sharply parodying Korea’s industrializing society fraught with military authoritarianism and corruption, Kim Chiha published his first collection of poetry, Hwangt’o (Yellow earth, 1970), which marked his place at the center of the new minjung poetry movement. In “Ojŏk” he boldly transformed the traditional rhythmic structures of kasa, t’aryŏng (ballad), and p’ansori narratives to create new possibilities for lengthy satirical poetry. The work drew attention for its villainizing of the likes of the industrial conglomerates known as chaebŏl, the National Assembly, high-level officials, and military generals and for its fierce moral critique of the upper classes throughout Korean history, especially their moral frigidity and indulgence in luxuries. Although he became a target of government oppression and suffered harsh political violence in response to “Ojŏk,” Kim persistently refused to recant his poetic stance. Kim’s poetry gained renewed interest with the publication of T’anŭn mongmarŭm ŭro (With a burning thirst, 1982), a collection of verse written during his incarceration. Critical discussion of these poems regarded the broader issue of the meaning of literature rather than the socialmoral standards a literary work projects. This reexamination of Kim’s work was connected with social critique and resistance, which are internalized even more deeply in the prison poems, evoking poetic tension through an intense concentration of the poet’s emotions. The poems clearly attest to the poet’s gruesome battle to put pen to paper under severe hardship. Even though enacted under extreme duress, writing enabled Kim to sharpen his own awareness, endure suffering, and persist in his beliefs. Kim’s further attempts, in Taesŏl nam (Saga of the South, 1984), to experiment with literary form are not unlike his experiments in “Ojŏk.” Rejecting superficial prose and overly emotional poetic language, he created a new discourse by which to preserve the tension between lyric and descriptive forms. This breakthrough went largely unnoticed due to the strangeness

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of the poems’ appearance, but by demolishing the literary forms that had become regularized through convention and systemic practice, this volume rationalized attacks against the conservatism inherent in recognizing literary forms only when they adhere to the status quo. Among Kim’s subsequent collections are the two-volume Aerin (Love thy neighbor, 1987), Kŏmŭn san hayan pang (Black mountain, white room, 1987), and Pyŏlpat ŭl urŏrŭmyŏ (Looking up to the field of stars, 1989). Rather than critiquing society, the poems in Aerin thematize love as an essential human condition, and the verse in Pyŏlpat ŭl urŏrŭmyŏ tends toward lyrical content such as personal soliloquies and fairy tales about nature. These collections portended new poetic themes such as respect for life and concern for the environment. Shin Kyŏngnim’s poetry began with narratives of the alienation of farmer’s lives during the country’s rapid industrialization. The poems in his debut collection, Nongmu (Farmers’ dance, 1973), brought to society’s attention the pain and poverty of Korea’s farmers, who themselves have no recourse but to live on and from the land. Shin reflects the raw voice of the farmers as they are, refusing to relegate them to part of the rural landscape or cast them in terms of pastoral nostalgia. Farming folk may lack city airs, but Shin delights in treating the farm as his poetic object because the simplicity of farm life yields abundant harvests of truthfulness. His efforts to capture the reality of the farm through poetry continued in collections such as Saejae (Bird Pass, 1979), Tallŏmse (One more month to go, 1985), and Minyo kihaeng 1 (Folk-song travel 1, 1985). The farm life and people Shin depicts so realistically gain veracity through the ordinary language and frankness of the poems. The poet does not distance himself from the farmers but stands squarely in the middle of the farm village he seeks to narrate through verse. The most painstaking aspect of Shin’s poetry is the blending of the modern poem with the spirit of the traditional folk song (minyo). But he differs from earlier modern representations of folk song–like sentiments or rhythms in placing much higher value on the lives and will of the minjung and on emotions generated naturally by life experience. Shin’s lengthy poem Namhangang (South Han River, 1987) epitomizes his efforts to find the lyricism of the national collective in the spirit of the folk song. He captures the lives of the entire minjung through his own experiences and by preserving local context. In this work Shin intentionally introduced vocabulary no longer in general use, allowing the language of the poem to encompass a broad territory. The folk-song form employed throughout different sections of the work does not alienate readers. On the contrary, the original rhythm of the folk song enlivens the monotony common to

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long poems, while inducing in readers a sense of common historical experience and the sentiments of the national collective. Ko Ŭn’s early poems, contained in P’ian kamsŏng (Other shore sensibility, 1960) and Haebyŏn ŭi unmunjip (Seaside verses, 1964), are for the most part nihilistic in outlook and overly abstruse and sentimental in language. But in collections from the mid-1970s such as Munŭi maŭl e kasŏ (When I went to Munŭi Village, 1974), Ipsan (Taking to the monastery, 1977), and Saebyŏk kil (Path at daybreak, 1978), Ko’s poetic world dispenses with nihilism and self-hatred, and the poet begins to assert his will in the arenas of history and the here and now. This transformation begins with a casting off of self-consciousness and the establishment of a poetic self (chaa). The poet looks at reality based in his self-understanding and begins to question history. Ko’s poems written from the vantage point of this new consciousness demonstrate fierce resistance to injustices in the real world. Struggling mightily against the violent politics of his age, the poet still manages not to show despair in the face of the world’s cruelties. His poems burst with conviction and the will to enact change. Poems from this period such as “Na chashin ŭl wihayŏ” (For me, myself) and “Choguk ŭi pyŏl” (Homeland stars, 1984) show the poet’s steadfast faith in history. In an age calling for political warfare, each and every word in Ko’s poetry becomes an arrow unleashed at the inequities in Korea’s society. Ko suffered imprisonment several times during the course of his anti-government activities, but instead of cowering in despair he strengthened his imaginative power by deepening and broadening the historical consciousness that imbues his poetic world. Ko’s multivolume linked-verse poem Maninbo (Ten thousand lives; the first three volumes were published in 1987 and some two dozen have followed) and his seven-volume epic poem Paektusan (Mt. Paektu [the highest point on the Korean Peninsula, situated at the border of North Korea and Manchuria], 1987–1994) are culled from an imagination steeped in consciousness of the minjung. Maninbo is an outstanding work of immense scale and poetic comprehensiveness that colorfully weaves together images from lives of the Korean people, unfettered by limitations of time and space. Much of its charm lies in the repetition and accumulation produced through the linkage of verses. The technique of linkage expands the form of the lyric poem, deepening the poetic theme and revealing the remarkable breadth and depth of the poet’s interest in the topos of real life. The work captures all the possibilities of life containable in the world of the lyric, and manifests unconditional love for all. By thematizing the diversity of lives and experiences within the minjung and its collective

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consciousness, Maninbo well nigh becomes the language of Korean life itself. Poetic Technique and Lyricism If minjung poetry concentrated on the lives of the national collective by representing the people’s emotions, there were also many instances of poets focusing on reestablishing the poetic spirit itself, based in individual emotion. Poets concerned with understanding poetic language and the poetic object include Hwang Tonggyu, Chŏng Hyŏnjong, Kim Yŏngt’ae, O Kyuwŏn, and Yi Sŭnghun. Also of importance are those poets who focused on the tradition of the lyric poem while using their art to examine the ironies and irrationality of daily life. These poets include Chŏng Ching­yu, O Seyŏng, Kim Chonghae, Yi Kŏnch’ŏng, and Yi Suik. Outstanding women poets of the period were Kim Huran, Hŏ Yŏngja, Yu Anjin, Shin Talcha, Kim Ch’ohye, Mun Chŏnghŭi, and Kim Sŭnghŭi. Male or female, these poets have occasionally been criticized for purism or lack of engagement, or are pointed out as being excessively idealistic or pedantic, but they continue to problematize the existence of the modern subject alienated by industrialization. Their poems at times employ distorted language to portray the distorted lives of industrialized humanity, and at other times use heightened emotions that transcend reality. Inhumane elements within urban culture and the realm of the civilized are roundly cursed in their poems, often through the interposition of witty language. However, the poetic voices of the women poets seldom shout at the reader; rather, their emotions are delivered inobtrusively through the veil of language. Hwang Tonggyu’s early poems appear in two collections, Ŏttŏn kaein nal (One fine day, 1961) and Piga (Elegy, 1965). His first published poems, “Shiwŏl” (October, 1958) and “Chŭlgŏun p’yŏnji” (A cheerful letter, 1958), reflect a grim, desolate interior world of waiting and longing. The title poem of Piga struggles to embrace the pain of reality in descriptions of a melancholy inner world. It exposes the conflict between self and reality through the language of a poetic subject who is confused or has been driven from familiar surroundings, suggesting the poet has turned his attention to the concrete world of real life. In 1968 and again in 1972, Hwang joined with Kim Yŏngt’ae and Ma Chonggi in creating a poetry anthology called P’yŏnggyunnyul (Averages). In his contributions to these volumes, Hwang expands the inner space of the poetic world to exterior reality. The poems exercise an increased dynamic imagination in their exploration of themes such as conflict between self and reality and negation of reality as a force that pollutes human dreams and

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ideals. Works such as the title poem of his T’aep’yŏng ka collection (Song of great peace, 1968), “Samnam e naerinŭn nun” (Snow falling on the three southern provinces, 1968), and the “Yŏrha ilgi” (Jehol diary, 1969) series originate in this consciousness. Assuming his mastery over language, the poet manifests his voice as a storm of ironic echoings. “Samnam e naerinŭn nun” became the title poem of his 1975 collection, which employs a tensionfilled grammar of contradiction to show with unmistakable clarity problems in the surrounding social landscape. The linguistic paradoxes savored by the poet, exploited to dramatically confront reality, are intended as indictments of the cruelties of political violence. To show how such violence destroys the love and pure dreams of its victims, the poet contextualizes his works in a world of darkness, a cruel reality empty of love and hope. During the years of industrialization, Hwang published collections such as Na nŭn pak’wi rŭl pomyŏn kulligo ship’ŏjinda (When I see a wheel I want to spin, 1978), P’ungjang (Wind Burial, 1984), and Kyŏndil su ŏmnŭn kabyŏun chonjae tŭl (Beings of unbearable lightness, 1988), in which he turned his attention from the problems of reality to more essential matters of existence. Of all the works Hwang produced during this period, the title poem of P’ungjang represents his supreme accomplishment. Here Hwang steps back from reality, surpassing history and reality to create a new poetics of space. “P’ungjang” is a meditation on death. Through the experience of death the poet lightens the burden of life and affirms that life and death exist in complementary relation. Designed as a series of thematically linked poems (yŏnjak shi), P’ungjang signifies the poet’s determination to cast off the cloak of worldly cares, to become liberated and unburdened in every aspect of his life. The poem discloses an exalted realm of the spirit—a spirit achieved through an uncommon reflection on life and death, a realm in which unrestrained, carefree language releases the physical body from the wordliness that has oppressed it. “P’ungjang” is invested with a tension that overcomes the cessation of time, and even the sense of time itself. Time is transcended, death evaded. This transcendence is the utimate to which Hwang’s poetry seeks. His efforts to return to the inactivity (muwi) of nature as life essence also appear in later collections such as Morundae haeng (A trip to Morundae, 1991) and Mishiryŏng ŭi k’ŭn param (Strong winds at Mishi Pass, 1993). Chŏng Hyŏnjong, from his first collection, Samul ŭi kkum (Dreams of objects, 1972), revealed an occupation with comprehending through language the analogical meanings connecting the world of objects and the world of the spirit. He employs opposing images to transform the diverse shapes, movements, and existences of objects, creating collisions between short/tall, dark/bright, static/fluid, and hard/soft things. But the tense

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relation between these poetic images is discovered in the process of the worlds of objects and spirit melding into one, rather than through linguistic high-handedness on the part of the poet. This unifying process enacted through the language of images is reflected directly in the poems. In Na nŭn pyŏl ajŏsshi (I am the star man, 1978), dynamic images are blended with even more complexity to produce new meanings. The image sometimes distorts the object, and the distorted object in turn distorts the contours of the poetic self. Chŏng rejects the arbitrary meanings and associations possessed by language concepts in favor of pursuing the concreteness of objects. Chŏng’s seventh collection, Saranghal shigan i manchianta (So little time to love, 1989), marks a turning point from the theme of conflict between reality and dreams to a new outlook embracing a world of reconciliation characterized by an inner sympathy with living things, awe of nature, and ecstasy about life. This shift is sharpened by the poet’s new understanding of nature. “Cha” (Measuring stick) exemplifies this new worldview. In an age when civilization and man-made artifice oppress humankind, only nature provides the path to salvation. O Seyŏng, beginning with his first poetry collection, Pallanhanŭn pit (Rebellious light, 1970), exhibited intellectual insight in perceiving objects, while cultivating his individuality through emphasis on lyricism. He does not discard traditional lyricism but joins it to an urban sensibility in an effort to comprehend the truth of lived experience. The world of the personal lyric that unfolds in his poetry is expansive, extending from everyday feelings to the refined spiritual states of Sŏn (Zen) Buddhism. With the publication of Kajang ŏduun nal chŏnyŏk e (On the evening of the darkest day, 1982), O dispensed with the modernist mood of his early poems. Having passed through the political strife and societal chaos of the 1970s, he expanded the scope of his poetry to embrace matters of daily life by seeking deeper reflection on the essence of life. Such reflection involves not so much rational judgment or logical thought as depth in perceiving objects and their essences. What is sometimes characterized as philosophical in his poetry is perhaps better understood as religious. O’s poems reflect a principle of ordinary religious faith: objects eventually return to the original form in which they were made. Because he sees the birth and death of all objects as an undivided unity, his language at times seems to have a contradictory grammar. In his series of linked poems Mumyŏng yŏnshi (Without enlightenment, 1986), he takes up the Buddhist concept of mumyŏng, immersing himself more deeply in religious thought. His efforts to attain the path of realization sometimes clash with reality. A deepened sense of this incongruity is seen in his collection Pul t’anŭn mul (Water ablaze, 1988).

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D. Readings Kim Sowŏl Azaleas (Chindallae kkot, 1922) When you leave, weary of me, without a word I shall gently let you go. From Mt. Yak in Yŏngbyŏn, I shall gather armfuls of azaleas and scatter them on your way. Step by step on the flowers placed before you tread lightly, softly as you go. When you leave, weary of me, though I die, I’ll not let one tear fall. Translation by David McCann Chŏng Chiyong Window 1 (Yurich’ang 1, 1930) Something sad and cold shimmers at the glass. When I listlessly draw near and blur clouds of breath, As if tamed it flutters frozen wings. Though again and again I wipe and take a look, The pitch black night— surging out, surging in— collides. Drenched stars, agleam, are set like jewels. To wipe the glass alone at night, A lonely spellbound meditation— Ah, lovely lungs all torn, You’ve flown away like a wild bird! Translation by Daniel Kister

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Yi Sang Poem No. XV (from A Crow’s-Eye View [Ogamdo, 1934]) 1 I’m in a mirrorless room. Naturally the I in the mirror has gone out. I’m trembling now in fear of the I in the mirror. Has the I in the mirror gone somewhere to plot what next to do to me? 2 Slept in a dank crime-cuddling bed. In my precision dream I was absent and an artificial leg crammed into an infantry boot soiled my dream’s white page. 3 I secretly enter a room with a mirror. To free myself from the mirror. But with its gloomy face the I in the mirror definitely enters at the same time. The I in the mirror conveys to me that it’s sorry. Because of him it’s as if I’ve become a prison and because of me he too is a prison and trembles. 4 Dream I am absent from. Mirror of mine in which my impostor makes no entrance. Impossible though it may be it is that which aspires to solitude for the good I. I decided at last to proffer suicide to the I in the mirror. I show him a raisable window that doesn’t even have a view. A window meant only for suicide. But he points out to me the fact that as long as I don’t kill myself he too cannot kill himself. The I in the mirror is practically a phoenix. 5 I shield with bulletproof metal where my heart is on the left side of my chest and aiming at the left side of my chest in the mirror fired a pistol. The round penetrated the left side of his chest but his heart is on the right side. 6 From the replica heart red ink spills. In my dream I arrived late and received capital punishment. The controller of my dreams is not I. To have blocked off from each other these two persons unable even to shake hands is a great crime. Translation by Walter Lew

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Part II:  Modern Literature Yun Tongju Prelude (Sŏshi, 1939) Till the day I die May I look up at the sky Untainted by shame, I who have been galled By the wind in the leaves. With a heart that sings the stars I will love all dying things; I will walk the road Allotted me. Tonight, too, the stars Are scraped by the wind. Translation by Kevin O’Rourke Sŏ Chŏngju How Chŏng Mongju Died “What about living this way, What about living that way? What about arrowroot vines intertwining on Mansusan? Intertwined, we could spend a hundred years in joy.” Thus sang Yi Pangwŏn, son of Yi Sŏnggye, in an attempt to win Chŏng Mongju to his side. “Though my body die and die again, though it die a hundred deaths, my skeleton turn to dust, my soul exist or not, what could change the red-blooded, undivided loyalty of this heart toward my lord?” Sang Chŏng Mongju in reply, knowing full well that death was nigh. Chŏng Mongju went to a wine-friend’s house, in the hope of getting filthy drunk. His friend, alas, was out: only the trees shouted in the garden for they were in full flower. He went among the flowers,

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Calling again and again for wine which he drank in great double draughts: he drank it all, he drank it alone. And when the wine mood came and his shoulders dipped in the dance he told his secretary to withdraw and walked with teetering steps To Straight Bamboo Bridge where he was struck by the waiting iron club that sent him to his death. Translation by Kevin O’Rourke Kim Suyŏng Grasses (P’ul, 1968) Grasses lie down Blown by the east wind driving rain Grasses lie At last they cried They cried more because the day was overcast And they lay down again Grasses lie Faster than the wind they lie Faster than the wind they cry Earlier than the wind they rise The day is overcast, and grasses lie Reaching the ankle Reaching the soles of the feet, they lie Later than the wind they lie Earlier than the wind they rise Later than the wind they cry Earlier than the wind they laugh The day is overcast, and the grass roots lie down Translation by Young-Jun Lee Ku Sang Shame Between the bars and netting wire of Changgyŏng Gardens’ Zoo I peer, in search of an animal that knows shame.

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Part II:  Modern Literature Keeper, I cry! Is there no presage of shame in the monkey’s red hole? What of the bear’s paw, incessantly licked, the whiskers of the seal, the female parrot’s beak, do they betray no harbinger of shame? I’ve come to the zoo in search of a shame long atrophied in the people of this city. Translation by Kevin O’Rourke Han Yongun Looking for the Cow (Shim’ujang; shijo) No cow’s been lost; it’s silly to look. Were it really lost, would it be finders keepers? Better not look at all; that way I won’t lose it again. Translation by Kevin O’Rourke

E. Suggestions for Further Reading Brother Anthony of Taizé and Kim Young-moo, trans. Variations: Three Korean Poets. Cornell East Asia Series 110. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell East Asia Series, 2001. [Poems by Kim Suyŏng, Shin Kyŏngnim, and Yi Shiyŏng.] Cho, Francisca, trans. Everything Yearned For: Manhae’s Poems of Love and Longing. Somerville, Mass.: Wisdom Publications, 2005. Chŏng Chiyong. Distant Valleys: Poems of Chong Chi-yong. Trans. Daniel A. Kister. Berkeley, Calif.: Asian Humanities Press, 1994. Chong Hyon-jong [Chŏng Hyŏnjong]. Day-Shine. Trans. Wolhee Choe and Peter Fusco. Cornell East Asia Series 94. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell East Asia Series, 1998. Ch’ŏn Sangbyŏng. Back to Heaven: Selected Poems. Trans. Brother Anthony of Taizé and Young-moo Kim. Cornell East Asia Series 77. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell East Asia Series, 1995.

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Hwang Tong-gyu. Wind Burial: Selected Poems of Hwang Tong-gyu. Trans. Grace Loving Gibson. Wells, U.K.: St. Andrews Press, 1990. Kim Ch’unsu. The Snow Falling on Chagall’s Village: Selected Poems. Trans. Kim Jong-gil. Cornell East Asia Series 93. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell East Asia Series, 1998. Kim Namjo. Selected Poems of Kim Namjo. Trans. David R. McCann and Hyunjae Yee Sallee. Cornell East Asia Series 63. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell East Asia Series, 1993. Kim Sowŏl. Azaleas: A Book of Poems. Trans. David R. McCann. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007. Ko Ŭn. Songs for Tomorrow: A Collection of Poems, 1960–2002. Trans. Brother Anthony of Taizé, Young-moo Kim, and Gary Gach. Los Angeles: Green Integer, 2008. ———. The Sound of My Waves: Selected Poems. Trans. Brother Anthony of Taizé and Young-moo Kim. Cornell East Asia Series 68. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell East Asia Series, 1993. ———. Ten Thousand Lives. Trans. Brother Anthony of Taizé, Young-moo Kim, and Gary Gach. Los Angeles: Green Integer, 2005. ———. What? 108 Zen Poems. Trans. Young-moo Kim and Brother Anthony of Taizé. Foreword by Allen Ginsburg. Berkeley, Calif.: Parallax Press, 2008. Ko Won, comp. and trans. Contemporary Korean Poetry. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1970. Lee, Peter H., ed. The Silence of Love: Twentieth-Century Korean Poetry. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1980. Lew, Walter, ed. “An Yi Sang Portfolio.” Muae 1 (1995). McCann, David, ed. The Columbia Anthology of Modern Korean Poetry. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004. O’Rourke, Kevin, ed. and trans. Looking for the Cow: Modern Korean Poems. Dublin: Daedalus Press, 1999. Pak Chaesam. Enough to Say It’s Far: Selected Poems. Trans. David R. McCann and Jiwon Shin. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2006. Pak Tujin. River of Life, River of Hope: Selected Poems. Trans. Edward W. Poitras. Norwalk, Conn.: EastBridge, 2005. Sŏ Chŏngju. Poems of a Wanderer: Selected Poems. Trans. Kevin O’Rourke. Dublin: Dedalus, 1995. ———. Selected Poems of Sŏ Chŏngju. Trans. David R. McCann. New York: Columbia University Press, 1989. Yi Sŏngbok. I Heard Life Calling Me. Trans. Hye-Jin Juhn Sidney and George Sidney. Cornell East Asia Series 145. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell East Asia Series, 2010.

EIGHT

Fiction

With the decline of Chinese as a literary language during the Enlightenment period, the newly popularized native script, hangŭl, became the medium through which modern fiction was established. The use of hangŭl enabled modern fiction to be read and enjoyed by an expanded popular readership. It was through the native script that modern fiction realized the ideal of ŏnmun ilch’i, unity of written and spoken language. Hangŭl, in other words, made it possible to write the living language of daily life. A new prose aesthetic was thus established. Different from the classical fictional narrative with its structure rooted in mythic imagination, modern fiction represents daily reality through experiential imagination based in experiential time. These are the building blocks of the modern fictional narrative, which demands that the characters be self-aware and live the life given them. As they interact with concrete, realistic conditions, the characters come into clearer focus and achieve greater verisimilitude as subjects. An important characteristic of modern Korean fiction is the emergence of the “day-to-day” person. This individual tends to be the protagonist of the fictional work. His or her status is not lofty, like that of classical heroes created by intervention from the divine world, nor has this individual descended from heaven to live in the realm of mortals. Placing the everyday individual as the central figure of the story fixes the modern protagonist’s narrative journey, namely, the pursuit of his or her individual fate. For the most part these protagonists are not bound by mythic taboos and incantatory magic. They live out their destiny in the day-to-day world, and that destiny is not revealed by a god but, ideally, decided by the individual alone. By understanding and defining themselves as discrete individuals, the protagonists position themselves as the subject of the narrative. Another notable feature of the modern fictional narrative is the reorganization of experiential time. Unlike the premodern fictional narrative,

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in which events and actions are arranged in chronological order, modern fiction reconstructs these events according to the logic of a specific narrative’s understanding of the world. Changes may occur thereby in the narrative structure, and reordering of chronological events becomes possible. In other words, natural time can be altered by the logic of the human consciousness. This betrayal of natural time marked the birth of human defiance of the natural order governed by the realm of the sacred. Modern fiction could thereby divorce itself from the fantasy and magic of eternity. Modern Korean fiction began in a transitional phase centered in Korea’s Enlightenment period and continued throughout the Colonial period and into the age of national division. In the transitional period old narrative traditions were deconstructed and the modern fictional narrative established itself through the reintroduction and application of hangŭl. During the Colonial period the short story form was universally adopted and, alongside the novel, grew to become the premier literary art form. Literature from the period of national division embraced an even wider scope of topics and new narrative techniques, offering the prospect of a comprehensive understanding of the industrialization and democratization of Korean society. A. The Transitional Period The Establishment of the Modern Fictional Narrative Modern Korean fiction was established against the background of modernity, a revolutionary process undergone by Korean society during its Enlightenment period. At that time the traditional social system was gradually breaking down and a modern value system and order began to take root in Korean society. During this revolutionary period, the “talelike” qualities and anti-realism characteristic of traditional literature were supplanted by modern fictional narratives. The new society, material culture, values, and ideals appearing in modern fiction are important bases distinguishing it from its premodern predecessor. The earliest modern fictional narratives exhibiting these new characteristics were sometimes called “new fiction” (shin sosŏl), as distinct from the “old fiction” of classical times. The narrative characteristics of the new fiction took root through the medium of hangŭl. Popularization was achieved through the newly emerging popular media of newspapers and magazines. To attract readers, newspaper publishers created special sections featuring fiction and hired professional writers to produce fictional and other types of narratives. The works of new fiction were innovative not only in form but also as objects of mass interest, as reflections of the new age.

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The Creation of National Heroes The first notable narrative form in the new fiction is the hero tale (yŏng’ung chŏn’gi). Popular interest in the hero tale may be accounted for by the forced opening of treaty ports in Chosŏn in the late nineteenth century, after which the nation and its people found themselves threatened with foreign encroachment, a situation that called for independence and a national communal consciousness. With the one-sided Ŭlsa Treaty (1905) and the institution of the Japanese Resident-Generalship in Korea embodying the invading power of Japan, tales featuring heroic figures were sorely needed in response to the trying challenges facing the country and its people. These narratives were based in reality and informed by the lives and personalities of actual figures from history. Set against a historical background, these tales look within the mind of the heroic protagonist to understand his or her life as a historical experience through which ideals and values may be pursued. Hero tales from the Enlightenment period include Aeguk puin chŏn (Tale of a patriotic woman) by Chang Chiyŏn; the eponymous Ŭlchi Mundŏk as well as Sugun cheil yŏngung Yi Sunshin chŏn (Tale of Yi Sunshin, premier naval hero) and Tongguk kŏ’gŏl Ch’oe Tot’ong chŏn (Tale of Ch’oe Tot’ong, great hero of Korea), all by Shin Ch’aeho; and Ch’ŏn Kaesomun chŏn (Tale of Chŏn Kaesomun) by Pak Ŭnshik. Hero tales from Western history that were popular in Japan and China, such as It’aeri kŏnguk sam kŏl chŏn (Tale of three heroes who built the Italian nation), Pisamaek chŏn (Tale of Bismarck), Laran puin chŏn (Tale of Madame Roland), and Hwasŏngdon chŏn (Tale of [George] Washington), were translated for Korean readers. Chang Chiyŏn’s Aeguk puin chŏn describes the life of Jeanne d’Arc, French heroine of the Hundred Years’ War. Inspired by her patriotism, the French people come together in a concentrated fight against the English and rescue their country from peril. The focus of the story is France endangered by English invasion. France’s historical plight resembled that of Korea taken over by Japanese imperialism, especially after the installment of the Japanese Governor-Generalship. The story emphasizes the necessity of national solidarity in the face of threats to national independence. It’aeri kŏnguk sam kŏl chŏn is Shin Ch’aeho’s translation of the Chinese thinker Liang Qichao’s fictionalized account of the three men who are credited with building the modern nation of Italy. In need of heroic characters who save the people and their country from foreign encroachment, Shin also sought out patriotic leaders from Korean history such as Ŭlchi Mundŏk, Ch’oe Yŏng, and Yi Sunshin for his works. The account of Ŭlchi Mundŏk, a Koguryŏ general who with the moral support of the people refused to surrender the country’s extensive territory in Manchuria to

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invading Chinese armies, emphasizes the man’s heroic spirit. The work seeks to revive the courageous spirit of the general in hopes of rescuing the people from imminent danger. The other two texts by Shin have similar narrative structures, focusing on the emergence from among the people of a hero who fights to overcome danger during a time of crisis for the country. The narrative conception of all three works is designed to explain elliptically the threat of foreign invasion faced by Korea in its Enlightenment period. Their emphasis on the strength of the people as a historical subject and their rejection of the defeatist historical consciousness rampant at the end of the Chosŏn period put forward a nationalistic thrust. But with the inception of the Colonial period, the publication of hero novels was banned by the Japanese Governor-General, thwarting further development of the heroic narrative tradition. The New Fiction and the Fate of the Individual Beginning with Yi Injik’s novel Hyŏl ŭi nu (Tears of Blood, 1906), the new fiction enjoyed mass popularity through the medium of the modern newspaper, in which these works were serialized. With the publication of Kwi ŭi sŏng (Voice of the demon, 1906), C’hiaksan (Chi’ak Mountain, 1908), and Ŭnsegye (Silver world, 1908), Yi established himself as an author of the new literature. Hyŏl ŭi nu focuses on a family in P’yŏngyang swept up in the Sino-Japanese War of the mid-1890s. The protagonist, Ongnyŏn, separated from her parents in the confusion of a battle, is eventually rescued by a Japanese soldier. When she cannot find her parents she is sent to Japan, where she grows up happily. When she encounters danger there, however, a young Korean man, Ku Wansŏ, is introduced into the story. Ongnyŏn follows Ku to the United States, where she accustoms herself to a modern, Western lifestyle. The story concludes with the protagonist completing her studies in America, becoming engaged to Ku, and finally reuniting with her parents. The structure of the story echoes that of the premodern fictional narrative, in which the trials of a family’s separation and the joy of its reunion constituted a standard theme. But what distinguishes Hyŏl ŭi nu from premodern narratives is its incorporation of Japanese colonial rhetoric. That the novel begins during the Sino-Japanese War, a war fought on Korean soil, indicates the author’s feelings about the political reality of his day. The Sino-Japanese War was a conflict between Qing China and Japan for hegemony over Chosŏn. Japan emerged as a new superpower as a result of its victory in the war, the result of which was the Qing cession of the Liaodong Peninsula to imperial Japan and its relinquishing of all claims to intervene in the political affairs of Chosŏn. The novel shows the possibilities for a new life for a Chosŏn family in P’yŏngyang beset by the catastrophe of war. After the Japanese army routs the Qing armies

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then occupying Chosŏn, it emerges in the novel as a savior of the Korean people, who are lost and wandering in the wartime confusion, leading them along a new path and strengthening them. Japan appears not as a new strong-arm occupying force but as a savior, protector, and guide to lead the Korean people to Enlightenment. While emphasizing Japan’s role as protector of Chosŏn, the novel also stresses the virtues of the Enlightenment Movement. To pro-Japanese Yi Injik, this was the logic that seemed most realistic at the time. Yi Haejo wrote numerous works of new fiction for the Cheguk shinmun (Imperial post), where he worked as a reporter until that newspaper’s demise in 1909: Komokhwa (Blossoms on a withered old tree, 1907), Pinsangsŏl (Snow fallen on hair, 1907), Wŏnangdo (Portrait of a pair of ducks, 1908), Kuma’gŏm (The demon-expelling sword, 1908), Hongdohwa (Peach blossoms, 1908), Manwŏldae (Full Moon Pavilion, 1908), Ssang okchŏk (A pair of jade flutes, 1909), and Moktan pyŏng (The peony folding screen, 1909). He continued writing as Korea entered the Colonial period, issuing Hyŏl ui hwa (Blossoms of blood, 1911), Soyangjŏng (Bright Pavilion, 1911), T’an’gŭmdae (Zither Pavilion, 1912), Ch’un oe ch’un (A spring unlike any other, 1912), and Kuwisan (Kuwi Mountain, 1912). Although these works failed to elucidate the societal reality of the time, among fictional works from this transitional period of modern Korean literature they are distinctive in their subject matter and style, to the extent that Yi can be said to have established a base for the popularization of the new fiction. Other of his works include Chayujong (Liberty bell, 1908), a politicized satire, and adaptations of the p’ansori tales of Ch’unhyang, Shim Ch’ŏng, and Hŭngbu—Okchunghwa (Flower in confinement, 1912), Kangsangnyŏn (Lotus on the river, 1912), and Yŏn ŭi kak (The swallow’s leg, 1913), respectively—as well as translations into Korean of biographical works such as Hwasŏngdon chŏn (1908), mentioned previously. The story line appearing most often in Yi Haejo’s new fiction is the downfall of the household stemming from conflicts between first wife and concubine, or from the abuse of the first wife’s child by the stepmother. These are common themes from premodern fiction, but Yi creatively injected new life and interest into old subject matter by exaggerating the degree of evil behind the treachery and plotting, as well as by introducing unexpected plot twists. Whether Yi was spinning stories of the ruination of self and family through superstitious beliefs or taking a progressive approach to problems encountered by remarried widows, his works were sensitive reactions to changes in social customs and mores. Nonetheless, even if a character goes to Japan or the United States to pursue the new learning, the concept of new learning itself is never delineated in practice; his characters continue to rely largely on old customs in their daily lives.

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Study in Japan and the advent of Westernized education (or education in the West) appear only as a kind of marginal apparatus. Ch’oe Ch’anshik began publishing early in the Colonial period, producing such works as Ch’uwŏlsaek (Color of the autumn moon, 1912), Haean (Seacoast, 1914), Kŭmgangmun (The Diamond Gate, 1914), An ŭi song (Cry of the goose, 1914), Tohwawŏn (Peach Blossom Garden, 1916), and Nŭngnado (Nŭngna Island, 1918). While Yi Haejo was expanding the readership base of the new fiction through his tales of broken households, Ch’oe attracted readers through his stories about conflicts faced by young lovers and about the social and moral issues relevant to their generation. On the surface his interest in Western-style education and marriage would seem to indicate his modern leanings, in support of human individuality suppressed by traditional ethics—though some scholars suggest that Ch’oe enjoyed the psychological wherewithal to indulge in such themes given his own peaceful existence amid the oppressive rule of the Colonial period. Other noteworthy writers of the new fiction include Kim Kyoje, Yi Sanghyŏp, and Cho Chunghwan. They sought in their works to engage readers through such traditional subject matter as the parting and reunion of lovers or conflicts between wife and concubine or between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law. In the Colonial period the new fiction ultimately transformed into a kind of storybook with a more or less fixed content, created for consumption by a mass audience. B. The Colonial Period Colonial Korea and the Development of Modern Fiction Entering the Colonial period, Korean fiction adopted a new artistic and professional environment. The first decade of colonial rule was marked by the Japanese Governor-General’s forceful suppression of its Korean colony. But when during the March 1, 1919, Independence Movement the Korean people demonstrated collective resistance against Japanese domination, Japan responded by allowing a minimal level of press and cultural activity. The changes visible in the fiction of the first half of the Colonial period were realized by a new class of writers who acquired a specialized knowledge of literature during their studies in Japan. They used literary coterie magazines such as Ch’angjo (Creation, established in 1919), P’yehŏ (Ruins, 1920), and Paekcho (White tide, 1922) to develop and showcase their writing, leading to the formation of a literary power structure that remains to this day. These journals, moveover, served as important new sources of

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information and education, as shown by Kaebyŏk (Genesis, 1920), which focused on the literary scene, and Chosŏn mundan (The Korean literary world, 1924), devoted more broadly to fine arts. Yi Kwangsu was a pioneer in the formation of modern Korean fiction. He stressed the value of literature as a means of awakening to selfhood and self-development—ideas based in Western education and the knowledge of literature Yi acquired as a student in Japan. Seeking to liberate the fictional narrative from moral shackles and traditional concepts rooted in the premodern age, he popularized the principle that literature develops out of the individual feeling of the author. Yi’s novel Mujŏng (Heartlessness, 1917) broke from Colonial period new fiction, which by then was aimed only at attracting readers, and successfully integrated themes such as individual love and social enlightenment in a narrative focused on the everyday lives of its characters. Yi Hyŏngshik, the male protagonist, a young intellectual just returned to Korea from studying in Japan, is an English instructor at Kyŏngsŏng High School. He takes a side job as an English tutor to Sŏnhyŏng, daughter in a “modern” household and familiar with Western learning. He dreams of courting and marrying her, but then a figure from his past, Yŏngch’ae, suddenly reappears. Yŏngch’ae is the daughter of Scholar Pak, a great teacher and mentor to Hyŏngshik when he was a boy. Hyŏngshik is thrown into turmoil at the unexpected appearance of his old mentor’s daughter. He can neither quell his desire for the “new woman” (shin yŏsŏng) Sŏnhyŏng living in the modern world, nor cast off his pity for the old-style woman Yŏngch’ae, who lives a checkered life rooted in the culture of the past. This conflict reaches a peak when Yŏngch’ae is deflowered while working as a kisaeng, upon which she writes a long suicide note to Hyŏngshik and leaves Seoul for P’yŏngyang with the intention of ending her life. But on the train to P’yŏngyang she meets Pyŏng’uk, a young woman studying in Japan, who teaches her the true meaning of human life and love. Yŏngch’ae thereupon forsakes her identity rooted in the past and discovers a new path for herself in the world of Western learning. Meanwhile, unable to find Yŏngch’ae, Hyŏngshik marries Sŏnhyŏng and they set off together for the United States. The novel ends with a chance reunion of the four characters. Bound for their study destinations abroad, they cross paths aboard a train, shortly after which they are witness to a disastrous flood that has devastated a rural community. Then and there they get off the train and improvise a musical charity event to raise money for the disaster victims. All the characters thus arrive at an understanding of one another and deepen their resolve to create new lives for themselves. The most important aspect of the novel is the conception of individual fate. In this respect Yŏngch’ae’s life is contrasted with that of Hyŏngshik

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and Sŏnhyŏng. Yŏngch’ae becomes a kisaeng to aid her father and brother, who have been jailed for spreading Western learning, but is ultimately persuaded by Pyŏng’uk to start a new life as a student in Japan. Yŏngch’ae’s fate undergoes continual transformation in accordance with the societal changes taking place during the Enlightenment period, such as the breakdown of the traditional family structure and the subsequent downfall of the traditional individual. By accepting the values of Enlightenment thought and Western learning to guide her life, she is able to take advantage of new possibilities. At a time when the old social order was collapsing she felt compelled to resign herself to the fate of a victim, but by embracing the new Enlightenment ideals she is able to resurrect herself. Ultimately, in expressing the structural contradictions of a revolutionizing Korean society through the fate of the individual, the novel captures the social reality of the time. Mujŏng advocated discovery and liberation of the self at a time when Korea was caught in a colonial relationship that stifled deep awareness of the people as Korean. Its triumph is the premise that awakening to oneself is a sufficient condition for the establishment of national identity. In novels such as Kaech’ŏkcha (The pioneers, 1918) Yi expanded the love theme that is the major element of Mujŏng alongside the preaching of Enlightenment values. His novels of the 1920s, such as Chaesaeng (Resurrection), Sarang (Love), and Yujŏng (Heart), have the same love triangle theme, with variations in accordance with the social positions and circumstances of the characters. Modern Korean fiction was subject to a variety of artistic trends following the adoption and popularization of the short story form in the first half of the Colonial period. Different from the novel, which seeks to depict the total scope of the lives of its characters, the short story calls for minute description and elaborate structuring of a limited portion of human life. The fiction of this period incorporates various narrative viewpoints, among them the first-person narrative voice, by which the author analyzes the interior world of the narrative subject. Subject matter for its part progressed from discovery of the self to problems inherent in colonial society. The Korean intellectual frustrated by his inability to rise in colonial society, and the painful lives of farmers and laborers languishing in poverty, are common themes in the fiction of this period. Kim Tongin was the founder of Ch’angjo (Creation), and it was through this coterie magazine that he launched his career. Publishing such works as “Yakhanja ŭi sŭlp’ŭm” (The sorrows of the weak, 1919), “Paettaragi” (Boat Song, 1921), “T’aehyŏng” (Flogging, 1922–1923), “Kamja” (Sweet Potato, 1925), “Myŏngmun” (The letter of the law, 1925), and “Kwang’yŏm sonat’a” (Fire sonata, 1929), Kim took the lead in introducing the short

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story to Korean literary circles. His early stories tend to link personality and circumstances with fate. “Yakhanja ŭi sŭlp’ŭm” emphasizes a strong character’s violation of a weak character, “Kamja” focuses on a young woman who is doomed by desire in pursuit of her own survival, and “Paettaragi” depicts a man driven to ruin by feelings of inferiority. In these and other works Kim refined the technique of narrative point of view—who says what, and from which angle. The narrator’s shift in position with respect to the fictional work is closely tied to how that individual distances himself or herself from the world being described. Establishing an angle or distance in viewing objects, thus making the focus of the narrative clear, endows the narrator with selfhood and determines how objectively or subjectively he or she perceives the fictional world. In stories such as “Paettaragi,” “Pulgŭn san” (Red Mountain, 1932), and “Kwang­ hwasa” (The Mad Painter, 1935), Kim establishes a narrator within the narrative structure, creating a first-person narrative, while in “Yakhanja ŭi sŭlp’ŭm” and “Kamja” he situates the narrator exterior to the narrative, resulting in a third-person narrative. Kim’s experimentation with internal narrators effectively established the first-person narrative in modern Korean fiction. A related innovation is that in order to better separate narrative subject and object he employed the past tense in his narratives. The foundation of the short story built by Kim developed prominently in the works of Hyŏn Chingŏn and Na Tohyang. In stories such as “Pinch’ŏ” (The poor wife, 1921), “Sul kwŏnhanŭn sahoe” (A Society That Drives You to Drink, 1921), and “T’arakcha” (The depraved, 1922), Hyŏn shows the frustrations of the disempowered intellectual and the face of economic poverty. Hyŏn joined the coterie associated with the magazine Paekcho and there expanded the territory of his writing, leading to such accomplished stories as “Unsu choŭn nal” (A Lucky Day, 1924), “Pul” (Fire, 1925), and “B sagam kwa lŏbŭ let’ŏ” (Dormitory mistress B and the love letter, 1925). In 1926 Hyŏn published these and other stories in the volume Chosŏn ui ŏlgul (The faces of Korea). The stories that perhaps best exhibit Hyŏn’s themes and style are “Pinch’ŏ” and “Unsu choŭn nal.” The former focuses on subjective interiority while the latter is more concerned with the apparent truth of exterior reality. “Pinch’ŏ” shows the pain borne by colonial intellectuals, whereas “Unsu choŭn nal” describes the suffering of common laborers. The short-lived Na Tohyang also belonged to the Paekcho coterie. The first two issues of that magazine (1922) contain his stories “Chŏlmŭni ŭi shijŏl” (The season of youth), which beautifies those enraptured with art, and “Pyŏl ŭl ankŏdŭn uljina malkŏl” (No tears when I embrace the stars), which uses an epistolary style to expound upon the passion for art. Na soon abandoned romanticism in favor of realistic descriptions of colonial

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farming life, in “Pŏng’ŏri Samnyong” (Samnyong the mute, 1925), “Mulle panga” (The water mill, 1925), and “Ppong” (Mulberries, 1925). The problem addressed in the first of these stories is poverty, the conditions of which the author links to the instinctual desires of the characters. In “Ppong” economic hardship is represented as the most important life problem. In these stories Na calls into question both human nature and life circumstances. Among Colonial period writers, Yŏm Sangsŏp is perhaps most cognizant of the importance of the development of the individual and a realistic worldview, both of which are essential to modern fiction. His early stories “P’yobonshil ŭi ch’ŏng kaeguri” (The green frog in the specimen room, 1921), “Amya” (Dark night, 1922), and “Cheya” (A new year’s eve, 1922) describe the confusion of young intellectuals who are sick of their lives. The first of these stories and “Yunjŏn’gi” (The Rotary Press, 1925) are early examples of naturalism in modern Korean literature, the author situating his characters in laboratory-like conditions and observing how they respond to forces beyond their control. One of the most problematic fictional works of the early Colonial period is Yŏm’s novella “Mansejŏn” (On the Eve of the Uprising, 1922, 1924), which describes in detail the harsh reality of Korean society just before the March 1, 1919, Independence Movement through the eyes of a student returned home from study at a Japanese university. Notable in this novella is its focus on the character’s return from the exterior world of Tokyo, Japan, to the interior reality of Kyŏngsŏng (as Seoul was referred to during the Colonial period) in Korea. The process underscores anti-­colonial prejudice through movement between the poles of the imperial and colonial capitals. The protagonist’s return from Tokyo to Kyŏngsŏng via the port city of Pusan is the same path by which the new Western culture was introduced via Japan. Beginning in the Enlightenment period Korean youth took this route to pursue study abroad, dreaming of the new culture. But the protagonist of “Mansejŏn” is painfully aware of the gaze of the Japanese military police and other authority figures during his return to the colonial capital. He witnesses Koreans withering under the pressure of Japanese imperialism and of poverty resulting from economic profiteering. He ultimately discovers that colonial status, rather than offering the civilizing of Korea, embodies social pressure and economic exploitation. The “path of civilization” is a path of exploitation and force. Samdae (Three Generations, 1931) examines Korean society from the viewpoint of three generations of a single family, from grandfather to grandson, spanning the end of the Great Han Empire to the Colonial period. Grandfather Cho, a medical officer, has amassed a great deal of economic power, which he uses to purchase an impressive, but phony,

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reputation for his family, including his title as a physician. The upkeep of the family’s bogus social status and the subservience of the family members make for a thoroughly patriarchal household in which there is no concept of “state” or “people.” The grandfather’s only concerns are the maintenance of the family fortune and the continuation of the family line. His son Sanghun, oppressed by this fixation, chooses to confront the colonial reality and is ruined by the resulting loss of his personal and social identity. The stubborn nepotism of the grandfather does not allow for love of fellow countrymen or for projects for the betterment of society. Furthermore, the colonial reality itself is a barrier to the son’s rise in society. The novel suggests a way to overcome stubborn family politics and the colonial reality in the person of the grandchild, Tŏkki, who combines the opposing values of his grandfather and father to form a rational realism that can reconcile the generational conflict. Samdae is centered in the changes in the history of the Cho family, but in its focus on class ties also provides a comprehensive portrait of the unbalanced modernization undergone by Korean society under colonial conditions. The Class Literature Movement and Proletarian Fiction The class literature (kyegŭp munhak) movement sought to fuse literary production and class ideology. The movement was centered in KAPF (see chapter 7), organized in 1925 with its roots in Marxist theory. Its goals included awakening the people to class inequities in the colonial system, cultivating class consciousness, and waging a political war to overcome the inequities. Because of its political creed, the movement was harshly suppressed by imperial Japan, but it succeeded in producing the most aggressive and critical anti-colonial rhetoric of the period, focusing not only on colonial rule itself but on the lopsided nature of modernization under that rule. For this reason the class literature movement is essential to an understanding of Korea’s Colonial period literature. Through new fictional genres such as agrarian fiction and labor fiction, the class literature movement sought to foster the development of literature and art centered in the minjung (the people, in the sense of a populist collective). This approach to literature appears in the fiction of Ch’oe Sŏhae and Cho Myŏnghŭi as well as the early works of Yi Kiyŏng. During a short but prolific career, Ch’oe Sŏhae aggressively thematized poverty and the struggles of colonial life experienced by the Korean people. From his earliest stories, such as “T’alch’ulgi” (An escape, 1925), “Pak Tol ŭi chugŭm” (The death of Pak Tol, 1925), “Kia wa saryuk” (Starvation and murder, 1925), and “Hongyŏm” (Bloody Flames, 1927), he realistically portrays those who languish under extreme poverty. Ch’oe condemns the class structure that created such disproportionate life conditions

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and emphasizes the will of the masses who struggle against them. The characters in his stories tend to be either upper-class landlords or lowerclass laborers and farmers. The latter respond aggressively to economic impoverishment and class oppression. Ch’oe’s portrayal of their actions as embarking from their destitute living conditions is one of the achievements of modern Korean realist fiction. In such works as “Ttang sok ŭro” (Into the earth, 1925), “Chŏ kiap” (Low pressure, 1926), and “Nongch’on saram tŭl” (Rural villagers, 1926), Cho Myŏnghŭi lashed out against the problems of his day by depicting the frustrations of colonial intellectuals and the ordeals of farmers. But in his subsequent fiction, beginning with “Naktonggang” (The Naktong River, 1927) and continuing through “Han yŏrŭm pam” (A midsummer night, 1927) and “Adŭl ŭi maŭm” (A son’s mind, 1928), he adopted a clear stance in favor of class consciousness. “Naktonggang” depicts the idealistic response of intellectuals to the squalid conditions of colonial life. By installing an intellectual protagonist as a medium for class struggle, the story depicts the radicalization of the class literature movement in the late 1920s. Agrarian fiction responded to the adverse situation of the farming communities by depicting farmers’ growing class consciousness and solidarity and the corresponding organizational struggles. The farmers’ movement, and the literature it inspired, reflected the ideals and demands of proletarian writers in general. The fiction of Yi Kiyŏng is central in Colonial period agrarian literature. Immediately following his literary debut he focused on the class conditions of farmers’ lives and their unfortunate circumstances, in stories such as “Kananhan saram tŭl” (Poor folk, 1925), “Minch’on” (A village, 1925), and the fable-like “Chwi iyagi” (A Tale of Rats, 1926). Continually striving to create positive, realistic images of farmers, Yi progressed through works such as “Hongsu” (The flood, 1930) and “Sŏhwa” (Rat Fire, 1933), culminating in Kohyang (Home, 1933), a comprehensive portrayal of farmers’ lives and struggles during the Colonial period. Kohyang contrasts the sufferings of farmers weighted down by poverty with the heinous acts of the landowning class that exploits them. The protagonist, a young intellectual just returned from study in Japan, helps awaken the farmers to class consciousness and an understanding of their own existence. To overcome the class structure that oppresses them, they unite in revolt against the landowners. The novel thereby illustrates the reality of rural village life in the 1920s and the development of farmers’ awareness of themselves as a proletarian class. Labor fiction, for its part, depicted the unbalanced development characteristic of the capitalist colonial economy and its clash with newly classconscious laborers. Song Yŏng, in stories such as “Yonggwangno” (The

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Blast Furnace, 1926), “Sŏkkong chohap taep’yo” (The stonemasons’ union representative, 1927), “Chihach’on” (The underground village, 1930), and “Kyodae shigan” (Shift time, 1930), depicted the everyday lives of laborers at their workplaces. Some of Song’s works focus on the collapse of the farming class in the countryside or the laboring class in the cities; others emphasize the struggles of farmers and laborers in the context of the history of class relations. The laborers appearing in these works are not so much victims of exploitation as warriors who rebel against their living conditions and attempt to destroy the inequalities that characterize their lives. In Han Sŏrya’s “Kŭ chŏnhu” (Before and after, 1927), “Kwadogi” (A time of transition, 1929), and “Sshirŭm” (Wrestling, 1929), farmers uprooted from their farming villages become laborers toiling in the city. But instead of succumbing to disillusionment and despair, they gain class consciousness. Subsequent stories, such as “Sabang kongsa” (Erosion control, 1932) and “Sojakch’on” (Sharecropper village, 1933), focus ever more strongly on the theme of fierce class struggle. After the forced dissolution of KAPF in 1935, Han published Hwanghon (Twilight, 1936), a novel based on the achievements of the class literature movement. This novel is noteworthy in that the expansion of Japanese militarization serves as its background, upon which the organization of the laboring class is introduced as a heroic theme. Fiction from the Latter Half of the Colonial Period After KAPF was shut down in 1935, new literary circles formed around students returned from studying foreign literatures at Japanese universities. These young intellectuals introduced new literary trends from abroad that soon manifested themselves in a variety of ways in Korean literature. Around the same time, the Tonga ilbo (East Asia daily) and Chosŏn ilbo (Chosŏn daily) newspaper companies began publishing general-interest monthly magazines such as Shindonga (New East Asia, launched in 1931) and Chogwang (Morning light, 1935), through which the public’s interest in the arts reached a new high. “Pure literature” journals such as Munjang (Writing, 1939) and Inmun p’yŏngnon (Humanities review, 1939) also appeared, launching the careers of many poets. But in spite of this expansion in domestic literary circles, the rise of Japanese militarism and the Manchurian Incident of 1931 alarmed the Korean literary world. Fiction from the latter half of the Colonial period is marked not so much by depictions of the reality of Korean society as by the development of narrative techniques and other artistic aspects related to the interiority of literature. Major writers from this period include Yi Hyosŏk, Yi T’aejun, Pak T’aewŏn, Yi Sang, and Kim Yujŏng, who in 1933 formed

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the core of Kuinhoe (the Circle of Nine), a coterie that established new trends in Korean fiction. The Kuinhoe members experimented with modernism, which distanced itself from the strong realism that had characterized modern Korean fiction to that point. Modernist fiction is set in urban spaces and focuses on the interior world of individuals, urban life and material culture, sex, and an esthetic of human instinct. Urban space is the location of a variety of problems that accompanied urbanization—the expansion of cities, the emergence of new modes of labor and occupations, the breakdown of the traditional family structure, the surge in materialistic values, the juxtaposition of pleasure and suffering, the alienation of the city dweller, and the repetitiveness of daily life. Modernist fiction developed largely in response to these and more general issues peculiar to urban spaces, such as the weakening of human relations and the development of excessively individualistic attitudes. The second half of the Colonial period witnessed a surge in the publication of novels. Two of the most accomplished are Ch’ae Manshik’s T’angnyu (Muddy currents, 1937–1938) and T’aep’yŏng ch’ŏnha (Peace Under heaven, 1938). Through these works Ch’ae expanded the distinctive literary world he had developed in stories such as “Redimeidŭ insaeng” (A Ready-Made Life, 1934), his trademark use of satire pinpointing the conditions of colonial Korea while exposing the cynical perspectives of the intellectuals alienated within those conditions. T’angnyu concerns the downfall of a woman occasioned by the destruction of traditional customs in the wake of grain speculation and other problems of colonial capitalism. The characters in the novel are morally questionable types who are caught up in materialistic desire and have lost their humanity, and the woman ultimately falls victim to these individuals and the new socioeconomic realm they represent. Even so, the story manages to show both the hope and the despair of human life, its positive as well as its negative aspects. This narrative refraction was well received by readers. T’aep’yŏng ch’ŏnha is a satirical take on the hypocritical landowner class. The work focuses on the moral depravity exhibited in the everyday lives of the main character Yun Chig’wŏn and the members of his household. It exposes the nepotism, thinly disguised as rationality, of a family who live parasitically off the colonial order. In this novel Ch’ae’s adaptation of the narrative style and satirical tone of p’ansori to a modern narrative produces a rich writing style and mode of storytelling. Taeha (Scenes from the Enlightenment, 1939) represents the high point of Kim Namch’ŏn’s creative writing. Set against the background of the Great Han Empire, when the outmoded social order was on the wane, the novel stages a near-perfect re-creation of life at the close of the Chosŏn period. Critiquing the family system as well as manners and customs in

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general and employing insightful characterizations of men and women, students and mentors, parents and sons, and farmworkers and shopkeepers, Kim offers a small-scale mosaic of a society on the cusp of modernization. The novel ends with protagonist Pak Hyŏnggŏl, son of a concubine, confounding his parents’ desire that he marry and instead leaving home to chart an independent life. Deeply interested in contemporary reality, Kim followed up in 1940 with Sarang ŭi sujokkwan (Aquarium of love), a novel attacking the depravity of capitalist society. The narrative involves the contrasting lives of two brothers. The older brother, the central character in the first half of the story, throws himself body and soul into an ideological movement, but his dreams are frustrated by the oppressive tactics of the Japanese police. His younger brother, however, indulges himself in the pursuit of material wealth and romantic love. The novel is essentially ironic, warning that in a society devoid of passion for ideas and beliefs the individual succumbs to his or her lust for comfort. Pak T’aewŏn’s Ch’ŏnbyŏn p’unggyŏng (Streamside sketches, 1936) uses the techniques of modernist fiction to portray the lives of those who live alongside Ch’ŏnggyech’ŏn, the stream that trends west to east through the heart of Seoul. To capture the everyday lives of the commoner residents of the capital, the novel connects a variety of episodes showing changes in the residents’ lives in accordance with the changing of the four seasons. Most characters are petit bourgeois or lower-class, with no clear goals or ideals, caught up in greed and viewing personal comfort as paramount. Influenced by the new urban lifestyle, they tend to be self-centered and stone-hearted. The city is a place where a variety of people can live side by side but proves incompatible with the pursuit of a meaningful life. It can be a mire of pleasure, a swamp of betrayal, and a locus of human trafficking. Instead of attempting to mold the characters into a single community, the novel utilizes sketches and tableaus of individual characters to chart the characteristics of urban space and its denizens. Yi Hyosŏk’s Hwabun (Pollen, 1939) is the period’s most elaborate narrative of sexuality in an urban setting. On the surface its primary theme seems to be eroticism, but the novel is more usefully viewed as a mosaic of sexuality and gender relations in 1930s colonial Korea. It is noteworthy for its matter-of-fact portrayal of sex, the extravagance of sexual pleasure accorded a structural tension theretofore absent in the modern Korean novel. To interpret the work as a reflection of the decline of traditional morality or of a newly emerging sexual ethics is anachronistic at best. The most important element in the work is sex itself, a first for modern Korean literary works intended for a public readership. Also important is the novel’s portrayal of sex as a central component of modern life.

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Shim Hun’s Sangnoksu (The evergreen, 1935–1936) is set against the backdrop of efforts to enlighten the farmers. The novel depicts the deteriorating conditions faced by Colonial period farmers who, saddled with ignorance and poverty, are beset with high taxes and wallow in debt. The evil moneylenders and exploitative pro-Japanese landlords are drawn with biting accuracy, and the enlightenment activities of the male and female protagonists are set in sharp contrast with them. The novel also takes a dim view of the hollow promises of the Farmers’ Promotion Movement pushed by the Japanese imperialists amid the slogans “Promotion of the Farmers’ Welfare” and “Revitalization through Independent Effort!” In the late 1930s the historical novel became a focus of social attention. A decade earlier Yi Kwangsu had turned to writing historical novels such as Ma ŭi t’aeja (The crown prince who wore hemp, 1927), Tanjong aesa (The sorrowful history of King Tanjong), the eponymous Yi Sunshin (1932), Yi Ch’adon ŭi sa (The death of Yi Ch’adon, 1936), and Wŏnhyo taesa (Great master Wŏnhyo, 1942). Yi’s adoption of the historical novel was probably greatly influenced by currents then dominating Korean literary circles, as well as by social demand for such narratives at the time. While emphasizing artistic reform of the national consciousness, Yi sought to realize that reform in the historical novel. Among his history-based narratives, Wŏnhyo taesa may be interpreted as internalizing the emotional conflicts the author himself experienced at the end of the Colonial period. The protagonist Wŏnhyo suffers all the woes of ordinary human experience but sublimates his experiences through the practice of Buddhist discipline and finally saves the country by dint of his boundless Buddhistic spirit. Hong Myŏnghŭi’s Im Kkŏkchŏng (1928–1939) is a ten-volume novel about a bandit leader of that name who was active in the Hwanghae Province region during the reign of King Myŏngjong (1545–1567). The novel is historically significant for several reasons. First, it realistically depicts the day-to-day lives of the lower classes suffering under the archaic ruling system and superbly portrays the resistance and fighting spirit of the peasants against the ruling classes that oppress them. Second, the protagonist, Im Kkŏkchŏng, is an ideal hero of the people. Third, in its episodic structure the novel faithfully represents the customs, system, and language of the Chosŏn period, portraying distinct characters from an array of social classes and means, making the work the standard for subsequent realitybased historical novels. Two other important historical novels from the latter 1930s are Pak Chonghwa’s Kŭmsam ŭi p’i (Blood on a brocade blouse, 1936) and Hyŏn Chingŏn’s Muyŏng t’ap (Pagoda without a shadow, 1939). Kŭmsam ŭi p’i is set during the reign of Yŏnsangun (one of only two Chosŏn monarchs not granted a posthumous reign name) and concerns the Literati Purge of

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the kapcha year (1504; kapcha sahwa), the aim of which was the restoration of his biological mother, Yun-sshi, to the throne. By detailing the suffering and loneliness that underlay the psychotic behavior and violent actions of Yŏnsangun, the novel grasps the inner desires and conflicts of the human players who are the subject of historical events. Muyŏng t’ap is set in Sŏrabŏl (former name of Kyŏngju) during the reign of Shilla’s King Kyŏngdŏk (742–765). While thematizing the conflicts between the ruling classes, who slavishly follow the culture of Tang China, and nationalist forces who, inheriting the hwarang spirit, attempt to restore the ancient territory of Koguryŏ, the novel focuses on the Puyŏ stonemason Asadal, who uses his high artistic sense to fashion a beautiful pagoda. Author Hyŏn Chingŏn situates the novel’s themes in love and art, but through the Shilla pagoda he foregrounds the artistic sensibility and aesthetic of the Korean people. Short stories from the latter half of the Colonial period are even more diversified in their narrative technique and spirit. Yi Hyosŏk’s earlier stories, such as “Toshi wa yuryŏng” (City and Specter, 1928) and “Noryŏng kŭnhae” (Along the Russian coast, 1931), concern the working class, but in subsequent stories like “Ton” (Little sow, 1933), “San” (In the Mountains, 1936), “Tŭl” (In the fields, 1936), “Memilggot p’il muryŏp” (When the Buckwheat Blooms, 1936), “Punnyŏ” (1936), “Kaesalgu” (Wild apricots, 1937), and “Changmi pyŏng tŭlda” (The rose who fell ill, 1938), the author focuses on human nature. The latter stories, like Hwabun, deal more openly than ever before with sexuality, using a distinctly sensuous writing style. Yi treats sexuality very much like an aestheticist, viewing it as an instinctual desire but also a form of moral decay and degradation. For example, the depictions of sex in “Kaesalgu” and “Changmi pyŏng tŭlda” challenge conventional morality. But on the contrary, sex as portrayed in “Ton,” “Tŭl,” and “Punnyŏ” can have a healthy albeit primitive and animalistic energy, while in “Memilggot p’il muryŏp” sex is aestheticized as something mystical. In sum, sexuality in Yi’s fiction brings human instinct and primitive nature into harmony. Ch’ae Manshik’s short fiction from the mid-1930s on, while confirming his reputation as a master satirist, reveals other dimensions of his corpus. “Redimeidŭ insaeng,” “Ch’isuk” (My Innocent Uncle, 1938), and “Somang” (Juvesenility, 1938) are perhaps the most insightful portraits of the plight of the Colonial period intellectual in modern Korean fiction. “Ch’isuk” also targets young go-getters who had determined early on to succeed as colonial subjects. “Somang” attests to Ch’ae’s constant stretching of the boundaries of fictional narrative: it is a dialog between two sisters in which we hear the voice only of the younger sister. Ch’ae was also a profoundly intertextual writer, as we can see in “Hŭngbo-sshi” (A

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Man Called Hŭngbo, 1939), whose protagonist echoes the good-hearted younger brother of the well-known tale of Hŭngbu and Nolbu. Yi T’aejun’s short stories such as “Talpam” (An Idiot’s Delight, 1933), “Kamagwi” (Crows, 1936), “Poktŏkpang” (The Broker’s Office, 1937), “Yŏngwŏl yŏnggam” (The old gentleman from Yŏngwŏl, 1939), and “Pamkil” (Night journey, 1940) portray characters who have been left behind or alienated in a modernizing world. Unable to find work commensurate with their abilities, they lead a wandering existence and cannot respond to the changes taking place in the world about them; they have lost all direction and meaning in their lives. The author’s depictions of these unfortunate characters offer a roundabout critique of modernity distorted by colonialism. At the same time, they reveal the virtuous nature of each character’s interior world and personality. But the characters are important not so much as individuals as encapsulations of the inequalities in colonial society. Like Ch’ae Manshik, Yi was a distinctive stylist who, in addition to fiction, published in a variety of prose genres, such as drama, children’s stories, travel writing, and sup’il (short anecdotal essays often drawn from incidents in the writer’s daily life). His Musŏrok (Eastern Sentiments, 1941) is an excellent example of the last of these genres. Kim Yujŏng’s stories portray the lives of farmers bleakly, comically, and at times as colorfully as a landscape painter, exposing the underlying persistence and determination of the farmers’ spirit. Among his most distinctive works are “Anhae” (Wife, 1935), “Sonakpi” (A sudden shower, 1935), “Kŭm ttanŭn k’ongbat” (Gold nuggets in a bean field, 1935), “Manmubang” (Rascals, 1935), “Pom pom” (Spring, Spring, 1935), “Tongbaek kkot” (Camellias, 1936), and “Ttaengbyŏt” (Blazing heat, 1937). Most of his stories are set against the background of the farming village, often including farmers who are ignorant and poor. But Kim’s stories are more than simple critiques of the harsh realities of the poor. For the author is also interested in exploring the potential of comedy and irony to capture the untainted lives and tough spirit of the farmers, through the inclusion of rural speech and a lively writing style. His characters are not so much frustrated or angry about their grim reality as they are perseverant and possessed of a strong will to survive. Yi Sang caused a literary sensation with his stories “Nalgae” (Wings, 1936), “Chiju hoeshi” (Spider meets pig, 1936), “Pongbyŏlgi” (Meetings and Farewells, 1936), “Tonghae” (Young and vestigial, 1937), and “Chongsaenggi” (The end of a life, 1937). “Nalgae” is one of the great achievements of Korean modernist literature. The work expresses a strong desire to escape from the bounds of meaningless existence and from

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self-consciousness. The protagonist’s urge to escape, though, is not a positive leap toward the future but more like a frank expression of anger that cannot be transformed into action. The male narrator’s room is a dark, isolated space in contrast with his prostitute wife’s light and airy space as well as the free world outside. He dreams of exiting the “space” of his reality, which threatens the identity of his own existence. Yi Sang’s short stories are direct critiques of things modern. His narratives may be understood as expressions of absolutes conceptualized through the experiences of the individual, but even those experiences are negations of modernity. Pak T’aewŏn’s modernist style is reflected not only in Ch’ŏnbyŏn p’unggyŏng but in his shorter fiction as well. The novella “Sosŏlga Kubosshi ŭi iril” (A Day in the Life of Kubo the Writer, 1934; Kubo was one of Pak’s pen names) takes us with the protagonist on a tour of colonial Seoul. The circuit is reminiscent of the flaneur of French literature, who is perpetually in motion taking in the sights of the city but is rarely involved directly with what he sees. As a bonus, the story bears illustrations by Pak’s friend and Kuinhoe colleague Yi Sang. Pak also experimented with one-sentence stories, which ironically echo traditional fictional narratives in their lack of punctuation. One such story, “Pangnanjang chuin” (The Man Who Ran the Fragrant Orchid Café, 1936; see the “Readings” section of this chapter), also bears homage to Yi Sang, upon whom the café manager is modeled. The latter half of the Colonial period also marked the debut of two writers who would remain productive for decades after Liberation in 1945. Kim Tongni hailed from the Kyŏngju area, the stronghold of the Shilla Kingdom (57 BC–AD 935). His early fiction is grounded in mythic motifs centered in folk tales that inspired the author’s consciousness of tradition. His debut story, “Hwarang ŭi huye” (A Descendant of the Hwarang, 1935) is an engaging sketch of a down-at-the-heels Confucian “gentleman” who is unable to adapt to the bustle of colonial Seoul. Other early stories, such as “Pawi” (The Rock, 1936), “Munyŏdo” (The Shaman Painting, 1936), “Sanje” (Mountain festival, 1936), and “Hwangt’ogi” (Loess Valley, 1939), are set against a folk background in which fatalism is deeply embedded. By framing these early stories in a closed, folk tale–like world rather than in a dynamic reality, Kim seems to staunchly reject the implications of modernity evident in the modernist fiction of his day. The anti-modern aspect of his stories, which emphasizes escape from ideological values, earned him a reputation as a purist. The narrative structure of “Munyŏdo” is based on a spiritual conflict resulting from the clash between native spirituality and the foreign religion of Christianity. But the opposition posed between these two, rather than representing polar opposition between competing worldviews, is

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better understood as a reflection of the diverse spiritual tradition inherited by modern Korean writers, a tradition that blends native spirituality with Buddhism, Neo-Confucianism, Taoism, and Western religion. Hwang Sunwŏn’s early fiction, collected in the volume Hwang Sunwŏn tanp’yŏnjip (Short fiction by Hwang Sunwŏn, 1940), reflects the diversity of style and subject matter that characterizes the most accomplished body of short fiction in modern Korea. For the most part these stories date from Hwang’s student days at Waseda University in Tokyo, and one of them, “Kŏri ŭi pusa” (Adverbial Avenue, 1937), is a rare example of a Korean story set outside the Korean Peninsula. “Paeyŏk tŭl” (The Players), “Sora” (Trumpet Shells), and “Chinnaganŭn pi” (Passing Rain) are modernist in style. “P’iano ka innŭn kaŭl” (Autumn with Piano) is structured as a play involving two lovers planning to forsake the capital for a simpler life in the countryside. “Takche” (The Sacrifice) is the first of Hwang’s seminal coming-of-age stories. “Nŭp” (The Pond) is the first of a series of variations on the theme of ineffectual men manipulated by strong-willed women. And “P’ungsok” (Custom) is an insightful portrayal of a conflicted fatherson relationship. The Development of Women’s Fiction By the 1930s women’s literature was established in the works of Pak Hwasŏng, Kang Kyŏngae, Ch’oe Chŏnghŭi, Paek Shinae, and Yi Sŏnhŭi. These authors expanded on the theme of self-discovery initially explored by women writers such as Kim Myŏngsun, Na Hyesŏk, and Kim Wŏnju in the 1910s and 1920s. The 1930s writers were more direct in portraying the role of women in colonial society. The lives of the impoverished peasantry in Pak Hwasŏng’s “Hongsu chŏnhu” (The flood, before and after, 1934), “Han’gwi” (The drought demon, 1935), “Non kalttae” (Cultivating the paddies, 1934), and “Hŏrŏjin ch’ŏngnyŏn’gwan” (The abandoned youth center, 1946) mostly have gender as their core issue. These stories, in which impoverished farmers overcome natural disaster only to have their hard-earned crops taken from them by landlords and supervisors, are clearly anti-class in tone. And those who suffer the most within that inegalitarian reality are women, who in addition to living impoverished lives under colonialism are oppressed by the patriarchal structure of a Neo-Confucian society. This dual oppression was not only political and economic but also sociocultural. Pak’s works provide a glimpse of a protofeminist literature of the Colonial period. Kang Kyŏngae is represented by such stories as “Sogŭm” (Salt, 1934), “Chihach’on” (The underground village, 1936), “I ttang ŭi pom” (Spring in this land, 1936), and “Sannam” (A man of the hills, 1936) in addition to the novel Ingan munje (From Wŏnso Pond, 1934). Kang’s works are based

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in her experiences in Kando (northern Manchuria) and reveal themes of unusual breadth and depth concentrated in the lives of indigent farmers and laborers of the Colonial period. Violence perpetrated by the landlord class and resistance to it by the farming class are part and parcel of the gruesome lives of Kang’s characters. Her understanding of social realities is nowhere more evident than in Ingan munje. The novel is set in two contrasting locations: the farming village of Yŏng’yŏn and a factory zone in the port city of Inch’ŏn. In the farming village a woman loses her father at the hands of cruel landlords, but, unaware of the circumstances of his death, she falls prey to the lust of heartless men. In Inch’ŏn she suffers all manner of hardship as a factory worker. Exhaustion brings her tragic life to an untimely end. But her life story is not simply a litany of hardship. Through her experience as a factory worker the protagonist becomes aware of the identity of the power behind her exploitation and oppression. Refusing to sink into self-pity and isolation, she resists that power. The novel succeeds as a point-blank description of the sufferings of the age and in its striving for a solution to “human problems” (a literal rendering of Ingan munje). Ch’oe Chŏnghŭi wrote with compelling urgency about the dual sorrows of neglect and contempt suffered by women intellectuals in colonial society. “Hyungga” (The Haunted House, 1937) describes the hardships of a professional woman who is the head of a household that lacks a husband/father. “Chimaek” (The pulse of the earth, 1939), “Inmaek” (The pulse of humanity, 1940), and “Ch’ŏnmaek” (The pulse of heaven, 1941) feature women whose lives are ruined by economic conditions and outmoded social customs. “Chimaek” and “Inmaek” take the form of a confession of the protagonist’s experiences, the narrative rendered more affecting by the use of the self-oriented first-person voice. To the extent that this writing style is connected with the women’s point of view that Ch’oe persistently employed, these works stand as a model for women’s writing. Paek Shinae left a body of work with a keen female perspective on economic destitution under colonialism. The major theme of her stories is the actuality of poverty and the problems of the women who must endure it. “Kkŏraei” (1934; the title is a Russian pejorative for Koreans) concerns the suffering of those who have left their native land to wander the plains of Siberia and Manchuria. “Chŏkpin” (Naked poverty, 1934) describes extreme poverty borne by the people. “Chŏngjowŏn” (A rant against chastity, 1936) thematizes female sexual instinct and the internal conflicts it espouses. Both it and “Arŭmdaun noŭl” (The beautiful afterglow, 1939) explore the gap between individual desire and societal mores.

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At the heart of Yi Sŏnhŭi’s fiction is a strong victim consciousness in respect to men, and the compensatory mentality it creates. Her female characters lead unhappy lives and desire to escape male-dominated society. In “Kyesansŏ” (The bill, 1937), one of her masterpieces, the protagonist loses a leg in an accident, after which the love of her husband cools. Finally she leaves the hypocrisy-laden household, but her sense of victimhood and scorn for her husband remain. The protagonist of “Maesobu” (The woman who prostituted her laughter, 1938) is a prostitute who has never known the security of a normal family. She scorns the common men who pay for the use of her body, and on the verge of death she wishes she might grab one of the men who had lusted after her and make him die with her. Through her earnest portrayals of women’s lives and problems in these stories as well as in “Yŏindo” (Metropolis of women, 1937), “Sut changsu ŭi ch’ŏ” (The wife of the manly general, 1937), “Yŏin myŏngnyŏng” (A woman’s orders, 1937), “Yŏnji” (Rouge, 1938), and “Ch’ŏ ŭi sŏlgye” (A wife’s design, 1940), she emphasizes resistance against the male-centered social order. C. The Period of National Division National Division and the Korean War Liberation from Japanese colonial rule in 1945 enabled Koreans to retrieve their lost language: the use of Korean in public gatherings had been forbidden since the late 1930s, and publication in Korean had become increasingly difficult. Koreans were afforded an opportunity to restore the withered national spirit by building a nation-state based on the principles of freedom and independence. But the intervention of the United States and the Soviet Union, who took it upon themselves to demilitarize the peninsula immediately following the Japanese surrender, brought about a territorial division between the southern and northern halves of the peninsula, and in turn an ideological division that was hardened in 1948 when each side established a state with its own political system. This rift fostered continual insecurity and disorder on the peninsula, culminating in the Korean War in 1950, which decisively fixed the national division. Postwar Korean society became further closed due to the partition, as hostile relations between the two sides continued with no rapprochement. Already by the outbreak of the Korean War, ideological divisions had led to the migration of numerous writers from south to north and from north to south. (From the point of view of South Korean literary scholarship, these writers are known as wŏlbuk, “went to the north,” and wŏllam, “went to the south,” respectively.) One effect of the anti-communist thrust

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of the national security laws in South Korea was that for approximately four decades the wŏlbuk writers effectively disappeared from Korean literary history; not until the democratization of the political process in the late 1980s were the works of these writers made readily available. A comprehensive inventory of the works of those writers in North Korea has yet to be made. Amid the upheaval surrounding the war, Korean literature led the way in erasing the traces of colonial culture, for example by abolishing the use of Japanese as a literary language (during the Colonial period at least 150 established writers published at least once in Japanese). Works of post-Liberation fiction such as Yi T’aejun’s “Haebang chonhu” (Before and After Liberation, 1946) and Ch’ae Manshik’s “Minjok ui choein” (A sinner against the people, 1948–1949) attempted to deal with the intellectual legacy of thirty-five years of colonial rule. The literary scene took new directions with the appearance of literary arts journals such as Munye (Art and letters, 1949), Munhak yesul (Literary arts, 1955), Hyŏndae munhak (Contemporary literature, 1955), and Chayu munhak (Free literature, 1956). Sasanggye (The world of thought, 1953) became an especially popular medium for sounding out and communicating the voices of Korean intellectuals. The works of Ch’ae Manshik loom large in post-Liberation fiction. “Maeng sunsa” (Constable Maeng, 1946) reflects on the role of Koreans in the constabulary of colonial Korea. “Misut’o Pang” (Mister Pang, 1946) reveals how the intrusion of a new occupying power, the 1945–1948 U.S. Military Government in the southern sector of the peninsula, threatened to upend traditional class relations. “Non iyagi” (A Tale of Two Paddies, 1946) describes new landholding patterns. The novella “Nakcho” (Sunset, 1948) is an insightful critique of intellectuals during the Colonial period and also a prescient account of the birth of the Republic of Korea, the election of its first president, Yi Sŭngman (Syngman Rhee), and speculation about the possibility of civil war. Postwar fiction (chŏnhu sosŏl) is the term used for works of fiction from the 1950s and 1960s that record the aftermath, both physical and psychological, of the Korean War. These works focus on a variety of issues. Sonu Hwi’s novella “Pulkkot” (Flowers of Fire, 1957) was one of the first to emphasize the value of individual agency in resisting the national division, South-North antagonism, and the political ideology that had led to civil war. Sŏ Kiwŏn’s “Amsa chido” (The Uncharted Map, 1956) exposed the moral vacuum left in the wake of the postwar chaos. Works by O Yŏngsu such as “Kaet maul” (Seaside Village, 1953) reaffirmed the basic goodness of country folk as a potential means for national reconciliation. Song Pyŏngsu’s “Shyori K’im” (Shorty Kim, 1957) is an early reminder of

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the continuation of a foreign (U.S.) military presence on Korean soil, and of the negative effects of that presence on relations among those of the host country. Works of fiction set on the battlefields and in the prison camps of the Korean War, though rare, reveal innovations in narrative style based on changing worldviews resulting from the reception of French existentialist literature. Two stories published in 1955, both by writers native to northern Korea, Chang Yonghak’s “Yohan shijip” (Poems of John the Baptist, 1955) and O Sangwŏn’s “Yuye” (A Moment’s Grace), involve prisoners of war and protagonists who experience a split in their personality (presumably mirroring the territorial division of the nation) as they contemplate suicide and death. “Yohan shijip” begins with an allegory derived from the Allegory of the Cave in Plato’s Republic, the blinding of the hare who sees the light of day for the first time seeming to reflect the catastrophes experienced by Chosŏn ever since the opening of its treaty ports to Japan and the West in the 1870s. The war stories of Hwang Sunwŏn, such as “Moksum” (Life, 1951) and “Nŏ wa na man ŭi shigan” (Time for You and Me, 1958), embody not only the civil strife of the late 1940s and early 1950s on the Korean Peninsula but also the no less consequential civil war taking place within an individual soul struggling to survive on the battlefield. Hwang’s most accomplished novel, Namu tŭl pit’al e soda (Trees on a Slope, 1960), focuses on three young student-soldiers, both during and after the war. One of the three takes his own life; a second, gripped by wartime trauma that he barely acknowledges and understands, abets the suicide of a young bar hostess; and the third retreats inside a hard emotional shell. Hwang’s literature, more broadly speaking, exhibits several of the qualities that mark contemporary (that is, post-1945) Korean fiction. His early works include a short volume of modernist poetry, Koltongp’um (Curios, 1936). During the dark years at the end of the Colonial period, he elected to conceal his writing from the authorities; the stories he wrote then would not appear in book form until 1951 (Kirŏgi [Wild geese]). After he and his family migrated to Seoul in 1946 from his ancestral home near P’yŏngyang, he resumed publishing short fiction and began writing novels as well. Some of his most popular stories, such as “Tok chinnŭn nŭlgŭni” (The Old Potter, 1950), “Mongnŏmi maŭl ŭi kae” (The Dog of Crossover Village, 1948), “Kogyesa” (Acrobats, 1952), and “Sonagi” (The Cloudburst, 1952; see the “Readings” section of this chapter), appearing, respectively, in his story collections Kirŏgi, Mongnŏmi maŭl ŭi kae (1948), Kogyesa (1952), and Hak (Cranes, 1956), date from this first decade of his life in Seoul. He subsequently issued the story collections Nŏ wa na man ŭi shigan (Time for you and me, 1964) and T‘al (Masks, 1976).

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Following the war, Hwang published the novels K’ain ŭi huye (The Descendants of Cain, 1954), Ingan chŏmmok (Human grafting, 1957), Namu tŭl pit’al e soda, Umjiginŭn sŏng (The Moving Fortress, 1973), Irwŏl (The sun and the moon, 1975), and Shin tŭl ŭi chusawi (The dice of the gods, 1981–1982). The expansion of Hwang’s literature from the short story to the novel was accompanied by an expansion in thematic scope, especially in his approach to the problem of human existence. In contrast, Hwang’s stories tend to focus on a single brief episode taking place within the space of everyday existence. This focus enhances the distinctive atmosphere of Hwang’s works, formed through the use of an open-ended conclusion, a concentrated writing style, and affective language. K’ain ŭi huye is based on the terror experienced by the people immediately after Liberation in present-day North Korea. The will of those who lived through that period of upheaval, amid the violence of a blind ideology that trampled them, demands a critical reevaluation in respect to the actual circumstances of the time. Ingan chŏmmok, like Namu tŭl pit’al e soda, delineates the cruelties of war and the suffering and trauma that linger from them. War, the novel suggests, is a monstrous evil that kills purity, ideals, and truth, values we must strive to recover. Here the author’s humanistic spirit and broad perspective on war are given ebullient expression. Irwŏl for its part finds the meaning of human life in a person’s ability to overcome fate. When the protagonist learns he is descended from a butcher (traditionally a socially despised profession in Korea), he is overcome by an identity crisis. But he learns to reject the stigma that society accords the despised professions and emerges from the trial a stronger person. The novel shows an individual achieving salvation through his own strength and self-determination, a notable facet of Hwang’s humanistic worldview. In “Yŏngma” (The Post-Horse Curse, 1949) Kim Tongni interprets human life as being sealed by fate. Kim explores this perspective again in stories such as “Tŭngshin pul” (Image of the standing Buddha, 1963) and “Kkach’i sori” (Cry of the magpie, 1966). The protagonist of the latter story is a soldier who disfigures himself by cutting off one of his fingers, thereby avoiding being sent to the front lines, where death almost certainly awaits him. The story dramatically portrays complex psychological states such as fear of death, love of life, hatred for the enemy, and feelings of guilt about one’s fellow soldiers. Kim’s novel Saban ŭi shipchaga (The cross of Saphan, 1957) contrasts the life of Saphan, a robber condemned to die by crucifixion, with that of Jesus, highlighting the difference between the earthly nature of human will and the heavenly nature of divine providence. If Saphan’s desperate fight for the liberation of the Jews is an earthly struggle representing human values, the kingdom of heaven spoken about by Jesus represents the will of God, or heavenly values. These two worlds rival

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each other, and although the robber and messiah die together, the paths they have taken represent divergent worldviews. Kim’s literary career reached its peak with the novel Ŭlhwa (1978), a comprehensive portrait of the world of native Korean folk beliefs and an expansion of his 1936 story “Mu’nyŏdo.” In Ŭlhwa Kim examines Korean folk beliefs rooted in the mind and spirit of the people through the life of a mudang so named, which represents the fated lives of people at the mercy of divine will. An Sugil’s saga Puk Kando (North Manchuria, 1959) narrates Korean national history from the end of the Chosŏn period into the Colonial period, in its portrayal of a family that leaves the peninsula to settle in northern Manchuria. The work is a concrete depiction of love for Korea’s land and people. The dominant theme is the heroism of Korean emigrants to Manchuria who held fast to national pride. At the same time, the novel indicts those who yielded to or compromised with the Chinese landlords or the Japanese solely to protect their landholdings. It also underscores the point that one who fails to honor one’s own identity cannot have true value as a human being. Of particular interest is the novel’s emphasis on the historical significance of the Manchurian region as a new space outside the Korean Peninsula that is populated by Korean emigrants during the Colonial period. Son Ch’angsŏp’s sardonic portrayals of abnormal humanity, both spiritual and physical, are staged against the backdrop of grim reality. In stories such as “Hyŏlsŏ” (Blood letter, 1955), “Mihaegyŏl ŭi chang” (A chapter left unwritten, 1955), “Yushilmong” (A Washed-Out Dream, 1956), and “Ing’yŏ ingan” (Superfluous beings, 1958) he writes of the war’s devastation and the suffering it wrought on its victims. Through his creation of negative human types, Son stirs up feelings of scorn for human existence while conveying the oppression arising from the characters’ circumstances. In “Hak maŭl saram tŭl” (The people of Crane Village, 1957), Yi Pŏmsŏn traces the lives of those who doggedly persisted amid suffering and sorrow from the Colonial period into the Korean War period. In “Mikkuraji” (Mudfish, 1957), “Obalt’an” (A Stray Bullet, 1959), and “Naenghyŏl tongmul” (Cold-blooded creatures, 1959), Yi critiques postwar conditions and the resultant human depravity. “Obalt’an” is a realistic depiction of the living conditions of a homeless family from the North who attempt to resettle in the South. Yi points to the spiritual devastation and material lack endured by survivors of the war, attacking postwar society rife with frustration and defeatism. Through his portrayal of the life of the protagonist, the author critiques the absurdities of postwar Korea while emphasizing that character’s inner truth. In early stories such as “T’arhyang” (Far from Home, 1955), “Nasang” (The nude, 1956), and “P’ayŏlgu” (Explosion, 1959), Yi Hoch’ŏl fore­

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grounded postwar devastation and the vacuity of human existence. In “P’anmunjŏm” (1961; the title refers to the Joint Security Area [JSA], within the Korean Demilitarized Zone [DMZ]), one of the few postwar stories involving direct contact between North Koreans and South Koreans, he focused on historical problems. There followed equally powerful works such as the stories “Tarajinŭn sal tŭl” (Wearing Thin, 1962), structured like a chamber play and reminiscent of Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard, and “K’ŭn san” (Big Mountain, 1970); the novels of manners Soshimin (The petty bourgeois, 1964–1965) and Sŏul ŭn manwŏn ida (Seoul is packed to capacity, 1966); the novel Namp’ung pukp’ung (South wind, north wind, 1973); and the novella “Mun” (The gateway, 1988). Soshimin is centered in the experiences of a boy seeking refuge in Pusan after leaving the North. In depicting the boy’s varied experiences at a cotton goods manufacturing plant and with the people he meets there, the author captures many of the problems and changes occurring in the fabric of society resulting from the war. “Mun” is set against the social landscape of Korea as it languished under military dictatorship during the 1970s, a period fraught with political violence and the restrictions of a closed society. The protagonist receives an invitation from a magazine company based in a community of Korean residents of Japan. He travels to Japan and unexpectedly meets a longforgotten friend from the high school he had attended in the North. Back home he becomes active in the pro-democracy movement, but is arrested as a spy for having made contact with a North Korean figure during his trip to Japan. Of course, the protagonist is well aware he is experiencing political oppression and his will does not falter. The novella takes a suspenseful turn as he waits in his cell, having been sentenced to death for his “crime” of espionage. He thinks deeply about ideology, comparing two of his fellow prisoners who have been charged with the same crime as himself, concluding that the two Koreas must open the doors of their closed ideologies and political systems. In this way, Yi’s literary project expanded from a representation of homeless refugees to an exploration of the national division and the historical meaning of war, leading to a critical assessment of the ambivalent nature of South-North politics. Ch’oe Inhun’s novels Kwangjang (The Square, 1961), Hoesaegin (The gray ones, 1963–1964), and Ch’ongdok ŭi sori (The Voice of the Director-General, 1967) depict the suffering and bewilderment of intellectuals rooted in a negative mind-set regarding the realities of the national division. Kwangjang grasps the division of the Korean people as an ideological conflict and portrays perplexed individuals at the crossroads of opposing thought systems. While the work attacks the fanaticism and herd mentality of the

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North’s social structure, it criticizes class inequality and the reckless individualism of the South, adopting a third position: that neither South nor North provides social conditions suitable to genuine human life. Ch’ongdok ŭi sori is a linked-story novel that caricatures the political reality of Korea in the 1960s, when diplomatic relations with Japan began to be normalized. The narrator is the director-general of the underground workings of an organization called the Chosŏn Director-Generalship. This man, who never reveals his identity, relates stories to the Korean people about various problems related to the politics of the time. This scenario is a rhetorical scheme for camouflaging the author’s own political ideals and attitudes about the world. The work critiques realpolitik. Ch’oe is one of modern Korea’s most intertextual writers, having authored short story versions of Kim Manjung’s Later Chosŏn fictional narrative Kuun mong (A nine-cloud dream, 1962) and the eponymous “Ch’unhyang tyŏn” (1967); a novel-length version of Pak T’aewŏn’s classic Colonial period novella “Sosŏlga Kubo-sshi ŭi iril” (1972); and both fictional and theatrical versions of the Nolbu story (Nolbu tyŏn, 1966 and 1983) as it appears in the traditional fictional narrive Hŭngbu chŏn. He is also an accomplished playwright. Industrialization and Democratization During the 1960s Korea began a process of headlong industrialization that led to radical social change. Despite the achievements of the economic reforms that began to take hold in the early 1970s, an authoritarian program called Yushin (Revitalization) was installed in response to security concerns about the possibility of invasion by the North, and political and social controls were expanded. This period witnessed the growth of the laboring class, resistance against inegalitarian living conditions, alienation of farmers, conflicts resulting from regionalism, the expansion of industrial facilities, and pollution problems, which combined to deepen discontent and conflict across the whole of society. Not until the 1980s, starting with the Kwangju Uprising, did Korean society undergo democratization. During the period of industrialization, fiction writers were quick to adopt the various social changes and conflicts as subject matter. The resulting works embody a strenuous effort to pursue balanced economic development and harmony between people and society. The extensive literary activities of the time may be seen in the emergence of quarterly journals such as Ch’angjak kwa pip’yŏng (Creation and criticism, 1966), Munhak kwa chisŏng (Literature and intellect, 1970), Segye ŭi munhak (World literature, 1976), and Munhak chungang (Literature central, 1977), as well as literary arts monthlies such as Wŏlgan munhak (Monthly literature, 1968), Munhak

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sasang (Literature and thought, 1972), and Hanguk munhak (Korean literature, 1973). The 1960s witnessed the emergence of the first generation of Korean writers to be educated in their own language, by virtue of which they are called the Hangŭl Generation. Coming of age during the first two decades of the Republic of Korea and experiencing both the triumph of the April 19, 1960, Student Revolution that resulted in the resignation of heavy-handed President Yi Sŭngman, followed soon thereafter by the initiation of military dictatorship resulting from the May 1961 coup led by young officers loyal to Pak Chŏnghŭi (Park Chung Hee), these writers combined mordant critiques of a society in rapid transition with an imaginative worldview. Kim Sŭngok’s stories “Saengmyŏng yŏnsŭp” (Life practice, 1962), “Mujiin kihaeng” (Record of a Journey to Mujin, 1964), “Sŏul 1964nyŏn kyŏul” (Seoul: Winter 1964, 1965), and “Yukshimnyŏndae shik” (1960s style, 1968) show through their dense narration Korea’s postwar youth emerging from the atrophied spiritual state of the war experience. Kim’s interest lies in the oppressive structure of individual desire as seen in the lives and lifestyles of the petty bourgeois. “Mujin kihaeng” adopts the homecoming motif to describe the desires of a man who dreams of escape from everyday reality. The wounds he experienced during the war, his painful adolescence, and his settled life as an ordinary man overlap in the stream-of-consciousness preface to the story. He passes through each of these scenes lying hidden in his consciousness as he sets out on a trip to his ancestral home in hopes that he may there find himself. But his return is far from the elevating experience of self-discovery for which he had hoped. He finds there is no escape from an uncompromising reality. The work distances itself from figments of memory, dreams, and romance, focusing instead on the image of the contemporary man who must live out his individuated life within the space of everyday existence. Kim’s sensitive writing style is marked by elaborate detailing of the problems of reality as grasped by the sensibilities of the individual. In “Pyŏngshin kwa mŏjŏri” (The Wounded, 1966), “Kwa’nyŏk” (Target, 1967), and “Maejabi” (The Falconer, 1968), Yi Ch’ŏngjun carries out a patterned inquiry into the absurdly conflicted relations that develop among individuals in society. These early works tend to be symbolic, but in the 1970s he began a more direct approach to the absurdity and irrationality of reality. In works such as “Somun ŭi pyŏk” (Wall of rumor, 1971), “Choyulsa” (The piano tuner, 1972), “Ttŏdonŭn mal tŭl” (Drifting words, 1973), Tangshin tŭl ŭi ch’ŏnguk (This Paradise of Yours, 1976), and “Chaninhan toshi” (The cruel city, 1978), Yi examines the effects of the tyranny of sociopolitical mechanisms on the human spirit. His preoccupation with

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the truth of language and the freedom of words is deepened by his sociolinguistic concerns. “Somun ŭi pyŏk” questions the meaning of writing in a world in which freedom to speak the truth of life is prohibited. The protagonist despairs at oppressive social conditions and his perceived mission as a writer, eventually succumbing to a condition in which he rejects all aspects of reality. The story explores his mental illness, which turns out to be rooted in a traumatic event he experienced during the Korean War. But more important than the deep causes of his psychological disorder is why its symptoms have reappeared. Yi locates an experiential sense of danger in violent political conditions imposed by military government, conditions similar to the extreme circumstances of war in which the truth of language is rejected. While indirectly criticizing violent political conditions in which the human consciousness is paralyzed with lies, Yi symbolically expresses a sociopathy rooted in a reality shut off from freedom of language. Hwang Sŏgyŏng’s “Kaekchi” (Far from home, 1971), “Han-sshi yŏn­ daegi” (Chronicle of a Man Named Han, 1972), “Samp’o kanŭn kil” (Bound for Samp’o, 1973), and “Changsa ŭi kkum” (A strong man’s dream, 1974) depict the lives of homeless wanderers and of laborers flocking to the cities and construction sites for a means of sustenance. The characters in these stories dream of their ancestral village, which for them symbolizes a communal life that has already been deconstructed. Some of them try to preserve or regain a wholesome lifestyle amid dehumanizing social conditions, and some, through recourse to the strength of the group, exhibit a fighting spirit determined to resist the violence life inflicts upon them. “Samp’o kanŭn kil” takes place in the depths of winter and features an itinerant laborer and ex-prisoner bound for his ancestral home on a remote island, another laborer who joins him after fleeing from his rented room, and a good-hearted barmaid who has run off in the dead of night. Through these destitute characters, uprooted and leading drifting existences at the bottom rungs of society, Hwang portrays the devastating climate of a society undergoing industrialization. In the 1980s Hwang published Chang Kilsan (1984) and Mugi ŭi kŭnŭl (The Shadow of Arms, 1987). The latter challenges the view of the U.S.-led Vietnam War as a holy war to protect freedom and democracy, instead criticizing it as reckless slaughter ordered by U.S. hegemonists, a vehicle for destroying human life. The multivolume Chang Kilsan explores the lives of the Chosŏn peasantry fighting tenaciously for survival under oppression from the ruling classes. It deals extensively with the utopian Maitreya faith of Buddhism that flourished during that period. The novel’s central theme is the “righteous bandit,” exemplified by the legendary escapades of the bandit leader Chang Kilsan. The novel paints a comprehensive picture of

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the inegalitarian structure of outmoded Chosŏn society, while providing a new perspective on the lives of the peasants as historical subjects. Ch’oe Inho’s “Sulkkun” (The Boozer, 1970), “T’ain ŭi pang” (Another Man’s Room, 1971), and “Tol ŭi ch’osang” (Portrait of a stone, 1978) foreground the urban landscape that was the central space of Korean life during the industrializing period, as well as the people living in it who have lost a sense of who they are. “T’ain ŭi pang” symbolically describes the alienation of contemporary humanity amid the setting of a new social arrangement in Korea—the urban apartment building. “Tol ŭi ch’osang” is a detailed examination of the aged and their alienation in an urban setting. The prize-winning “K’ipko p’urŭn pam” (Deep Blue Night, 1982) is a road story set in California that thematizes the loss of values, frustration with the sociopolitical climate of the time, and impulsive feelings leading to perplexity. The novels Pyŏl tŭl ŭi kohyang (Homeland of the stars, 1973), Pabo tŭl ŭi haengjin (Procession of fools, 1973), Chŏkto ŭi kkot (Equatorial flowers, 1979), Korae sanyang (Whale hunting, 1982), and Kyŏul nagŭne (Winter wayfarer, 1983) are interesting for their storytelling through the use of dramatic incidents, but they also boast subtle psychological descriptions based in an urban sensibility (the author was a native of Seoul). These longer works gained Ch’oe a popular readership as well as broadened the appeal of literary fiction in general. Beginning with the story “Amso” (The cow, 1970) and the novel Changhanmong (A dream of everlasting han, 1972) and continuing with the linked-story novels Kwanch’on sup’il (Tales of Kwanch’on, 1977) and Uri tongne (Our neighborhood, 1981), Yi Mungu sheds light on, and critiques from diverse angles, the gloomy reality of life in farming villages alienated by industrialization and the tormented lives of their occupants. Kwanch’on sup’il details the abrupt changes taking place in these villages, and the destruction of the traditional order. Uri tongne exposes the devastation of the villages stemming from air pollution and other forms of environmental degradation, the encroachment of urban consumer culture, the collapse of agrarian communities, and the resulting impoverishment. Cho Sehŭi’s linked-story novel Nanjangi ka ssoaollin chagŭn kong (The Dwarf, 1978) is one of the great achievements of modern Korean fiction. It focuses on the trials of a dwarf and his family who live in a Seoul slum and work as laborers. The family is forced to relocate when its squatter neighborhood is taken over by the government for an urban redevelopment project. The family represents the “little people” who constitute the oppressed classes in industrializing Korea, but they never lose their human decency, even when their lives fall into ruin due to the materialistic desires and the moral depravity of the haves (represented here by members of chaebŏl families and a lawyer who represents their interests),

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who regard the have-nots with contempt. The novel seeks to explain class conflict between the acquisitive and the victimized by portraying the tyranny of the haves and the frustrations of the have-nots. It also proudly depicts the family members of the dwarf, as well as the mother of a newly emerging middle-class family who takes their side, as individuals who never forfeit their ultimate purpose as human beings and dream of reconciliation on a higher dimension. In these stories we also see early critiques of environmental degradation and the dysfunctional Korean educational system (the novel begins and ends in a high school classroom). Kim Wŏnil’s novels Ŏdum ŭi hon (Soul of darkness, 1973), Noŭl (Evening Glow, 1978), Pul ŭi chejŏn (Festival of fire, 1983), Kyŏul koltchagi (Winter valley, 1987), and Madang kip’ŭn chip (The house with the deep yard, 1988) concentrate mostly on the tragedy of national division. Kim deals with this issue in two ways. Pul ŭi chejŏn and Kyŏul koltchagi involve a comprehensive representation of ideological division and how people confront it. Both novels are detailed portrayals of the destruction of human dignity incurred by ideological demands and blind obedience to them, and the destruction of communal values leading finally to internecine war. The second approach is found in Ŏdum ŭi hon, Noŭl, and Madang kip’ŭn chip. In these works, the author portrays victims of the South-North division and the civil war healing themselves through their love for and understanding of others. While they critique the brutality of ideology, these novels embody a fervent desire to overcome ideology and pursue love and mutual understanding. Noŭl also exposes the deep-seated wounds from the national division carved in the soul of one individual, but it breaks new thematic ground in pundan (national division) literature in its earnest search for a method to heal those wounds. While confirming that the pain of the national division still resides deep in the hearts of Koreans, it emphasizes that a fully human life cannot be led without a cure for that pain. A return to the human essentials of love and forgiveness can foster healing. Cho Chŏngnae’s “Ch’ŏngsandaek” (The woman from Ch’ŏngsan, 1972) and “Yuhyŏng ŭi ttang” (Land of Exile, 1981) narrate how the sufferings of the Colonial period and the tragedy of the Korean War have influenced the lives of Koreans. Pullori (Playing With Fire, 1983), a thematic expansion on “Yuhyŏng ŭi ttang,” likewise depicts an individual who is destroyed by Korea’s unforgiving postcolonial history. The novel explores how individual hatred and enmity stemming from social prejudices expanded into ideological conflict during the Korean War. The ten-volume novel T’aebaek sanmaek (The T’aebaek Mountains, 1989) is the summit of Cho’s literature and a sterling achievement of national division literature. This magnum opus traces the turbulent history from

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Liberation in 1945 to national division and the Korean War, its narrative space originating in the Chiri Mountain area but then expanding to cover the entire peninsula. The central subject of the work is the Yŏsun Rebellion (so called because it was centered in the cities of Yŏsu and Sunch’ŏn in South Chŏlla Province), a communist revolt that erupted in October 1948, soon after the birth of the authoritarian government of South Korea. The rebellion showed vividly the grim political situation in post-­ Liberation Korea. The novel begins by tracing the contours of the rebellion, then transitions to the communist partisans who were forced into hiding in the Chiri Mountain massif by the punitive expeditions of the National Defense forces, before expanding its focus to the Korean War. The work shows with extreme lucidity how post-Liberation sociopolitical upheaval and class conflict erupted in civil war. It does this by positioning the Korean War, which hardened the national division, as the climax. Yi Munyŏl’s works such as “Tŭlso” (Cattle, 1979) and Hwangje rŭl wihayŏ (Hail to the emperor, 1980) use myth and history to create contemporary fables. Hwangje rŭl wihayŏ lays out a hypothetical history in an attempt to explain what is essential in human life and history. Published at the beginning of the Chŏn Tuhwan (Chun Doo-hwan) military dictatorship, the novel not surprisingly is an indirect commentary on contemporary Korean politics. But the author’s richly textured classical writing style outweighs the subject matter in its marking out of new territory for prose writing. The novella “Uri tŭl ŭi ilgŭrŏjin yŏngung” (Our Twisted Hero, 1987), the novels Yŏng’ung shidae (Age of heroes, 1984) and Pyŏn’gyŏng (Borderlands, 1989), and the story collection Kuro Arirang (1987; Kuro is a working-class district of Seoul and “Arirang” is Korea’s best-loved song) problematize the conditions resulting from the national division and the violence permeating Korean politics. And “Chŏlmŭn nal ŭi chosang” (Portrait of youthful times, 1981), the linked-story novel Kŭdae tashi nŭn kohyang e kaji mot’ari (You can’t go home again, 1980), “Kŭmshijo” (The bird with gilded wings, 1983), and Shiin (The Poet, 1990) aestheticize faith in art over the vagaries of individual experience. Kŭdae tashi nŭn kohyang e kaji mot’ari deplores lost tradition while Shiin celebrates nonconformity in the person of the inconoclastic hanshi poet of the Late Chosŏn period Kim Pyŏng’yŏn, better known as Kim Sakkat, the Rainhat Poet. Yŏng’ung shidae, based in the author’s family history, and especially the life of his father, a defector to the North, shows the ideological dilemma of a revolutionary who meets a tragic end amid the opposition between ideology and anti-ideology. In critically illuminating the decision of an intellectual to choose socialist ideology, Yi deals frankly with the South-North division and ideological opposition, thereby opening up new dimensions in the literature of national division. Yi’s multivolume Pyŏn’gyŏng for its

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part develops around a family at the time of Liberation but expands in scope to embrace the sociohistorical. The work is difficult to understand without recourse to ample consideration of how post-Liberation Korean society responded to the domination strategies of Western imperialism. Expansion of Women’s Fiction Building on the successes of writers such as Pak Hwasŏng and Ch’oe Chŏnghŭi, who had debuted in the Colonial period, Pak Kyŏngni, Pak Wansŏ, and O Chŏnghŭi expanded the achievements of women’s fiction to include multivolume family sagas and works that illuminate the aftershocks of wartime trauma. Pak Kyŏngni’s “Pulshin shidae” (Age of disbelief, 1957) is a critical portrayal of depravity in society as perceived by a woman. She is disillusioned by the mammonistic values of society, but ultimately realizes that she possesses enough life force to battle them. By showing bursts of hatred at immoral people, the work criticizes the negativity, hypocrisy, and nihilism prevalent in postwar society. In her novels Kim yakkuk ŭi ttal tŭl (The daughters of pharmacist Kim, 1962) and Shijang kwa chŏnjang (Marketplace and battlefield, 1964), Pak expands her focus from daily life to historical reality. Shijang kwa chŏnjang in particular offers a comprehensive portrayal of the Korean War from the two perspectives of the everyday life of the marketplace and the historicity of the battlefield. Pak’s roman fleuve T’oji (Land, 1969–1993) follows a yangban family and its varying fortunes within the flow of history, portraying its gradual adjustment to developments ranging from Later Chosŏn to the Colonial period. Its pages bring to life characters typical of those living during the upheaval of modernization beginning at the end of Chosŏn. Despite the historicity of the novel’s setting, the goal of the work is not to simply recreate history through literature, but to bring sharper focus to our understanding of life during that period. Instead of being populated by disparate individuals, the novel is a synthesis of many different modes of life. Issues such as the deconstruction of outmoded family and class systems, the importation of Western material culture, the process of colonial domination, the lives of Koreans living in Manchuria, and the emigration of Korean families are direct reflections of life during the period spanned by the novel. T’oji thus succeeds in capturing a comprehensive zeitgeist in the frame of historical fiction. The portrayals are true to life, as well as true to art. Pak Wansŏ delivers diverting critiques and satires of various aspects of an emerging middle-class lifestyle, portraying societal changes and life problems through an examination of the principles of family structure and the relations among those who make up that structure. In focusing

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on the internal problems of the family she foregrounds new socioethical standards of judgment and characteristically grasps changes in the family structure as an aspect of historical social change. Among her most accomplished works are Hwich’ŏnggŏrinŭn ohu (A staggering afternoon, 1978) and Toshi ŭi hyungnyŏn (A lean year for the city, 1979). Both works deal with the life and manners of urban middle-class society, and both are centered in a family’s everyday life and keenly illustrate changes in social values and norms. The daily reality that interests Pak is a degenerated space in which human values and moral norms have fallen apart. She points out how the ethics and values of the Korean family have been overturned by the experiences of the Colonial period, the national division, and war. The family-oriented norms that supported Korean society have been corrupted by materialism and selfish careerism. The three “Ŏmma ŭi malttuk” (Mother’s Hitching Post, 1979, 1980, 1982) stories and the novel Mimang (Delusions, 1990) depict not so much the suffering arising from colonialism and the tragedy of national division as the history-wrought dissolution of the culture’s distinctive customs and values. Such is the power of Pak’s moral imagination that her examination of everyday life and experience engenders new life values in the minds of her readers. What distinguishes her narratives above all else is her colloquial style, which imbues her fiction with an almost palpable empathy that earned for her the affectionate nickname the “auntie next door.” O Chŏnghŭi’s early works are populated by characters with destructive impulses expressed through motifs such as physical deformity and kleptomania (“Wan’gujŏm yŏin” [The Toyshop Woman, 1967]), infertility (“Chingnyŏ” [Weaver Woman], 1970), and pyromania (“Pul ŭi kang” [River of Fire, 1977)]. Her story “Chŏnyŏk ŭi keim” (Evening game, 1979) presents these themes with the greatest clarity. Through the first-person narrative the reader is exposed to the protagonist’s conflicts with her father and memories of her dead mother, who suffered from mental illness, and her brother, who has run away from home. Lending unity to these brief episodes and memories is the conservative, even desperate atmosphere of the evening hours that daughter and father spend together playing hwat’u. The narratives in O’s story collections Yunyŏn ŭi ttŭl (The garden of my childhood, 1981) and Param ŭi nŏk (Spirit on the Wind, 1986) focus more on coming of age and trauma. Stories such as “Chunggugin kŏri” (Chinatown, 1979) and “Yunyŏn ŭi ttŭl” (1980) provide glimpses of the experiences of adolescents in the postwar milieu, but the root of their sentiment is hardly different from that of characters in her previous works. Absence (pujae) figures prominently in stories such as “Pyŏlsa” (Words of Farewell, 1981), “Tonggyong” (The Bronze Mirror, 1982), and “Sullyeja

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ui norae” (Wayfarer, 1983). The first of these stories is also distinguished by its stream-of-consciousness narrative. Politics begin to intrude in these and subsequent stories from the 1980s. The husband of the narrator of “Pyŏlsa” has staged his disappearance from home in an attempt to elude the authorities who have placed him under surveillance. “Tonggyŏng” involves an aging couple whose only child is a casualty of the April 19, 1960, Student Revolution. Nihilism is one of the most important themes in Sŏ Yŏngŭn’s fiction but is juxtaposed with the purity of the human spirit. “Samak ŭl kŏnnŏnŭn pŏp” (How to cross a desert, 1975) reveals the consciousness of a Vietnam War veteran through his sympathetic encounters with an old man who lives in a fantasy world. Pure-hearted yet pitiful characters who internalize their suffering in response to the vulgarity of life and human powerlessness are the central figures of “Kwansa saram tŭl” (People with official residences, 1980). In her prize-winning story “Mŏn kŭdae” (Dear Distant Love, 1983), the suffering of the female protagonist is depicted in a positive, pure light. What could otherwise develop into nihilism is transformed into absolute conviction. All of the suffering experienced by the protagonist is symbolized as a ladder she is determined to ascend. In ascending she reveals an inner strength that is sublimated in the image of a camel crossing a desert. Yang Kwija achieved success with her linked-story novel Wŏnmi-dong saram tŭl (A Distant and Beautiful Place, 1985), which, like Yun Hŭnggil’s “Ahop kyŏlle ŭi kudo ro namŭn sanae” (The Man Who Was Left as Nine Pairs of Shoes, 1977) and Hwang Sŏgyŏng’s “Twaeji kkum” (A dream of good fortune, 1983), portrays the lives of country folk recently transplanted to the metropolis of Seoul and its satellite cities, destinations holding the promise of a better life in the wake of the industrialization movement initiated under Park Chung Hee. D. Readings Pak T’aewŏn The Man Who Ran the Fragrant Orchid Café (Pangnanjang chuin, 1936) Oh yes, that new café of his, well, thank heavens he could adorn it with the odd oil painting he had no hope of selling, positioning the canvases nicely about the four walls, practically the only interior decoration in this venture he had launched with a meager 300 wŏn, not exactly the means to dress up the place as a proper tearoom, his goal instead to provide it with the basic amenities—tables and chairs and such—and with donated

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Part II:  Modern Literature items, choosing for a phonograph the portable model offered by the Count, not for him an extravagant attempt to make a financial killing off of bare-bones decorations, but yielding instead to the hints of his friends in their struggling artist ghetto—why not a little old lounge for us to hang out in?—he made this heartfelt gesture, to which the Count responded with the phonograph he had cherished for years, along with two dozen records, and Mansŏng an assortment of ashtrays he had collected from heaven knows where, and Sugyŏng his mentor, with the name of the new café still undecided, an orchid repotted and delivered from his own tiny garden, suggesting the space be christened along the lines of the Fragrant Orchid Café, and although there were several such touching anecdotes about the advent of the café, how could our intimidated would-be businessman of a painter-proprietor, when he opened the doors of his establishment that first day, hope to make a living vending hot drinks and booze, or at least net enough in the way of proceeds to indulge in a pack of cigarettes or purchase a measure of rice, but to his utter surprise he was greeted with a throng of well-wishers, and from opening day forth, the café was frequented day and night, leading our proprietor and his artist patrons to wonder what exactly it was about the place that charmed the neighborhood customers—surely it wasn’t the sole server, the obtuse, plain-faced Misae—but one look about the stark interior left them bobbing their heads in agreement, perhaps the Count was right, it made sense that the denizens of this out-of-the-way locale would take to the ambience of extreme austerity, but no matter why one might seek out the café, who would grumble about an opportunity to offer hot beverages for sale, and why would our proprietor bother to empty his already shallow pockets to buy table covers if the customers preferred his ascetic approach, and so he forewent the idea, deep down in his heart, of installing a few table lamps with his first month’s proceeds, using them instead to round up his down-at-the-heels friends late that night for sukiyaki in Shinjuku, and looking back now, oh what a gossamer dream it was, because the following month, for whatever reason, the proceeds dwindled by the day, flustering our proprietor and his artist pals, who still weren’t used to the idea they were involved in a business—why, the area had always lacked for a place to smoke and have a hot drink, and now that the café was here, was it only curiosity that drew the locals, and now they were thinking been-there-done-that, and if that was the case, then what do we do next, but before they could devise a master plan, there overlooking the railroad, a hop, skip, and a jump distant, there opened another café, Mon Ami, into which a whopping 1700 wŏn had been sunk, and you can imagine what a blow this was to the Fragrant Orchid, such that the onetime jest—wouldn’t the café surely become a members-only club for a few struggling artists?—became reality, for how could their cash-strapped home away from home possibly compete with the flashy Mon Ami, and such are the realities of life, but even so the café held on for two years,

Fiction members such as the Count, helpless as he was in mundane affairs, saying what a miracle it was for them to have lasted that long and no immediate harm would come if they hung on, but even that pronouncement was in recent days belied by the frequent visits of loan mongers, which enlightened our proprietor to the fact that his debt had accumulated to an astronomical amount, and as much of an optimist as he was, for the first time he felt at a loss, often taking to his bed to try to calculate the Mon Ami’s daily profit, suspecting it was probably 20 wŏn or so, an amount, needless to say, he himself dared not dream of, but instead if he netted as much as 5 wŏn a day, then, let’s see, 5 times 3 is 15, and 15 times 10 gives us 150 for the month, but even that would leave him hard up, the business only allowing him and Misae to scrape by, and in this dreary outlier of a neighborhood, grossing a meager 2 or 3 wŏn a day from a café, how in heaven’s name could he make good on six months of overdue rent, buy staples, pay the utility bills, and give Misae her salary, the act of ticking off these figures in his mind leaving him with a sour taste, surely there had to be a way, but as our young proprietor of the Fragrant Orchid Café pulled a somber face in spite of himself and, as he was wont to do, took a deep breath and gazed at the ceiling, he was left wondering exactly what way that might be, but of course no likely solution would magically pop up, and instead it was the fawning mugs of the various loan mongers looming in his mind’s eye, and instantly he grimaced, sickened by the image of that son of a bitch of a landlord, the worst of them all, who again yesterday had marched in and parked himself on his haunches as if he himself ran the café, threatening all manner of recourse, and when our youthful proprietor thought of the man’s jeering and mockery, he asked himself why cling to a business that bled him day and night, why not simply pack up and unload the café, then he’d have only his humble self to look after, and as Mansŏng had said, he could peddle shina soba, really he could, and at least not starve, which got our proprietor worked up enough to focus on the notion, but it was easier said than done—it’s one thing if it’s only me, myself, and I, but what about Misae, she’s got no home to return to, no parents, no siblings?—and this led to more thoughts, which led to dejection at the notion that if he really could not find a solution for her, then there could be no solution for him, and a sigh escaped his lips, a sigh originating in the history of Misae, originally a maid at his mentor Sugyŏng’s, and seeing as how he needed a young server at the café, he might as well hire someone he knew to be decent and trustworthy rather than a total stranger, but truth be told, in no respect was she suited to café work, and yet inasmuch as his wise friend had put her forth for consideration, he had taken her on at 10 wŏn a month without, however, offering any hint of a job description or the unpredictable workload at a tearoom, and our proprietor having no wife and no maid, she had undertaken practically overnight all the domestic chores, devoting herself to the young master’s affairs, and although he

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Part II:  Modern Literature felt so sorry for her and yet so thankful, and deep down inside so grateful, all too needy fellow that he was, unable to steer his business as he wished, and with no way out, he promised himself he would one day compensate her with a sum three times her monthly salary, but this was only a thought, and the next moment he was telling himself to forget it, since it had been all he could do to pay her meager 10-wŏn salary on time for her first few months, after which he paid her as circumstances dictated, feeding her 2 wŏn this month and slipping her 3 the next, vowing he would make it up to her the following month, and then the month after that, until two years had gone by, by which time the sum due her was easily 200 wŏn, and regardless how guileless a country girl she might be, regardless what sort of person she was, financial dealings had to be tidy even between father and son, but it would seem that Misae, far from ever letting drop the subject of money, harbored no thought of it, faithfully and earnestly serving our young artist proprietor as ever, leaving him so apologetic as to have once asked if she might not want to seek work elsewhere, in which case he together with Sugyŏng his mentor would do their best to arrange something, but the words had barely escaped his mouth, it being all he could do to glance at her sitting across from him, that she, obtuse country bunny that she was, probably thinking she had made a terrible mistake to have thus lost favor in the master’s eyes, instantly turned red in the face, and, inarticulate as always, appeared ready to burst into tears, stuttering one incoherent apology after another and perplexing our greenhorn painter, prompting him to wonder, why bother, and never again did he broach the subject with her, but he was still holding out hope for a tidy solution when whom should he meet at the public bath but Sugyŏng his mentor, and when he reported in detail the incident with Misae and inquired of his opinion, his senior said that instead of racking your brains why not seize the occasion and marry her, he had actually been thinking this all along, it doubtless was meant to be, what a lovely prospect, and if our young proprietor felt uncomfortable putting it to her directly, he himself would go see Misae then and there and get from her a yes or a no, and in reaction to this one fell swoop, as if his elder presumed to know all about him and Misae, our young painter blushed like a girl, and telling him no no no no, suddenly wondered if Sugyŏng had the wrong idea about Misae and him, a belated realization that embarrassed him to no end, for if his respectable senior could harbor such suspicions, then what about the shallow bunch in the neighborhood, who knows what sorts of rumors they might already have set in motion, a prospect that sent the redness rushing on to his earlobes, but considering it now, he had to ask himself what he could possibly do if in fact such gossip was circulating, given the dubious notion that a young man and woman could live under the same roof for such a period of time and remain chaste, the very idea of it was bizarre, for before he ever entertained the possibility of feeling either love or lust toward Misae, there

Fiction was first of all his considerable indebtedness toward her, an obligation not easily discharged, and perhaps it was this weighty thought that left no room for any sort of wanton proclivities, but given the fact that rumors were spreading, and even if he sent her off elsewhere with only the earnings she was due, he didn’t have the heart to speak up, nor would Misae, accepting as she was, readily pack up and leave, and when his thoughts reached this point, then the inevitable next step was to discover exactly what she foresaw in the way of a future, but it was all for nought, for it seemed that Misae had virtually no course of action or plan in mind, but rather was waiting for him or Sugyŏng his mentor to show her the way, and that perhaps all would go well if she were to do as she was told, and in that case should he be responsible for finding her a proper place, and determining for her a marriage partner, and if not, then mightn’t he be stuck with her for life, and oh what a calamity that would be, he thought as he gaped in shock at the ceiling, and then it struck him, if she wasn’t opposed to the idea, then instead of making things difficult for himself, why not cast fate to the wind and marry her once and for all, what better solution would present itself for him to chart his future, and indeed that had been Sugyŏng his mentor’s very suggestion at the public bath, and armed with this thought our proprietor now took stock of her—she had only finished grade school, was neither bright nor pretty, but might that not make her the most suitable wife for an artist, a woman who could at least make him happy?—and the next thing he knew he was proclaiming to himself her various virtues, but when he wondered in turn if he could return the favor and make her happy, he realized anew how financially incapable he was, and considering his landlord’s hardline attitude the previous day, and the possibility he would have to surrender his lease on the café as early as the next day, leaving him out on the street with no place to go, why the mere thought of such a person imagining for a moment he might marry her, what a joke, he was dreaming, he sneered at himself, and suddenly he realized in surprise it was dark in his room, and that’s what it took to get him up on his feet and send him descending sluggishly to the cafe, where he found Misae sitting alone, the space feeling all the more forlorn when he wondered if tonight the Count might drop by, or maybe Mansŏng, and asking her to fetch him his walking stick and without so much as washing his face he set out for a stroll in the barren expanse, swishing his stick in the sunset, then realized he hadn’t seen Sugyŏng in over a week and wondering if his mentor had started a new story, he struck out for his home, thinking that all the while he’d been holding fast to that little café of his, his mind had gotten so used to being indolent, his hand had not held a brush, and would he ever again be able to produce a decent painting, but when all was said and done, the fact remained that in comparison with himself his mentor had no worries about the basic necessities, he had a tidy, peaceful room in which to work, there could be no limit to the happiness of a man

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Part II:  Modern Literature devoting himself wholly to his art, and thus envying Sugyŏng his gratifying situation, he arrived at his wise friend’s plank gate in the gloom, and what should he witness but a scene that in spite of his having heard through the grapevine of the instability of his mentor’s wife, was bizarre beyond imagination, the middle-aged woman incessantly babbling, one after another hurling, breaking, tearing whatever came to hand, his mentor absolutely daunted by her frenzy, apologizing profusely, the stark image of him trying to ease her mad outburst visible through the rips and rents in the paper-paneled doors, preventing our young man who ran the Fragrant Orchid Café from lingering further, and off he dashed when suddenly he felt, throughout his being, there in the expanse beneath the autumn twilight, a desolation most helpless. Translation by Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton Hwang Sunwŏn The Cloudburst (Sonagi, 1952 [date of composition]) When the boy first saw the girl by the stream, he knew right away she must be the Yuns’ great-granddaughter. She was dipping her hand in the stream and splashing the water. As if the stream was something you don’t see in Seoul. The girl had been stopping by the stream like this for several days on her way home from school. Yesterday she had stayed at the edge of the stream, but today she was sitting right in the middle of the stepping stones. The boy sat down on the dike beside the stream. He thought he would watch until the girl had to move aside to let someone pass. It happened that someone did come along and the girl moved away to let the person cross. The next day he went to the stream a little later. This time the girl was washing her face and hands as she sat at the middle of the steppingstones. She had pushed up the sleeves of her pink sweater, and her arms and neck looked especially fair. After she had washed for quite a while, she looked intently at the water. Probably she was looking at the reflection of her face. Suddenly she thrust her hand into the water, as though she was trying to catch a little fish passing. Without any sign that she knew the boy was sitting on the dike, the girl kept splashing the water nimbly with her hands. But as always, she caught nothing. She enjoyed it all the same, though, as she kept catching handfuls of water. It looked as if someone would have to come and cross the stream or she would never move.

Fiction After a while the girl took something out of the water. It was a small white stone. She jumped up and ran springing over the stones to the other side. As soon as she was all the way across, she spun around, and facing the stream she said, “Dummy!” The little stone flew through the air. The boy stood right up without realizing what he was doing. The girl ran hard, with her loose, short hair flying. She ran to the path between the reed fields. He could see only the shimmering reed tassels in the crisp autumn sunlight. Then it was time for the girl to appear at the far end of the reed fields. It seemed to him that a long time had already passed. Still the girl did not appear. He stood on tiptoe and looked again. And once more he thought a long time had gone by. Over at the far end of the reed fields a few of the tassels moved. The girl was holding an armful of reeds. Now she was walking slowly. The crystal clear autumn sunlight glistened on the heads of the reeds the girl was carrying. It looked as if the armful of reeds was walking by itself. The boy stood where he was until the tassels had disappeared from view. Suddenly he looked down and saw the little stone the girl had thrown. He picked it up and put it in his pocket. From the next day on, the boy went down to the stream a little later in the day. No trace of the girl was to be seen. That was lucky. But a strange thing happened. The more days that went by without a glimpse of the girl, the more the boy began to feel a vague emptiness somewhere in a corner of his heart. He found that he was in the habit of fingering the little stone in his pocket. One day the boy went and tried sitting in the middle of the steppingstones where the girl had sat and splashed her hands in the water. He put his hand in the water. He washed his face and hands. He looked down at the water. The surface faithfully reflected his dark, tanned face. He didn’t want to look at it. The boy churned the face in the water with both hands. He repeated this several times. Then suddenly he started and stood straight up. Wasn’t that the girl coming his way? She was hiding and watching what I was doing! The boy began to run. He slipped on one of the stepping stones. One foot went in the water. He kept running. If only he could find a place to hide from her. Along this path there were no reeds, only buckwheat. The fragrance of the buckwheat in bloom was more overpowering than he had ever known it could be. He thought his nose would burst. He began to feel dizzy. A salty liquid ran onto his lips. His nose was bleeding. He wiped away the blood with one hand and kept running. It seemed as though he could hear “Dummy! Dummy!” following him as he ran.

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Part II:  Modern Literature It was a Saturday. He had not seen the girl for several days, but when he arrived at the stream, she was sitting on the opposite bank splashing in the water. He began to cross on the stepping-stones, pretending not to notice her. He was used to walking on these stones as if they were a wide road, but today he stepped cautiously, even though the slip he had made in front of her the last time had only been a slight misstep. “Hey!” The boy pretended not to hear. He went up and stood on the dike. “Hey, what kind of shell is this?” Without thinking he turned around. He found himself looking into her clear, black eyes. Immediately he dropped his gaze to the girl’s palm. “Satin shell.” “Even the name is pretty.” They came to the fork in the road. Here the girl had a few hundred yards to go by the lower road, while the boy would travel two or three miles on the upper road. Pausing here, the girl pointed to the far edge of a field and asked, “Have you ever been to the other side of that hill?” “No.” “Don’t you think we should go and look? Here in the country I’m so bored I don’t know what I’m going to do!” “It’s pretty far to go.” “That depends on what you mean by ‘far.’ When I was in Seoul I used to go really far on picnics.” When she said that, the girl’s eyes seemed to be saying “Dummy! Dummy!” They came to a raised path between the rice paddies. They passed people harvesting early rice. They found a scarecrow. The boy shook the straw ropes holding it up. Some sparrows flew away. He thought, Oh, I really ought to go home early today and keep the sparrows out of the field next to the house. “Oh, what fun!” The girl took hold of the lines on the scarecrow and shook them. The scarecrow swayed and danced. The dimples were softly outlined on the girl’s left cheek. A little farther on stood another scarecrow. The girl ran over to it. The boy ran behind her, as if trying to forget that on a day like this he ought to go home early and help with the chores. He brushed past the girl and kept running. The grasshoppers flying against him made his face sting. The autumn sky, a deep indigo, spun before the boy’s eyes. He was dizzy. It was because of that eagle, that eagle, that eagle circling up there in the sky. He looked back and saw the girl shaking a scarecrow. It was dancing even more than the first one. At the end of the rice paddies they came to a ditch. The girl ran there first and jumped across. From there to the base of the hill there were only a few farm fields.

Fiction They passed some sorghum fields where harvested shocks were standing. “What’s that?” “A watchman’s hut.” “Are the melons here good?” “Sure, the melons are good, but the watermelons are even better.” “I wish I could eat one.” The boy went into a melon field that had been second-cropped in radishes and pulled up two big daikon radishes. They weren’t quite fully grown. After twisting off the leaves and throwing them down, he handed her one of the radishes. Then as if to show her how they were eaten, he bit off the top, scraped away a ring of the skin with his fingernail and began to crunch it. The girl did the same. By the third bite, though, she said, “Oh, it’s too hot, and it stinks!” She spat it out and threw the rest away. “It tastes awful! I can’t eat it.” He flung his radish even farther away. The hill drew closer. The autumn leaves on the hill stood out vividly. “Oh, look!” The girl ran in the direction of the hill. This time the boy did not run after her, but soon he had picked more flowers than she had. “These are wild chrysanthemums, these are bush clover, these are bluebells.” “I didn’t know bluebells were so pretty. I like purple anyway. Then what are those yellow flowers that look like parasols?” “Wild parsley.” The girl held up a flower the way you would hold a parasol. This brought out the delicate dimples on the girl’s slightly flushed face. Once more the boy picked a handful of flowers and brought them over to the girl. He picked out the freshest among them and handed them to her. She said, “Don’t throw any of them away.” They walked up the ridge to the crest of the hill. Over in the opposite valley several thatched farmhouses were gathered into a cozy little hamlet. Neither suggested it, but they sat down side by side astride a big boulder. The surroundings seemed to become especially hushed. The autumn sunlight filled the air with the fragrance of drying grasses and leaves. “What are those flowers over there?” On a rather steep slope nearby flowers hung from a tangled arrowroot vine. “They look like wisteria. There used to be a big wisteria arbor at our school in Seoul. When I see those flowers it makes me think of the times I used to spend with my friends under that wisteria arbor.” The girl rose slowly and went over to the slope. She backed down on her hands and knees, and began to tug on the vine that had the most

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Part II:  Modern Literature blossoms hanging from it. It hardly moved as she pulled. She tried to check herself, but began to slide. She held on to the arrowroot vine. The boy jumped up and ran to her. The girl put out her hand, and as the boy pulled her up he thought that he should have offered to pick the flowers. Beads of blood began to form on the girl’s right knee. Without thinking the boy put his lips on the scratch and began to suck away the blood. Then suddenly he thought of something, jumped up, and ran off. In a short while the boy returned out of breath and said, “If you rub this on, it’ll get better.” The boy daubed some pine resin on the scratch, and then he went down to the place where the arrowroot vines were growing. With his teeth he tore off several of the vines with the most blossoms, and climbed back up with them. After this he said, “There’s a calf over there. Let’s go see it.” The calf was a light yellowish color. It still did not have the ring put through its nose. The boy grasped the tether close to the calf’s head, acted as if he were about to scratch its back, then lightly jumped up and mounted it. The calf began to buck and circle. The girl’s white face, pink sweater, dark blue skirt, and the flowers she was holding in her arms all swirled into one blur. It looked like one great bunch of flowers. Oh, I’m dizzy! But he didn’t want to get off. He was feeling proud of himself. Here was one thing he could do that the girl couldn’t imitate, he thought. “What’s going on here?” A farmer appeared, coming up through the tall reeds. The boy jumped down from the calf. Now all this would end up with a scolding, with the farmer saying you ought to know you’ll hurt the back of such a small calf if you try to ride it. But the farmer, who had a long beard, glanced in the direction of the girl, untied the tether of the calf, and said to them, “You’d better hurry home. It’s about to rain.” Sure enough, a black storm cloud was directly overhead. All at once loud noise seemed to be coming from every direction. The wind rose and swooshed around. In a moment everything around them turned purple. As they came down the hill they heard the sound of raindrops on the leaves of the oak trees. They were big drops of rain. They felt the cold on the back of their necks. Then suddenly there was a cloudburst that at once blinded their view. In the dense downpour they saw the little watchman’s hut. It was the only place to take cover from the rain. The stilts under the little hut were leaning askew and the thatched roof had separated in several places. Such as it was, the boy found a spot where the rain was leaking in less badly and had the girl go inside and wait there. The girl’s lips began to turn a blotchy blue color, and her shoulders kept shaking and shaking.

Fiction The boy took off his cotton jacket and put it around the girl’s shoulders. The girl raised her drenched eyes and looked at the boy. The boy stood there silently. Then she removed the flowers with broken stems and wilted blossoms from the bunch she had been carrying in her arms, and dropped them by her feet. The rain began to leak in where the girl was standing. It was impossible to stay out of the rain there any longer. The boy looked outside, then thought of something and ran over toward the sorghum field. He pulled open one of the tall sheaves standing in the field, then brought several more nearby sheaves and stood them against it. He looked inside once again, then looked toward the hut and beckoned. The rain did not leak into the tall sorghum sheaves. But it was dark and the space was too small. The boy, sitting in front of the girl, was p ­ artly exposed to the rain. Vapor was now rising from the boy’s shoulders. In a near whisper the girl said, “Come in and sit here.” “I’m all right.” She said once again, “Come in and sit down.” He had to back in. When he did, he crushed the bunch of flowers the girl was holding, but she did not seem to mind. The odor of the boy’s rain-soaked body suddenly hit her nostrils, but she did not turn her head away. Instead she began to feel the vigor of the boy’s body infuse her shivering frame with its warmth. All at once the sound on the leaves of the sorghum shocks stopped. Outside it began to turn brighter. They came out of their shelter in the tall shocks. Ahead on the path the blinding sunlight was already pouring down. When they came to the place where they had crossed the ditch, they found it had swollen beyond recognition. The color had changed and it had turned into a rushing, muddy river. It would be impossible to jump across. The boy turned and offered his back. The girl calmly climbed onto his back to be carried across. The water came up over his rolled-up shorts. The girl cried out, “Oh my!” and held on tightly around the boy’s neck. Before they had reached the opposite bank, the autumn sky had cleared and was in its glory as never before, a high deep-blue dome without a speck of cloud to be seen. After that day the girl was nowhere to be seen. Every day the boy would run to the place by the side of the stream but could never find her. The boy even watched the school playground during recess hours. He began to spy furtively on the girl’s fifth grade class, but he did not see her. Then one day as usual the boy went down to the bank of the stream, fingering the little white stone he still carried in his pocket. And look, wasn’t that the girl sitting on the dike on this side of the stream? The boy’s heart began to thump. “I’ve been sick since I saw you.” The girl’s face seemed to have turned a much paler color.

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Part II:  Modern Literature “Is it because you were caught in the rain that day?” She quietly nodded. “Are you all better now?” “Well, I’m still…” she trailed off and did not finish. “Then you ought to be lying down and resting.” “I came out because I was so bored. Oh, that day was so much fun! You know, I got a stain on my clothes that won’t come out.” The girl looked down at the bottom edge of her pink sweater. There was a dark, reddish stain there the color of muddy water. Gently bringing to life her faint dimples, the girl said, “Where do you suppose this stain came from?” The boy stood looking intently at the hem of the sweater. “I think I know. Remember how you carried me on your back across the ditch that day? I picked up the stain from your back.” The boy felt himself suddenly blushing. At the place where they took separate paths the girl said, “Say, this morning we picked dates at our house. We’re getting ready for the autumn sacrifice tomorrow.” She held out a handful of dates. The boy hesitated. “Try them. They’re very sweet. They say our great-great-grandfather planted the tree.” Extending his cupped hands, the boy said, “They sure are big.” “Oh, and by the way, after the autumn moon sacrifice, we’re going to move out of our house.” Even before the girl and her family had moved in, the boy had heard the people in the village saying that Yun’s grandson was coming back to the home village because the family had failed in business in Seoul and had no place else to go. Now it looked as if they had lost the family homestead, too. “I don’t know why, but now I don’t want to move,” the girl said. “The grownups have made the decision, so there isn’t anything I can do about it, and yet….” And she fell silent. For the first time a lonesome look came into the girl’s black eyes. On his way home after he had left the girl, the boy kept thinking over and over about the girl’s saying that she was going to move. Really now, there was no reason to feel sorry or sad about it. All the same, the boy paid no attention to the sweet taste of the dates he was eating. That night the boy went secretly to the place where old grandfather Tŏksoe’s walnut trees grew. He climbed up in a tree he had spotted during the day, and then began to beat with a stick on a branch he had picked out. The sound of the walnuts falling seemed strangely loud. The noise made him tense, afraid of being discovered. Then in the next instant, without knowing just why, he summoned all his strength and beat furiously with the stick, saying, “Come on, big ones, fall! You have to! A lot of you have to fall!”

Fiction On the way back home he felt his way carefully, staying in the shadows cast by the three-quarter moon. It was the first time he had ever felt thankful for the shadows. The boy ran his hands over his bulging pockets. It didn’t bother him at all that people say you can get a bad itch from shucking walnuts with your bare hands. The walnuts from grandfather Tŏksoe’s house were supposed to be the best ones in the area, and the boy’s only thought was that he must get some to the girl right away for her to try. But then, oh no, he had completely forgotten to ask her to come down to the bank of the stream once more if she got better before they moved away. What a dummy he was. Dummy! The next day the boy came home from school to find his father dressed in his best clothes, holding a chicken. He asked his father where he was going. Without responding to the boy’s question the father estimated the weight of the chicken he was holding and said, “Suppose this is big enough?” Bringing out a net bag, his mother said, “You’re taking the one that has already cackled several days and is about to start laying. She’s not all that big yet, but I guess she’s heavy enough.” The boy asked his mother this time where his father was going. “Oh, he’s going to Yun’s house over in the schoolhouse valley. It’s something for them to put with their sacrifice.” “Then you should send a big one. Like that speckled rooster over there.” The boy’s father laughed at this and said, “Come on, son, this one will be fine.” Suddenly the boy felt ashamed. He threw down his schoolbooks and went over to the ox’s stall. He gave the ox a slap on the back, making it look as though he was swatting a fly. Day by day the water in the stream flowed in its course, and the autumn deepened. The boy went to the fork in the road and looked down the lower way. Beyond the end of the reed fields the village in the schoolhouse valley appeared unusually close under the indigo sky. People in the village had been saying that tomorrow the girl’s family would be moving to the town of Yangp’yŏng. It seemed they planned to try running a little store there. Unconsciously the boy was fingering the shelled walnuts in his pocket with one hand, and with the other was bending and breaking off reed tassels one after another. That night as he lay in bed the boy had only one thought on his mind. “Should I go tomorrow and watch when the girl’s family is moving? If I go will I get to see the girl? What should I do?”

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Part II:  Modern Literature Then he wasn’t quite sure whether he had already been asleep, when he heard, “Huh. Well, that’s really strange.” His father, who had been over at the village, had come back. “And it’s really terrible, all that’s happened to the Yun family. First they had to sell all their paddies and fields, then they saw the house they’ve lived in for generations pass into someone else’s hands, and now, think of it, on top of all that, they have to suffer this kind of cruel death.” The boy’s mother, who was doing mending in her lap by the light of the lamp, said, “Was that girl the only great-grandchild they had?” “That’s right. The two boys they had died when they were still small.” “I wonder why they’ve had such bad luck with children in that family?” said his mother. “I wonder,” answered his father. “With this child the sickness lasted a long time, and I hear they couldn’t afford to give her the right medicine. The way it is now, the Yun’s family line is finished. This girl seemed to have been precocious for her age, though. You know, she said that if she died she wanted them to bury her just as she was, right in the clothes she was wearing.” Translation by Edward W. Poitras

E. Suggestions for Further Reading Ch’ae Manshik. Peace Under Heaven. Trans. Chun Kyung-Ja. Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1993. Cho Sehŭi. The Dwarf. Trans. Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2006. Ch’oe Inho. Deep Blue Night. Trans. Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton. Bloomfield, N.J.: Jimoondang, 2002. [Contains in addition to the title story “The Poplar Tree.”] Ch’oe Inhun. The Square. Trans. Kevin O’Rourke. Devon, U.K.: Spindlewood, 1985. Chun Kyung-Ja, trans. The Voice of the Governor General and Other Stories of Modern Korea. Norwalk, Conn.: EastBridge, 2002. Fulton, Bruce, ed. Waxen Wings: The Acta Koreana Anthology of Short Fiction from Korea. St. Paul, Minn.: Koryo Press, 2011. Fulton, Bruce and Ju-Chan, trans. Words of Farewell: Stories by Korean Women Writers. Seattle: Seal Press, 1987. [Stories by O Chŏnghŭi, Kang Sŏkkyŏng, and Kim Chiwŏn.] ———, eds. and trans. Sunset: A Ch’ae Manshik Reader. New York: Columbia University Press, 2017. Holman, Martin, ed. The Book of Masks. London: Readers International, 1989. [Translations by various hands of the stories in Hwang Sunwŏn’s last collection of short fiction.]

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———, ed. Shadows of a Sound. San Francisco: Mercury House, 1990. [Stories covering the entire career of Hwang Sunwŏn.] Holstein, John, trans. A Moment’s Grace: Stories from Korea in Transition. Cornell East Asia Series 148. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell East Asia Series, 2009. Hughes, Theodore, Jae-Yong Kim, Jin-kyung Lee, and Sang-Kyung Lee, eds. Rat Fire: Korean Stories from the Japanese Empire. Cornell East Asia Series 167. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell East Asia Series, 2013. Hwang Suk-Young [Hwang Sŏgyŏng]. The Shadow of Arms. Trans. Chun Kyung-Ja. Cornell East Asia Series 73. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell East Asia Series, 1994. Hwang Sunwŏn. The Descendants of Cain. Trans. Suh Ji-moon and Julie Pickering. Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1997. ———. Lost Souls: Stories. Trans. Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton. New York: Columbia University Press, 2010. [Contains the story collections The Pond, The Dog of Crossover Village, and Lost Souls.] ———. The Moving Fortress. Trans. Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton. Portland, Me.: MerwinAsia, 2016. ———. The Stars and Other Korean Short Stories. Trans. Edward W. Poitras. Hong Kong: Heinemann Asia, 1980. ———. Trees on a Slope. Trans. Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2005. Kang Kyŏng-ae. From Wŏnso Pond. Trans. Samuel Perry. New York: The Feminist Press at the City University of New York, 2009. [Translation of Ingan munje.] Kim Chong-un, trans. Postwar Korean Short Stories. 2nd ed. Seoul: Seoul National University Press, 1983. ——— and Bruce Fulton, trans. A Ready-Made Life: Early Masters of Modern Korean Fiction. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1998. Kim Namcheon [Kim Namch’ŏn]. Scenes from the Enlightenment. Trans. Charles La Shure. Champaign, Ill.: Dalkey Archive Press, 2014. Kim Tongin. Sweet Potato. Trans. Grace Jung. Croydon, U.K.: Honford Star, 2017. Kim Wŏnil. Evening Glow. Trans. Agnita Tennant. Fremont, Calif.: Asian Humanities Press, 2003. Lee, Ann. Yi Kwang-su and Modern Korean Literature: Mujŏng. Cornell East Asia Series 127. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell East Asia Series, 2006. [Translation of the novel Mujŏng, preceded by a critical introduction.] Lee, Peter H., ed. Flowers of Fire: Twentieth-Century Korean Stories. Rev. ed. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1986. O Chŏnghŭi. River of Fire and Other Stories Trans. Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton. New York: Columbia University Press, 2012. Oh Jung-Hee [O Chŏnghŭi]. The Bird. Trans. Jenny Wang Medina. London: Telegram, 2007.

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O’Rourke, Kevin, trans. Ten Korean Short Stories. Seoul: Yonsei University Press, 1971. [Also published as A Washed-Out Dream (Seoul: Korean Literature Foundation, 1980).] Pak Kyŏngni. Land. Vols. 1–3. Trans. Agnita Tennant. London: Kegan Paul International, 1996. Pak Wansŏ. My Very Last Possession. Ed. Chun Kyung-Ja. Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 1999. ———. The Naked Tree. Trans. Yu Young-Nan. Cornell East Asia Series 83. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell East Asia Series, 1995. ———. Who Ate up All the Shinga? An Autobiographical Novel. Trans. Yu YoungNan and Stephen Epstein. New York: Columbia University Press, 2009. Park, Sunyoung, trans. in collaboration with Jefferson J. A. Gatrall. On the Eve of the Uprising and Other Stories from Colonial Korea. Cornell East Asia Series 149. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell East Asia Series, 2010. Pihl, Marshall R., ed. Listening to Korea. New York: Praeger, 1973. [A pioneering collection of stories and essays.] ———. trans. The Good People: Korean Stories by Oh Yong-su [O Yŏngsu]. Singapore: Heinemann Asia, 1985. ———, and Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton, trans. Land of Exile: Contemporary Korean Fiction. Rev and exp. ed. Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 2007. Yang Kwija. A Distant and Beautiful Place. Trans. Kim So-Young and Julie Pickering. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2003. [A translation of the linked-story novel Wŏnmi-dong saram tŭl.] Yeom Sang-seop [Yŏm Sangsŏp]. Three Generations. Trans. Yu Young-nan. Brooklyn, N.Y.: Archipelago, 2005. Yi Ch’ŏngjun. The Prophet and Other Stories. Trans. Julie Pickering. Cornell East Asia Series 101. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell East Asia Series, 1999. ———. This Paradise of Yours. Trans. Chang Wang-rok and Chang Young-hee. Seoul: Korean Literature Foundation, 1986. ———. Two Stories from Korea. Portland, Me.: MerwinAsia, 2016. [Contains “The Wounded,” trans. Jennifer Lee, and “The Abject,” trans. Grace Jung.] Yi Hoch’ŏl. Panmunjom and Other Stories. Trans. Theodore Hughes. Norwalk, Conn.: EastBridge, 2005. ———. Southerners, Northerners. Trans. Andrew Killick and Sukyeon Cho. Norwalk, Conn.: EastBridge, 2005. Yi Munyŏl. Meeting with My Brother: A Novella. Trans. Heinz Insu Fenkl with Yoosup Chang. New York: Columbia University Press, 2017. ———. Our Twisted Hero. Trans. Kevin O’Rourke. New York: Hyperion, 2001. ———. The Poet. Trans. Chung Chong-wha and Brother Anthony. London: Harvill, 1995. Yi T’aejun. Dust and Other Stories. Trans. Janet Poole. New York: Columbia University Press, 2018.

NINE

Drama

A. The Colonial Period Drama came onto the modern Korean literary scene in the 1920s, close on the heels of modern fiction. Drama circles early in the Colonial period were primarily engaged in performances of new wave theater (shinp’agŭk), an import from Japan that enjoyed mass popularity. But soon after the March 1, 1919, Independence Movement there emerged among Korean students in Japan a theater movement that gradually expanded to include actual stagings of original dramas written by professional playwrights. Through the efforts of this group, modern Korean literature gained a new art form. This early theater movement consisted of groups such as the Kŭgyesul hyŏphoe (Dramatic arts association), Kaldophoe (Kaldop association; kaldop being a contraction of kach’i topcha, “let’s help”), Hyŏngsŏlhoe (Association for diligent study), and T’owŏlhoe (Association for the real and the ideal), whose goal was to stage theatrical performances that would teach people about Western culture. T’owŏlhoe, organized in 1922 by Korean students in Tokyo including Pak Sŭnghŭi, Kim Kijin, Kim Pokchin, Yi Sŏ’gu, and Kim Ŭlhan, was of particular importance. What began as a student theater movement evolved into a professional company. T’owŏlhoe performances were aimed at public education or enlightenment and were mostly stagings of foreign plays that club members had translated into Korean. In 1924, with its third performance, the group became a commercial troupe. But as students, the club members had difficulty meeting the financial challenges of maintaining a professional touring company, and the club disbanded after only one or two subsequent performances. The club could not maintain its professional status by staging foreign plays to the exclusion of original dramatic works. And so, ironically, in the process of becoming a professional troupe, the club lost its original experimental flavor and fell into commercialism, resulting in the failure of the theater movement itself.

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Emerging together with the student theater movement, dramatic literature became a new object of interest in the 1920s. Because modern plays were entirely Western in form, they were created to suit a Western performance style. Korea’s traditional mask dance and puppet plays had always been orally transmitted, and so there had never been a need for scripts. But the new theater required a text in the form of a literary work. The new plays therefore possessed the dual features of literariness and theatricality. Because plays are usually created with the expectation that they will be performed, they share a number of dramatic characteristics. First, the story is conveyed through action and the spoken word. The playwright does not describe or explain directly, as the fiction writer might do. One must imagine the progression of events in the drama through the actions and speech of the characters. Second, compression of time and space is necessary in acting out a given story as a drama. Unlike other genres of literature, the play directly represents an entire story by condensing it into a dramatic structure. As literature centered in action and the spoken word, plays were the most experimental form in Korean literary art during the 1920s. Drama absorbed many of the trends that flowed into Korea around the time of the March 1 Independence Movement, eventually coming into its own in Korean literary circles. Developments in the 1920s The first significant development in the new dramatic literature of the 1920s owes to Cho Myŏnghŭi. Cho is better known as a fiction writer active during the first half of the Colonial period, but he was also, with Kim Ujin and Ch’oe Sŭngil, a founder of the Kŭgyesul hyŏphoe while a student in Tokyo. His interest in dramaturgy yielded two works, Kim Yŏng’il ŭi sa (The death of Kim Yŏng’il, 1920) and P’asa (This frail world, 1923). Kim Yŏng’il ŭi sa occupies a special place in the history of Korean drama, as much for its dramatic qualities as its significance. Based in the playwright’s own experiences as an impoverished foreign student, the work thematizes the political struggles and ethical consciousness of young Korean intellectuals. Kim Yŏng’il ŭi sa was staged by the Kŭgyesul hyŏphoe’s traveling company. By contrasting the actions of its characters, the play emphasizes faith in humanity and the importance of an ethical consciousness. Kim Yŏng’il is a Korean student in Japan. Born to a family of poor sharecroppers, he has left his ill mother and his sister and must work to support himself in Japan. The play contrasts the honest nature of the needy student and the stinginess of the well-to-do characters to great effect, to form a commentary on human ethics. But considered in the light of those struggling under colonial conditions, the work’s approach seems altogether too abstract.

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For one thing, the cause of Kim’s death is not made explicit. It is not clear whether he dies from poverty or from other forms of oppression. Rather than offer concrete possibilities for a new social revolution, or express the popular will for such, the work remains rooted in the author’s own ideals. The playwright who established the basis for Korean drama was Kim Ujin. A founder of the Kŭgyesul hyŏphoe, he returned to Korea after his studies in Japan and in short order wrote the eponymous Yi Yŏngnyŏ (1925), Chŏng’o (Noontime, 1925), Nanp’a (Shipwreck, 1926), and San twaeji (The boar, 1926). These plays generally focus on the ruination of women due to the stubborn customs of traditional society or else portray the life of an artist. Nanp’a sharply points to conflicts between tradition and modernity as understood through the oppositional mind-sets of a father and his son. Yi Yŏngnyŏ is a dramatic representation of a woman’s checkered life. The work is highly esteemed for its naturalistic examination of women’s issues during the Colonial period. The main theme of San twaeji is the Tonghak Rebellion, but the subtheme is romantic love. The play incorporates confessional statements by the playwright himself and is prized for its Expressionist form and themes. Kim’s interest in contemporary trends from the West is evident in his critical essays “Sowi kŭndae kŭk e taehayŏ” (On “modern theater,” 1921) and “Uri shingŭk undong ŭi ch’ŏtkil” (The beginnings of the Korean New Theater Movement, 1926). Kim introduced Koreans to Western drama movements (especially the modern farce) and searched for practical methods by which to apply them to descriptions of Korean reality. His introduction and use of Expressionism to describe the grim and pressing circumstances of life in colonial Korea opened new possibilities for modern Korean drama. Yi Yŏngnyŏ shows the playwright’s progressive attitudes toward women. A different face of the central character is seen in each of the play’s three acts. In act 1 she is a prostitute, selling her body to feed her three children after her husband dies in a workplace accident. In contrast to the craftiness of her pimp is her resignation to her station in life. But even this lowly position is denied her when she is arrested by the police for unlicensed prostitution. In act 2 she is a boarder in a cheap room by the front gate of a family’s home, where she is tormented by the owner, who cannot control his lust for her. This act illustrates the lives of impoverished women workers during the period. In act 3 Yŏngnyŏ returns to prostitution but soon wastes away and dies of malnutrition. The three faces of Yŏngnyŏ unhesitatingly show the suffering caused by poverty, prostitution, and labor—three problems that shackled Korean women during the colonial years. In this sense, the play may be seen as a genuinely modern drama that treats the social and economic problems confronting women.

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Kim’s most accomplished work, San twaeji, attempts to represent both historical conditions and individual fate. The main character is forced to choose between Tonghak (Eastern learning) philosophy, represented by his father, and romantic love, represented by what he sees as his own fate. He strives to embody Tonghak ideals, but emulating his father implies carrying out an active role in colonial society, something he cannot do. But acceding to the last wishes of his stepfather, to marry the stepfather’s daughter—a girl he sees as his own sister—proves not to be the path to genuine love. He calls himself a boar but finds he lacks even the freedom of a wild animal. Rather, he must exist pent-up inside the home, a domesticated pig. He resists this reality. This play, with its unconventional scene changes adopted from Expressionism, offered new approaches to drama that surpassed the conventions of realist theater. Kim’s innovations in technique and performance opened up new paths for Korean drama. The Proletarian Theater Movement The proletarian literature movement gave birth to a theater movement and a body of drama that undertook the Enlightenment functions of embodying class consciousness and organizing the masses. The express purpose of proletarian theater was to spread proletarian thought among the people by means of performances tailored to stirring up popular support for class struggle. These performances were designed to feature the proletariat itself as the subject. Proletarian theater works are mostly one-act plays showing farmers and laborers engaging with actual class problems in their society. The establishment of KAPF (see chapter 7) led to the creation of proletarian theater companies (kŭktan) all over the country, among them the Pulgaemi (Fire ant) Company in January 1927 in Seoul, the Mach’i (Hammer) Company in March 1930 in P’yŏngyang, and the Ch’ŏngbok (Blue uniform) Company in April 1931 in Seoul. These groups were not permitted to stage public performances. But in August 1932, the Shin’gŏnsŏl (New construction) group was formed, and it staged a dramatization of Erich Remarque’s novel All Quiet on the Western Front as well as Song Yŏng’s Shinim yisajang (The new director, 1934) on Seoul stages. However, in 1934 while preparing a third performance, the group’s members were arrested by Japanese police under a new censorship law, and the group was forced to disband. This sequence of events marked the end of proletarian theater in the colony. The first person of note in the proletarian theater movement is the playwright Kim Yŏngp’al. Kim together with Cho Myŏnghŭi and Kim Ujin founded the Kŭgyesul hyŏphoe and was himself active in the 1920s theater movement. Following his debut work, Mich’ŏganŭn ch’ŏnyŏ (A maiden going insane, 1924), he wrote Ssaum (Fight, 1926), Pul iya (Hey, fire! 1926),

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Puŭm (A report of a death, 1927), and Majak (Mahjong, 1931). Most of his plays are melodramas that exaggerate problems of class conflict. Kim’s one-act play Ssaum begins with a commonplace marital spat that develops into a fight over the great cause of class consciousness. Puŭm is one of his most accomplished political works. Focusing on a young man who fights for class justice and a girl who loves him, the play emphasizes a clear dedication to class struggle. The young man throws himself body and soul into the movement, but when he learns the Japanese police are after him he prepares to leave on a journey to the distant north. But then his younger sister appears, informing him that their elderly mother has died. He reverses direction, but the girl who loves him persuades him to leave matters in her hands and go on his way. Unable to attend the burial, the young man sets off on his journey “to avenge his mother.” The play is structured so as to emphasize the proletarian mandate, its drama escalating as the young man forgoes his most filial responsibility—attending to the burial of a parent—for the great cause of revolutionary struggle. Song Yŏng was a member of KAPF and wrote plays for the class literature movement such as Ilch’e myŏnhoe sajŏlhara (Refuse all interviews! 1930), Hoshinsul (The art of self-protection, 1931), Shinim yisajang, and Hwanggŭmsan (Gold Mountain, 1936). Central to his plays are the lives of suffering laborers, a theme also found in his fiction. Exploitation by Japan, the impoverishment of farming communities, the decline of farmers’ wellbeing, the transition from agricultural labor to factory jobs, and endless misery are treated in Song’s plays through the theme of class conflict. The playwright mobilizes satire as a vehicle through which evil characters expose their true natures and to attack the hollow values of the bourgeois class. Shinim yisajang caricatures the insensible capitalist class through the appearance and peculiar manner of speaking of the main character, a company director. Hoshinsul realistically portrays the adversity experienced by factory girls who go on strike for higher wages. The play concludes on a somewhat comical note with the factory owner’s family practicing selfdefense against the striking girls, shrinking from the forceful demands of the laborers while searching confusedly for a stopgap measure, but using physical force against the strikers in the end. Ilch’e myŏnhoe sajŏlhara dramatizes a company president who takes pride in his belief that he alone loves his country and people, that he is the only one acting to save the starving peasants. But in reality he exploits and persecutes the laborers. When resistance surfaces and a skirmish ensues, he locks his office door and falls into deep sadness and confusion. Unsettled by the cries of the laborers, he finds himself losing his patriotism along with his dignity as a company president. He now seems a dwarfish, self-interested human. In caricaturing social ills Song exposes skewed class relations. The inequities

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of the class structure and the ruthless greed of the capitalist class, which uses that structure to exploit laborers, are objects of sharp satire meant to awaken those who are unaware they have been duped. The Establishment of Realist Theater Yu Ch’ijin occupies the most important place in the theater movement and drama of the 1930s. With Sŏ Hangsŏk, Yun Paengnam, Kim Chinsŏp, and Cho Hŭisun, he established the Kŭgyesul yŏn’guhoe (Society for the study of the dramatic arts), and he wrote many plays. The goals of the Kŭgyesul yŏn’guhoe were to expand general understanding of and establish a proper direction for the dramatic arts and foster a true sense of new theater in Korea. The society was more than simply a group of theater-­ loving artists. The members attempted to integrate theory and reality in the dramatic arts, discussing theories and methods about drama and theater in the society’s journal, Kŭgyesul (Dramatic arts). The creation of original plays in turn stimulated the growth of professional theater companies and performances. It was through the society that Yu staged his plays T’omak (The hut, 1931) and Pŏdŭnamu sŏn tongni p’unggyŏng (Scenes from the village with the willows, 1933), which along with So (The ox, 1935) constitute his initial output. These works dramatically depict the exploitation and frustrations of the farmers under colonial domination. Later in the Colonial period, Yu turned to writing historical plays in order to avoid Japanese harassment. Works from this period include Ch’unhyang chŏn (Tale of Ch’unhyang, 1936) and Ma ŭi t’aeja (The crown prince who wore hemp, 1937). He also participated in the so-called Kungmingŭk undong (National Theater Movement—“national” here being a euphemism for “imperial”), which accommodated itself to imperial strictures. T’omak realistically portrays the pathetic lives of farmers who lose their means of subsistence and are forced to leave their home village. Kyŏngsŏn, the main character, is head of a hardworking family of tenant farmers who labor diligently until one day their plot of land is taken from them. With no means to repay a loan of rice borrowed at high interest to stave off hunger, they have all their belongings seized, even their mud hut. One cold winter night they leave the village with no destination in mind. Their neighbors, a family headed by Myŏngsŏ, fare little better. They hold out great hope for their son who has gone to Japan to find work, but their dreams are shattered at the news of his death in a Japanese prison. The son’s skull is subsequently returned to the family, precipitating the mother’s descent into insanity. Kuksŏ, the main character of So, regards farming as his true calling. A cheerful man, he prizes his ox like his own sons. His eldest son, Malttongi,

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honest to a fault, plans to take over the family farm when his father is old and unable to work. His younger brother Kaettongi, however, dreams of going to Manchuria and making a fortune. Kuksŏ is loath to sell the ox, but Malttongi insists he needs money to repay a farm debt and arrange his wedding, while Kaettongi needs money for his trip to Manchuria. This family conflict is the focus of the play. Ultimately the ox is forfeited in lieu of land rent and the girl Malttongi plans to marry is sold and taken to Japan. The play closes with Malttongi hauled off to the village police office for setting fire to the landlord’s grain storage. Plays such as T’omak and So are devoted to the realistic portrayal of the exploitation, poverty, and despair endured by farmers during the Colonial period (the latter play earned Yu a jail sentence). The characters are robbed of the land by which they support themselves and their families, and are denied their hopes, loves, and ultimately their lives and ancestral homes. These works condemn the unfairness and cruelty of colonial agricultural policies while dramatically illuminating the grim pathos of the doomed peasants. Ham Sedŏk was influenced by Yi and likewise published many plays, among them San hŏguri (The mountainside, 1936), Tongsŭng (The child monk, 1939), Haeyŏn (The sea urchin, 1940), and Nakhwaam (Falling Blossoms Hermitage, 1940). Tongsŭng is set in a small mountain temple in the remote countryside. A young widow from Seoul visits the temple to make an offering to the Buddha. The widow, who has lost her only son, develops pity and a special affection for a child monk living there, who in turn senses the woman’s motherly love. The boy desires to go away with the woman, and the woman tries to take him back with her to Seoul. But the head monk strongly opposes the idea, saying the boy must stay at the temple to compensate for the crimes of his parents. Finally, on a snowy day, the young monk decides to leave the temple in secret. After a bow of farewell to the temple gates he descends the mountain to start a life as a vagabond. Through themes of desire and love, dreams and hopes, and parting, the play exhibits the romantic flavor of Ham’s works. His historical play Nakhwaam concerns the woeful decline of the kingdom of Paekche. The play’s introduction includes the line “A young traveler leans against a weeping willow tree, lost in recollection as he gazes out over the Brocade River and the ruins of Crescent Moon Fort.” In dramatizing the fall of the Three Kingdoms state, the play alludes to the realities of Japanese colonialism. O Yŏngjin’s plays preserve the spirit of traditional Korean humor and satire by borrowing themes from folk culture. His literary world mocks the materialism and folly of contemporary culture from top to bottom. Representative of this outlook is a trio of screenplays, Paebaengi kut (Ritual

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for a dead girl’s spirit, 1942), a reflection on native tradition with a view to reviving and expanding it; Maeng chinsa taek kyŏngsa (Wedding Day, 1943); and Hanne ŭi sŭngch’ŏn (Hanne’s ascension to heaven, 1972). These works caricature traditional marriage customs, along with the avarice of the stupid and ignorant yangban aristocracy. In Maeng chinsa taek kyŏngsa, Scholar Maeng, who has purchased his social position, enters into a marriage contract with the family of Kim, a government minister of upstanding lineage. When a rumor circulates that the groom-to-be is a cripple, Maeng substitutes a servant girl, Ippuni, for his daughter Kappun. But when the groom, Miŏn, arrives at the nuptials he turns out to be perfectly healthy, the epitome of young manhood. The rumor was simply an artifice by which the groom revealed Maeng to be untrustworthy. Miŏn weds the virtuous handmaid, Ippuni, and Maeng’s plan to marry into a good family is foiled. Maeng is a stereotypical comedic character cast in a satirical light for his dishonest, conniving plans to avert financial crisis. By allowing the audience to jeer and mock Maeng for his stupidity and greed, the play appeals to the universal value of fairness. While condemning human hypocrisy through comedy and satire, it also emphasizes the truthfulness residing in the hearts of simple folk. Ch’ae Manshik, one of the great fiction writers of the Colonial and postLiberation periods, also authored more than a dozen plays. In Chehyang nal (Memorial day, 1937) he paints folksy sketches of Enlightenment period intellectuals. The play was conceived as a historical drama, and the characters’ recollections are acted out to bring the past into the present. Act 1 portrays a grandmother and her daughter’s child Yŏng’o preparing food for the day’s ceremonial offering, followed by the story of Kim Sŏngbae, a former liaison official in the Tonghak religion and husband to Ch’oe. In act 2, Ch’oe’s son Yŏngsu is a leader of the March 1, 1919, Independence Movement, but when the uprising meets with failure he flees to China. In act 3 Ch’oe’s grandson, a socialist, relates the Myth of Prometheus to Yŏng’o. The play thus emphasizes the importance of human agency in history, a theme that would have rendered the play unfeasible to stage during the Colonial period. The play is important because of its avant-garde techniques more characteristic of contemporary theater. The same is true of Ch’ae’s play Tangnang ŭi chŏnsŏl (Legend of the praying mantis), which is similar in meaning and structure to his novel T’angnyu (see chapter 8). B. The Period of National Division National Division and the Rift in Korean Drama Liberation from Japanese colonial rule brought a return of ideological divisions, which in turn wrought revolutionary changes in Korean drama

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and theater. Playwrights like Song Yŏng, Shin Kosong, Ham Sedŏk, and Pak Yŏngho spearheaded leftist theater organizations such as the Chosŏn yŏngŭk kŏnsŏl ponbu (Foundation for the establishment of Korean theater) and Chosŏn p’ŭrollet’aria yŏngŭk tongmaeng (Korean proletarian theater alliance), which in December 1945 merged to form the Chosŏn yŏngŭk tongmaeng (Korean theater alliance). But less than two years later, with the relocation of these four playwrights to P’yŏngyang combined with pressure from the U.S. Military Government, this organization had ceased activity. Yu Ch’ijin and O Yŏngjin for their part were based in the reorganized Kŭgyesul hyŏphoe. Yu is celebrated for his post-Liberation plays Chamyŏng ko (The selfsounding drum, 1947), Choguk (Fatherland, 1948), and Wŏnsul lang (Young Wŏnsul, 1950). Chamyŏng ko brought new possibilities to the historical play by building on folk-tale themes surviving from history, a characteristic that gave the play a more strongly romantic than realist tone. Choguk is set against the March 1, 1919, Independence Movement. A woman loses her husband as a result of his activities as a national independence activist, and is left with only her son. Never bowing to the oppressive tactics of the Japanese police, mother and son take to the streets in protest and diligently carry out anti-Japanese activities. The structural elements of the drama are somewhat weak, but the play clearly shows the playwright’s intention to erase the blemish of his pro-Japanese activities toward the end of the Colonial period. O Yŏngjin’s Sarainnŭn Yi Chungsaeng kakha (His excellency Yi Chung­ saeng lives on, 1949) and Chŏngjikhan sagihan (The honest crook, 1949) pointedly critique the absurdities of post-Liberation society. The main character of the former play, a pro-Japanese businessman during the Colonial period, takes advantage of the post-Liberation chaos to amass even greater personal wealth but ultimately brings destruction upon himself. The play is replete with mockery and ridicule of the post-Liberation confusion in which human values have been overturned. Chŏngjikhan sagihan similarly depicts a society that cannot distinguish good from evil. Ch’ae Manshik’s Shim Pongsa (Blindman Shim, 1947), one of several works by Ch’ae inspired by the Shim Ch’ŏng story, ends with Blindman Shim gouging out his newly sighted eyes upon learning that his daughter has sacrified herself for him. As with several of Ch’ae’s stories from the post-Liberation period, here the author seems to be critiquing the lack of perspicacity of intellectuals during the Colonial and post-Liberation eras. The experience of the Korean War brought Korean theater into the contemporary age. The establishment of a viable stage arts tradition was aided by the founding of the Kungnip kŭkchang (National theater), the emergence of the Shingŭk hyŏphoe (or Shinhyŏp; New theater association)

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theater company, and the activities of the Chejak kŭkhoe (Association for drama production), all of which led to a resurgence of playwriting. After Song Yŏng and Ham Sedŏk left for what would become North Korea, Yu Ch’ijin, O Yŏngjin, and Kim Chinsu poured their efforts into building a new drama circle. The emergence of playwrights such as Ch’a Pŏmsŏk, Im Hŭijae (perhaps better known for his prolific screen writing), Ha Yusang, Yi Yongch’an, Kim Charim, Pak Hyŏnsuk, and Yi Kŭnsam led to an expansion in thematic range and a greater variety of dramatic techniques. The awareness of tradition and the realist techniques appearing in plays by Ch’a and Ha contrast sharply with the view of reality and the use of irony for social critique in works by Im and Yi Kŭnsam. In Na nŭn sarayahanda (I must live, 1959), Ch’a Pŏmsŏk shows people overcoming the suffering of the Korean War by loving life and clinging to it unyieldingly. Even more noteworthy is Pulmoji (Barren land, 1958). This play forms one strand of Cha’s theatrical style—the dramatic element of conflict, in this case intergenerational strife portrayed through the destruction of traditional customs and values during the postwar upheaval. Set amid postwar poverty, the play features an old man who stubbornly adheres to the old ways in his run-down, thatch-roof hut. In contrast, the youth around him blindly follow the changes sweeping society and seem bent on self-destruction. Ch’ŏnggiwa chip (The house with the blue-tile roof, 1964) adopts a similar theme but with a degree of historical consciousness. This play foregrounds the relationship between an old man who, unable to grasp the changes taking place in society, clings in despair to old customs, and his children, who misunderstand the instructive value of their culture and take destructive paths. The playwright is interested in the fall of the old culture, but the central focus of the play is the need for dynamic individuals to respond aggressively to the new order of the modern age. Ch’a’s supreme dramatic achievement, showing his humanism and his desire to depict the gap between social reality and idealism, is Sanpul (Burning Mountain, 1962). The play contrasts human desire with highminded ideology by portraying a group of communist guerillas hiding outside a village and the desires of the women who protect them. The play’s message is that doctrinaire ideology can be overcome by instinctual desires. Ha Yusang, in his maiden work, Ttal tŭl ŭi yŏnin (The daughters’ suitors, 1957), captures the changing face of Korean society by dramatizing the conflict between the younger generation’s new morality and the outmoded mores of the preceding generation. Also notable among his early works is Chŏlmŭn sedae ŭi paeksŏ (A white paper on the younger generation, 1959). The importance of social conditions and human desires in Ha’s

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literary world, which includes fiction, is clear in this play, which dramatizes intergenerational conflict, especially on the subject of marriage, contrasting the views of free-wheeling youths with those of their conservative parents. In the 1960s, in such plays as Chongch’akchi (Final destination, 1960) and Chŏlgyu (Scream, 1961), Ha turned to Korea’s devastated society and human suffering. Striking in Chongch’akchi is its moving portrayal of the desperation of the lower-class denizens of a shanty neighborhood on the outskirts of a city. Laid-off workers, day laborers, itinerant vendors, gamblers, prostitutes, students maimed in the April 19, 1960, Student Revolution—none can find a new direction in life when faced with eviction from their condemned shacks. Chŏlgyu involves a U.S. Army base bar hostess and her younger brother, whose aspirations for higher education she supports. The play focuses on the despair of the siblings as they resist the injustices of realpolitik by joining the April 19 Revolution, but whose dreams are dashed when the brother is gravely wounded by a bullet. The sister, who in prostituting herself to pay his tuition fees has clung to her brother’s bright prospects for the future, loses all hope for a better life. Korean drama entered a new period of satirical themes with the emergence of Yi Kŭnsam. Yi’s play Wŏngoji (Manuscript paper, 1960) breathed new life into Korean drama, which until then had sought inspiration, not always successfully, in traditional realist theater. The play concerns a self-satirizing intellectual, a middle-aged professor of English literature who instead of cultivating a passion for scholarship depends on translation work in order to support his family. As the quality of his scholarship deteriorates, he loses the respect of his peers. His family life, too, is unsatisfactory. All that is left in his groundless life is desolation. The image of the professor cranking out one translation after another is not comical so much as pathetic. The play clearly shows spiritual values crumbling at the behest of material demands. Yi built on this theme in the ironic Kŏrukhan chigŏp (A Respectable Profession, 1961; see the “Readings” section of this chapter). Yi’s sly satire and grasp of reality also lent potency to his critiques of upper-class life. Widaehan shilchong (The great disappearance, 1963) uses an unexpected plot reversal in spotlighting those who succumb to vanity and seek fame. Kwangin ŭi ch’ukche (Festival of madmen, 1969) targets the opportunistic behavior and hypocritical attitudes of intellectuals. Yi’s satirical approach to Korean politics is best displayed in works such as Taewang ŭn chukki rŭl kŏbuhaetta (The great king refused to die, 1962) and Che 18 konghwaguk (The eighteenth republic, 1965). The latter satirizes a variety of political regimes ranging from liberal to military. All the characters are named after animals or insects. The play points to the irrationality of a politics steeped in violence, injustice, and corruption and concludes

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with the immoral government collapsing in a coup. Taewang ŭn chukki rŭl kŏbuhaetta portrays a dictator who entertains delusions of securing everlasting power. Its depiction of his last days in power, when he has lost the faith of the people, evokes the political situation of Korea during that period. Pak Choyŏl was born in present-day North Korea and migrated to South Korea during the Korean War. After more than a decade of military service, he took up playwriting and authored ten plays that are marked by a departure from the realism that characterizes much of postwar drama, as well as by a tireless yearning for reunification. His first play, Kwan’gwang chidae (Sightseeing zone, 1963), focuses on the antagonism between the two Koreas while his best-known play, O Changgun ŭi palt’op (O Changgun’s Toenail, 1974), uses absurdist elements and a naive protagonist to decry the madness of territorial division and civil war. Both plays ran afoul of government censors, and it was not until the democratization of the South Korean political process in 1988 that the latter play was first staged. Already by then Pak had ceased playwriting in protest of government censorship. The Reemergence of Folk Theater During the 1970s, as Korean industrialization moved into high gear, avenues for publishing drama expanded with the creation of journals such as Yŏngŭk p’yŏngnon (Theater review), Hyŏndae yŏngŭk (Contemporary theater), Dŭrama (Drama), and Hanguk yŏngŭk (Korean theater), and more stages for theatrical performances were built. There also arose a small-­ theater movement, accompanied by the formation of many new professional theater companies. These developments revitalized the entire spectrum of theatrical art. Renewed interest in integrating Western theatrical styles with structural principles from folk theater led to research into the techniques and aesthetics of traditional mask dance and p’ansori performance. As a result, contemporary Korean drama began to integrate traditional art forms into the Western theatrical methodologies and practice from which modern Korean drama developed. The movement settled into a markedly antiestablishment folk theater during the 1980s, an important step in the creation of a native identity for contemporary drama. The establishment of the Mich’u Theater Company in 1986 led to a resurgence of interest in folk theater, especially the traditional outdoor variety known as madang nori. O T’aesŏk’s plays provide the clearest example of the changes taking place in 1970s drama. Beginning with Hwanjŏlgi (Change of seasons, 1968), O offers diligent explorations of the human psyche. Hwanjŏlgi involves romantic conflicts experienced by ordinary people, but its central theme is

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not how the love triangle is resolved at play’s end but rather the frightening results of the distrust and self-isolation plaguing contemporary life. The play nakedly exposes the spiritual pathology of a love triangle. It is set in a remote mountain villa, symbolizing the space inhabited by contemporary denizens who are plagued with a narrow vision. The three main characters have all lost their sense of self. The conflicts they experience do not achieve resolution through their actions, but rather are magnified and deepened by changes in their consciousness as they continue to exist in isolation from one another. A play with a similar theme is Yuda yŏ, tak i ulgijŏne (O Judas, before the cock crows, 1969), which concerns the suffering of a woman being destroyed by the circumstances of her life. In the 1970s O augmented his inwardly focused psychological techniques by drawing on history and tradition. In Ch’obun (The Grass Tomb, 1974), T’ae (Lifecord, 1974), and Ch’unp’ung ŭi ch’ŏ (Ch’unp’ung’s Wife, 1976), he locates primitive vitality and instinct in traditional folkways. By turning his focus from modern civilization to the primitive, from the psychological to the instinctual, and from contemporary reality to the historical past, O finds a subtle resonance with the new theater movement of the 1970s, which rediscovered the dramatic spirit of traditional outdoor dramatic performances (madanggŭk). Conspicuous in these plays is the introduction of dance, which in turn effected many changes in the scenes. O also added songs, thereby promoting not only the visual effect of the choreography but also the progression of the dramatic events. The spoken lines are, correspondingly, heavily inflected by traditional p’ansori and rhythmic chants. O’s experiments with traditional performance styles (nori) represent a theatrical expansion of madang nori. In Shinshi (Divine city, 1971), Sŏng’ung Yi Sunshin (Yi Sunshin, sacred hero, 1973), Ssŏlmul (Ebb tide, 1974), and Hwaga Yi Chungsŏp (Yi Chungsŏp, artist, 1979), Yi Chaehyŏn embodies the human will to pursue ideals. Sŏng’ung Yi Sunshin takes a universally known figure and attempts to describe the workings of his mind in elaborate detail, not as a famous historical hero but as an ordinary person. This approach is also seen in Hwaga Yi Chungsŏp. In Ssŏlmul the characters’ lines are spoken in the meter associated with traditional kasa and p’ansori. Consistent with the 1970s movement to contemporize traditional folk theater, Yi’s use of stylized meter is an attempt to create contemporary representations of traditional poetic and dramatic recitation styles. Beginning with Mangnani (Rogue, 1969), Yun Taesŏng employs the structure of traditional mask dance (see chapter 5). Nobi munsŏ (The slave archives, 1973) also borrows from folk theater to great dramatic effect. In this play Yun is interested not so much in the characters’ personalities or in the turn of events as in striving for perfection in the theatrical form

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itself. Most noteworthy, then, are the play’s structure and expressive techniques. And in works such as Nŏ to mŏkko mullŏnara (Eat then scram, you! 1973) he seeks to eliminate the distance between the play and the audience through a free use of theatrical space. This technique, an adaptation from madanggŭk, was adopted by many dramatists into the 1980s. C. Reading Yi Kŭnsam A Respectable Profession (Kŏrukhan chigŏp, 1961) Characters: Professor of the history of culture, a man aged fifty-two Burglar, a man in his mid-forties Professor’s wife, a woman in her mid-forties Night watchman Setting: A shabby, undecorated room that serves as the professor’s bedroom as well as his study. There is a door upstage and a drab, worn-out bookshelf against the wall that faces the audience. The bookshelf, though fairly large, is only half full. Most of the books are outdated, and not one of them bears the name of a Western publisher. On the desk are a large bottle half full of chŏngjong, two or three smaller bottles of soju, several strips of dried squid, and a few scrawny dried pollack. A pair of wornout sofas sit slightly askew in front of the bookshelf, with a low tea table in front of them. On the right side of the stage is a secondhand steel cot that looks as if it might have been bought at a bargain from a hospital going out of business. Sound asleep on the bed is the master of the house, the professor, who has been a college teacher for fifteen years, ever since the nation’s liberation from Japan in 1945. It is a night in autumn and the pale blue light of the moon seeps in through the window at left, so that a small section of the stage is dimly visible. A dog is heard barking in the distance. From the next room an old-fashioned clock strikes twice, signifying two a.m. The door opens slowly and steadily and a swarthy male figure steps in. He carries in one hand a small flashlight and in the other a kitchen knife that glistens in the moonlight, identifying him as the burglar. On his back is a bag bulging with his loot for the night thus far. The burglar walks with the telltale gait of one seasoned in his trade, prying into every nook and corner of the room. He utters a deep sigh and deposits the bag in front of the sofa. After looking for a moment at the sleeping professor’s face he turns on the light switch on the wall. At this, the professor grumbles and rolls over, eyes still closed. The burglar

Drama takes an American cigarette from his pocket, lights it with a lighter, also American, and takes a deep puff. The burglar is rather burly and fleshy. He wears an old army uniform dyed black and has a muffler thrown haphazardly around his neck. He has a crew cut like that of a soldier and a stubble of beard that gives the impression of underbrush. Nevertheless his face is rather pleasing and personable—quite unexpected for a burglar. Stepping over to the bed, the burglar shakes the professor by the shoulder. At last the professor opens his eyes slightly, casting a wary glance at the man standing over him. With a start he sits upright on the cot. Professor: Good heavens! What’s going on? Who are you? Burglar: (sitting down on one of the sofas) Shh! Don’t move! Professor: (slowly reaches out to push the bell button on the wall, while eying the burglar’s every move) Burglar: (without even looking at the professor’s movement) Stop it. Don’t be ridiculous. I’ve already cut all the wires anyway. Professor: What are you doing here? How did you get into my house? Burglar: I climbed right over the wall and came in to rob you. Clear enough? (looking at the professor with contempt and disbelief) You bastard! How did an idiot like you ever get to be a college professor? You’ve just made me waste my time. What do you do with all that money you make? There’s not a thing here worth taking! What’s the matter with you anyway? You haven’t got a thing to your name, and yet you build a big high wall around your house and put barbed wire on top of it…. Professor: (pulling his feet from under the covers and sitting on the edge of the bed) Why did you pick my house of all places? Burglar: That’s what l’d like to know. I thought for sure you had some money or something around here. I don’t make this kind of mistake—not me! By the way, how come your wife’s fingers are so bare? Professor: Bare? Burglar: Yeah, bare and slippery. At least she could be wearing one of those cheap rings. Professor: A ring…? We sold it a long time ago. (suddenly worried) You mean to say my wife…? Burglar: I tied her up and pushed her back into her room—she was going to scream. Professor: You didn’t have to be so rude.

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Part II:  Modern Literature Burglar: Don’t worry, I kept my hands off her. Why is your wife’s underwear so dirty anyway? And yours isn’t any better. (carelessly taps the ash loose from his cigarette) Professor: Wait, there must be an ashtray around here somewhere. Burglar: Ashtray? A burglar should have manners? Professor: (getting up) I think I’ll have a smoke too. (falters out toward the door) Burglar: (staring casually at the ceiling) And just what do you think you’re doing? Professor: My wife’s got my cigarettes. Burglar: Here, have one of mine. (As the professor reluctantly comes back and sits down on the sofa beside him the burglar reaches into his pocket, pulls out the pack of American cigarettes and the lighter, and gives them to the professor. The professor lights up, then puts the pack and the lighter down on the tea table.) Professor: First American cigarette I’ve had in ages. Burglar: I stole them from that shop in the alley in front of your house. What kind of a house is this anyway, for somebody who’s supposed to be a college professor? Professor: There’s nothing wrong with the house. It has two Korean-style rooms, one Japanese-style, a kitchen, toilet— Burglar: I mean you don’t have any stuff. Professor: I spent ten long, hard years saving up enough money to buy this nice little house, so naturally there wasn’t much left over to buy furniture…. Burglar: Well, anyway, now that l’m here l can’t just leave. Show me what you have. Professor: You mean money? Burglar: How did you guess? Professor: You should’ve waited a couple of days. Tomorrow’s my payday. Today of all days…. Burglar: (remains silent for a while) Well, if you don’t have any money I guess it can’t be helped. But there must be something, something important and valuable, around here. Right? I don’t mean your wife, either—I don’t need her! Professor: Let’s see….

Drama Burglar: You’d better hand it over while I’m still being nice and gentle. I can’t go away empty-handed after spending four days casing the place. I have to get enough here to at least break even on the labor. Professor: Well, I must say you’re the first gentle and congenial person in your profession that I’ve ever run across. You don’t need any furniture, do you? Burglar: Furniture? What do you think—I have a porter tagging along behind me? I don’t need any of this beat-up stuff anyway. Man, what I need is money. (takes a draw on his cigarette) In a couple of years I’ll be turning fifty; before then I’ve got to bring in enough to take care of my children’s education and weddings. But today’s just been a waste of time. Professor: Do you have many children? Burglar: Two sons and three daughters. Professor: Quite a few. Burglar: That’s why l can’t just leave. I have to take something. Professor: There is one thing I have which is really valuable. But…. No, it wouldn’t be of any use to you at all. Burglar: Speak up. It’s up to me to decide what’s useful. (The professor goes over to the bed and pulls a worn-out-looking lecture notebook from under the pillow. Clutching it with an almost religious piety, as if he were holding a rare treasure, he returns to the sofa. The notebook is old and dirty, showing years of use, and the edges are frayed and jagged as if rats have been nibbling at them. The burglar looks at it curiously.) Professor: (clutching the notebook close to his heart) It’s this notebook. I always sleep with it under my pillow. I’m sure it wouldn’t do you any good, though. Burglar: What’s in it anyway? Professor: My lecture notes. I’ve been teaching college students for fifteen years using this notebook. It covers the entire history of man, from the primitive down to the atomic age. Burglar: Is it that important? Professor: It’s my whole life, my very bread and butter. Burglar: (interested) Well, what kind of notebook is it? Professor: It’s the one I use when I lecture on the history of culture. As long as I have this I can make a hundred thousand hwan a month wherever I go.

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Part II:  Modern Literature Burglar: A hundred thousand hwan capital funds, no doubt. But is a hundred thousand all you can make in a month? Professor: Just show me another teacher who gets more! Actually, about twenty or thirty thousand out of that goes to my students or colleagues who get married or die, so my take-home pay is only about eighty thousand a month. Burglar: How can you live on that? Professor: What? Do you expect me to make more? Burglar: (pointing to the bag beside him) I’ve already made fifty or sixty thousand hwan tonight! Why, the money I put into our savings pool alone adds up to about sixty thousand hwan a month. No…. I don’t need that notebook. (flashing a smile momentarily) You’re a history teacher, so you ought to know. Tell me, did they have burglars back in primitive times? Professor: (a bit pensive) I haven’t thought about it, really, but now that you mention it I suppose so. Burglar: And how about when Jesus Christ showed up? Professor: Then too, I guess. Burglar: And during the Yi Dynasty? Professor: Of course…. Burglar: That’s really interesting. And what about the atomic age? Professor: You mean now, don’t you? You’re right here in my house, to prove it, aren’t you? Burglar: In this changing history of ours…. Professor: You mean cultural history, don’t you? Burglar: Call it cultural history or whatever you want. Any way you look at it, the fact that there have always been burglars in this changing history of ours is a constant, eternal truth. Professor: Yeah, I guess you could say that. Burglar: Is that what your notebook here says? Professor: Not quite. Burglar: Give it here. (the professor hesitates) I said, give it here! (The professor gives it to him hesitatingly.) Look how dirty this thing is. They say men even get tired of their wives after living with them for five years. How in the world could you carry such a disgusting, worthless thing like

Drama this around for fifteen years? You mean to tell me you get paid just for reading this stuff to your students? Professor: It’s not just what you read, but how you read it. When you stand up in front of the class you have to know just exactly the right kind of expression to wear on your face and how to walk with the proper air of dignity and authority. There is such a thing as a proper classroom atmosphere, you know. Burglar: Sounds like an awfully easy life to me! Hey, look! The page numbers here in the middle don’t match. It goes from page twenty-two to page twenty-five. Looks like something’s been torn out. Professor: Oh, that. One of my students did it. Burglar: That’s strange. This doesn’t look like the kind of thing you’d go around lending to people. Professor: No, that’s right. About four years ago I was in the classroom teaching, you see, reading from this notebook, when the office boy came in to call me to the phone. While I was gone one of the students apparently tore that page out. Anyway, when I came back and started up again one of the students raised his hand and said, “Professor, something seems funny. What you just said doesn’t make sense with what you said a minute ago.” I told him that of course there wasn’t anything wrong, that he should quit complaining and just take his notes. You know what that little rascal did then? He held up two old funny-looking notebooks and said, “Excuse me, sir, but these are the notes my brother took in your course five years ago, and these are the ones that one of our seniors took three years ago. What you just said doesn’t match with either one of them.” That got me a little suspicious and I looked at my notebook again. Sure enough, while I was gone somebody had torn out the page I’d been reading. By then, of course, the whole room was in an uproar. Burglar: What did you do? Professor: Well, friend, that’s where the art of teaching comes in. In my most dignified professorial tone I said, “Gentlemen, cultural history develops in conjunction with the changing times. The theories of three years ago are of course different from those of today. Is there anyone who would say that I should continue teaching the inadequate theories of the past?” Just like that. Burglar: Yeah, and I’ll bet you when you got home you didn’t waste any time putting the missing parts back in either, did you? Professor: Well, not right away. I kept meaning to, but you know, I’ve just been too busy.

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Part II:  Modern Literature Burglar: So this is all you have in the way of property. I can’t do anything with it. It’s too dirty to even try to sell for scrap. (Just then a night watchman is heard clacking his clubs outside. As if by a God-given chance, the professor gets ready to run for the window and yell for help. The night watchman keeps clacking his sticks beneath the window. The burglar flashes his light toward the window a few times, and the night watchman disappears. The professor, at a loss, sits down again.) Burglar: That reminds me. (takes a piece of paper out of his pocket) The fellow that’s been clacking his sticks out there is my eldest son, a junior in college. When I told him I was going to do your house tonight, he asked me to pick up this book if you had it—he’s written the title down here. It’s an economics book by somebody by the name of Keynes. Got anything like that? Professor: You mean that was your son out there—not the night watch­ man? Burglar: He’s keeping watch for me. He’s working his way through college with this night job of his. So much for that, though. (giving the piece of paper to the professor) Do you have this book? Professor: (taking the piece of paper) Sort of hard to read without my glasses. Burglar: Where are they? Professor: ln my wife’s room. Burglar: What kind of a nut are you anyway? You sleep in here and let your wife keep the necessities of life like your cigarettes and glasses in there with her? Professor: That’s not all— Burglar: Here, let me read it. We can do without the glasses. (takes the slip of paper from the professor and reads it) The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money by John M. Keynes. Professor: (going to the bookshelf) Let’s see… do I have anything like that? The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, by John M. Keynes. Sounds like maybe it’s something in English…. Burglar: Well, now how should I know if it’s in Korean or English? All I know is that it’s supposed to sell for six or seven thousand hwan at the bookstore. Professor: Then it must be one of those Western publications. Doesn’t seem to be on my shelves, though.

Drama Burglar: (getting angry) Look, what do you have around here? Dammit all, I sure haven’t made a mistake like this before! (The professor reaches for the bottle of soju and two dried fish on the top shelf, tense and nervous.) Professor: I’m really sorry about that, but you hit me when I was flat broke. Like I said, I don’t get paid till the day after tomorrow. In the meantime, how about a drink? (Places the bottle of soju and the dried fish on the table. The burglar looks at his watch.) Burglar: Another half hour till curfew’s over. Hell, if I leave now I’ll really be messed up. Professor: So, why not have a drink with me while you wait? Burglar: You wouldn’t want to be getting me drunk now, would you? Professor: No, no—not at all. As a matter of fact I feel like having a snort myself. Burglar: (takes another look at his watch and produces a disdainful tsktsk) Where are the glasses? Professor: In my wife’s room. Burglar: Look, stop giving me that “my wife” stuff! (Pulls his bag over and takes out a colorfully labeled bottle of American whiskey. The professor is amazed. Then the burglar empties the soju bottle onto the floor and fills the empty bottle with the whiskey.) It’s no fun sitting down looking at your hangdog face. (rummaging through the bag) There must be something in here to snack on, too. (takes out a chunk of packaged cheese, unwraps it, and slices it with his weapon, the kitchen knife) Go ahead and drink up. This cheese is to go with it. Professor: You see, I’m embarrassed. (takes a swig) Oh, it’s the real thing! Burglar: So you know what good booze is. I swiped it from Bureau Chief Kim’s place next door. Professor: Say, that house is supposed to be guarded by three or four dogs. They’re all big as colts and really ferocious, you know. Burglar: I never get so scared of dogs that I can’t do my job. No burglar has ever been caught yet on account of dogs. Professor: I guess that’s right. I used to have a dog myself, but somebody took him off one night. Burglar: Must have been a dog thief. I have a pointer at my house—got him on one of my jobs over near Kahoe-dong last year. Professor: Got him?

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Part II:  Modern Literature Burglar: Stole him. The dogs at Bureau Chief Kim’s house are big and good-looking. Professor: Didn’t they bark at you? Burglar: Oh, no. The bigger the house, the less the dogs bark. I tell you, those upstarts and climbers have stolen more than we can imagine, to be able to live in such fancy houses. Me, I steal only at night, and little by little at that. But those bastards rob you blind in broad daylight. How can dogs fed by crooks like that bark at petty thieves like me? After all, it’s their own masters who are the real big-timers. Professor: (sipping from the bottle) Then I wonder why they keep dogs, anyway. Burglar: It’s a fad, I guess. But I have to admit—my own dog is like that too. Professor: You mean the pointer you stole? Burglar: Yeah, usually he barks a lot. But whenever a burglar breaks in the house he doesn’t make a sound! Professor: A burglar in your house? Burglar: Look, do you think I have a sign on my door telling the world that I’m a burglar? Professor: (grabbing the cheese) Oh, I see. Whoever broke into your house wasn’t as good as you are. Burglar: It was probably all because my dog didn’t bark. But the thing that really got me was the sewing machine and phonograph. I worked five hours to get those things over near Sŏdaemun Iast year, and they were gone in a matter of minutes! (clutching the whiskey bottle) Hey, this stuff is really good! I should’ve taken another bottle. (glances at the label) Where’s it made? Professor: Couldn’t be local stuff. Burglar: All this time you’ve been drinking and you thought it was local stuff? Go ahead and read the label. Professor: Well, I can’t make out what it says. Burglar: (amazed) You’re not good for anything! Professor: We scholars don’t need to know what we don’t have to. It’s an academic principle: the least effort for the most return. In other words, a man ought to study just what he needs and no more. The same principle as economics.

Drama Burglar: Yeah, so you haven’t kept up with it because it would’ve taken too much time if you’d wanted to learn how to read what’s written on the label. Professor: You might say that. Burglar: Today I’ve put in the maximum amount of time and effort for the minimum return. No, there’s no return here, so it’s a maximum loss! Believe me, I’ve never done anything like this before. Professor: I’m sorry about that. (taking another swig) But then that’s the way life goes—win some and lose some. You can’t win ‘em all. Ah, already my stomach’s warming up and I’m beginning to feel a little dizzy. Burglar: They probably had booze in the primitive ages, too. Professor: Probably. Burglar: I guess there hasn’t been any time in history without booze. Professor: I doubt it. Burglar: Thievery, prostitution, booze—the kinds of thing that go hand in hand with humanity. Professor: Well, I suppose you could say so. Burglar: Put that in your notebook. Professor: Where are you from? Burglar: Don’t be so stupid. You want to know my name and where I’m from and everything? And I guess the next time you see me on the street you’re going to run up and shake hands, huh? Professor: No, nothing of the sort. It’s just that you’ve got such a strange accent I can’t figure out where you’re from. Burglar: You mean I’ve got an awful accent. Listen, the first thing you have to learn about being a good burglar is how to talk like this. That way you don’t get your tail caught. Professor: How long have you been a burglar? Burglar: (continuing to sip his whiskey) About two years, I guess. Professor: And you’ve never been caught? Burglar: Do l look like it? (reflectively) You know, I’ve had all kinds of jobs. When I got out of middle school I started out as a small-town bank clerk, then I was a bookkeeper in a hardware store for a while. After that I took a job as a clerk in the local government office, then did a stint in the army. When I got out of the army I went to work as a typesetter in

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Part II:  Modern Literature a printing company. But that didn’t last long, so I turned to smuggling. Then I got to be a board member of a trucking firm, and once I was even candidate for president of my alumni association. And finally this job, the one I have now. It kept changing all the time. I think this is the job I like best and the one I feel most comfortable in. Professor: That’s quite a switch for a man who was once a board member of a trucking firm! Burglar: That’s right. I’d made a lot of money smuggling between here and Japan. Professor: You say you even ran for president of your alumni association? Burglar: They insisted, so what else could I do? But I didn’t get elected. Hmm, you’ve run out of booze. Here, have some more. (pours more whiskey from his bottle into the empty one in the professor’s hand) Professor: I don’t understand it. I just don’t understand it. How could a man who was up for president of his alumni association turn out to be a burglar? Burglar: Even if I’d been a cabinet member, what difference would it make? Would that stop me from being a burglar? Professor: (showing signs of intoxication) Why, there are all kinds of jobs you could’ve had—I just don’t understand it. Burglar: Look, buddy, my kind of stealing is a whole lot more manly and rewarding than the way you take money from your students with that old ragged notebook you’ve been carrying around for the last fifteen years! When you get down to it we both make a living out of stealing, and I might as well be a professional at it. Professor: Now wait a minute—how can you call getting a just reward for one’s labor stealing? Especially when he is engaged in a respectable profession? Burglar: Didn’t I tell you I spent four days figuring out how to get into this house? Getting over that big wall of yours was hard work, too. And just look at this. Here I sit offering you drinks. What kind of reward do I get for all this labor? Nothing! I’m more serious about my work than anybody I know. So as far as I’m concerned, my job couldn’t be more respectable. (taking another sip) Look, you always go around teaching people; tonight I’m going to teach you something for a change! I’ve lived long enough now to find out what the real human tragedy is. That’s when a man can’t find the kind of job that fits him. Professor: Is being a burglar the kind of job that fits you then? I…I…just don’t understand it.

Drama Burglar: It’s the best job I’ve had so far. You might say I was born as a mouse. At one time or another the mouse tried to be a dove, a cow, or even a fish. But it just didn’t come off. It’s an accomplishment in itself just to wake up to the fact that you were born as a mouse. For one thing, it doesn’t bother your conscience, because at least you can be a good mouse. From the time of the cave men all the way up to the atomic age the mouse has lived by stealing other people’s things. Nothing could be done about it—it’s destiny. The real tragedy is when the mouse tries to be a tiger. You know, a mouse never stops teething. His teeth just keep growing and growing, so he’s got to go somewhere and gnaw at something hard, or else his overgrown teeth will kill him. That’s why he nibbles away at the beams of a house or at the back of an expensive chest until he eats a hole all the way through—just the way I’ve broken into your house tonight. Professor: What if you get caught red-handed? Burglar: Why should I, when I put my heart into it? And if by any chance I did get caught, there’s nothing I could do about it. I wouldn’t have any regrets. Why, if people like me disappeared from the world it’d be a disaster! Those innumerable policemen, soldiers, and all those people working in the courts would lose their jobs right away! Those guys are trying like mad to get hold of me, I’m trying like mad to get hold of what the rich people have, and the rich ones are trying like mad to take hold of the policemen and soldiers. Professor: Frankly, though, being a burglar is an extremely, I repeat, extremely risky business. Why be involved in all that risk when life is so short? I might tip off the police and give them your description. Burglar: You’re saying I might get caught if you told the police what I look like. You’re not that kind of person. l know that, and that’s why I’m taking it easy like this. Professor: That could be true. (nibbles at the cheese) Burglar: You want to know why I should be involved in such a risky business when life is so short. The shorter you think life is, the more meaningful it is to you. You’ve got a lot of work to do and you’re always busy. The busier you are the shorter life seems. You know your looks are— Professor: My looks? Burglar: Yeah. From your·looks it seems like your life is too long for you. Too long compared to that notebook of yours anyway. That’s just exactly how you look. Professor: I know these pajamas look a little long, but to say that I look like— Burglar: Your life, not your looks.

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Part II:  Modern Literature Professor: My looks! Burglar: Your tongue’s all tangled up! I said “life.” Professor: (irate) But I’m talking about my “looks”! Look, maybe I couldn’t read that funny-looking writing on the whiskey bottle, but when it comes to Chinese characters I’m second to no one. No one! (pointing at his own face) I’m talking about my appearance, the way I look! Burglar: How dare you shout at me! And that on the strength of my booze! You’re forgetting who you’re with. Professor: I don’t know who I’m with? Let’s see now, I wonder why I started yelling at you all of a sudden. Burglar: (generously) That’s all right. Maybe I just didn’t hear you right. You said “looks.” Now what about your pajamas? Professor: I’ve been told that my pajamas look a little too long, but this is the first time I’ve ever heard anything like that about my life. Burglar: Now you’re talking about your life. What about your looks? Professor: My looks? Look, I’m talking about my “life”— Burglar: You look like you’re off your rocker to me. You’d better stop drinking. Professor: I’ve never been drunk yet. It’s just that I’m a little tired, that’s all. And sitting down drinking with a burglar like this is a pretty dangerous thing. Burglar: Yeah, we’re both thieves, you and I. The only difference is that I go around with a badge on, so to speak. That reminds me—you know my son who’s been keeping watch for me out there tonight? Last year he was in a school play, and you know what part he played? He was the thief, of all things! So I went down to see his acting, but he didn’t act like a thief at all. The play was a bore. In other words, he had a role that didn’t fit him. It would’ve been better if he’d had the part of a houseboy or a shoeshine boy. It’s like you and the American whiskey—you just don’t belong together. Professor: Well, listening to you talk like this, I don’t seem to belong together even with life itself. Burglar: You mean your life doesn’t go with your looks, huh? Professor: My whole life has been devoted to education. Burglar: Do you mean just teaching? Learning is as much a part of the game as teaching, you know. Professor: I’ve been doing the teaching part.

Drama Burglar: Anybody can do that. It’s the learning that’s really hard. Professor: You’re right. One should learn by teaching and teach by learning. Burglar: But you only know how to teach; you don’t look like you know how to learn. What is it now—about thirty years that you’ve been teaching? Professor: (counts with his fingers) Let’s see, I taught history in middle school for seven years, then in high school for six, and I’ve been teaching in college now for fifteen—so it all adds up to…. Burglar: Twenty-eight years! Professor: (surprised) Wow, you really know how to calculate! Burglar: Calculation is part of my profession. Professor: And besides that, I was a private tutor for two years while I was in college—so it adds up to thirty years all together. Being a private tutor is a tough job, I tell you. You’re not a full-fledged teacher, but you’re not like one of the household servants, either. Something in between. Burglar: You weren’t meant for that kind of a job any more than my son fit the part he had in the play. Professor: At any rate I’ve been teaching for thirty years, of course without any dangerous risks—and without making any serious mistakes, either. All in all I guess I’ve been faring pretty well with education. Burglar: That’s what you think. Professor: Do you mean to say I’m a low-down rat too? Burglar: Who knows? That’s up to you to find out. In this man’s world everybody has to find out for himself what he is—whether he’s a pheasant, a tiger, or a maggot. It’s a tough position to find out what you’re really cut out to be, because all kinds of things get in your way—desire, vainglory, fantasy. Just knowing how to talk can’t make you a good salesman, and by the same token, it can’t make you a good professor, either. Professor: Then what should I do? Burglar: That’s not any of my business. It’s strictly up to you to decide. All you’ve got left after those thirty years is that one notebook there. If you don’t know what kind of role to play or what kind of job you’re cut out for, it’s not only you that suffers but those under you as well. You’re holding on to a job more suitable for a young man, not somebody old like you, so when a younger man comes along he doesn’t have any choice but to take whatever he can get. For instance, suppose a young guy comes along who’s really good at teaching cultural history—but of course right

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Part II:  Modern Literature now I don’t suppose there’s anybody better than you. (takes another sip) Anyway, suppose someone like that did come along. As long as you hang on to the job, he has to look elsewhere, find something that doesn’t fit him, like being a newspaper reporter or a thief, even if he doesn’t want to. Other professors are moonlighting in real style these days, as advisers and consultants to various agencies or as editorial writers, but look at you. Just look at how miserable you are. Professor: Those guys are stranglers. Burglar: What are you, then? Professor: I’m a scholar. It’s those depraved scholars who are called stranglers, or kyosu. From my knowledge of Chinese characters I know that the word kyosu also means “strangling.” Those moonlighting professors, those depraved scholars, ought to be hung. (A rooster is heard crowing in the distance.) Burglar: (glancing at his watch) It’s about time for me to leave. (handing the bottle of whiskey to the professor) Here, you keep this and drink it at your leisure. Let’s see now—oh yes, you can go in and let your wife free. Better watch out, though, she made such a fuss I had to tie her up real tight, so it might be dangerous. (The professor gathers his wits, springs to his feet, and rushes for the door.) Wait a minute. Give me that history notebook of yours, will you? If you try anything foolish in there I’ll tear this thing up. Just remember that your breadbasket might get torn up. And if your wife screams, I’ll set the house on fire! (The professor reluctantly hands the notebook to the burglar and slips out of the room. The clacking of a night watchman’s sticks is heard again. It’s the burglar’s son, of course. The burglar signals toward the window with his flashlight, takes half a dozen books from the shelf, and begins reading their titles with the help of his flashlight.) Burglar: Kids are interested in nothing but books! (reads aloud) Sample Examinations for Students Applying for Study in the United States. A Collection of Kim Sowŏl’s Poems—I used to be fond of his poems. How to Cure Neuralgia…New Lectures on Cultural History…The Secret to Successful Fishing. (He dumps the books into his bag and walks out of the room, kitchen knife in hand. The clacking fades away and the rooster is heard crowing again. The door opens and the professor comes in and scans the surroundings. He is surprised to find the burglar gone, but relieved to see the culural history notebook on the table, undamaged.) Professor: (facing outside) Darling! Come on in! The burglar’s gone! (The professor’s wife comes in, rubbing her wrist and her neck. A weary-­ looking woman, she seems every bit her age of forty-five). He’s gone!

Drama Professor’s wife: Burglar. Burglar. Don’t use such polite words about that man! He’s nothing but a low-down thief! Professor: Yes, dear. A low-down thief. Professor’s wife: You mean to tell me you’ve been sitting in here drinking with that thief? Of all things! That beats anything I’ve ever heard! Well, did he take anything? Professor: l talked him out of it. He was so impressed that he even offered me drinks. He’d broken into the wrong house. Professor’s wife: What do we do now? The telephone line’s been cut, so we can’t call the police. Professor: He wasn’t much of a thief anyway. We might as well forget the whole thing. Professor’s wife: I was afraid you were going to get roughed up. Are you sure that liquor isn’t poison? I need a drink myself—I’m about to go out of my mind. Professor: (takes a drink and passes the bottle to his wife) He apologized to me for what he had to do to you. Professor’s wife: (sipping the whiskey) Wasn’t he a peculiar one? And he was good-looking, too. Professor: Didn’t miss a thing, did you? Professor’s wife: We don’t have a thing around here worth stealing. He must have been out of his mind to break into a house like this. Professor: (after a brief pause) You remember that boy named Kim who was here while I was out yesterday? Professor’s wife: Yes. Why? Professor: Where did he say he’s working now? Professor’s wife: He told me he’s running a camera shop in a department store somewhere. Hwashin, maybe? Midop’a? I don’t remember which one. What a pity. What good does it do a man to have a master’s degree in history? He was a hard-working student too, wasn’t he? (The professor nods agreement.) That thief really had powerful arms. (takes another swig) I was tied down so tight I couldn’t move an inch—it was just horrible. I wish I could’ve taken a picture of him. At first I was really scared. All the time he was tying me up he kept his face turned away so I couldn’t see it. Professor: (drinking straight from the bottle) Your underwear must’ve smelled awful.

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Part II:  Modern Literature Professor’s wife: Well, after all, I haven’t been able to take a bath for almost a month. I can’t get over how strong his arms were! Professor: Darling, didn’t you say one time you had a relative, or knew somebody, who’s a racetrack manager? Professor’s wife: You mean my cousin Sungŏl? Professor: Yeah, that’s right. He’s the one. Didn’t he ask me to come over and work with him? Professor’s wife: Seems like he said something like that one time. But you know him, he’s always kidding around. You never know when to take him seriously. Professor: Why do you think he asked me to come to work at the racetrack, of all places? Professor’s wife: How should I know? Because there’s a lot of money around a place like that, I guess. Professor: No. It must be because I look like a horse. Don’t you think I look like a horse, dear? Professor’s wife: You look like a horse? (laughing) Well, now that you mention it, your face does look a little long. Professor: (seriously) Darling, what do I really look like? Do I look like a horse, a cow, or…or a mouse? Professor’s wife: A mouse? What on earth is the matter with you? Well, if I must, I guess I could say that you look a bit like a horse—an old one at that. Professor: They say there’s a lot of money in a job at the racetrack. I think I’ll go over and look up your cousin Sungŏl tomorrow. Professor’s wife: Don’t go and make a fool of yourself, now. (The professor remains silent. A pair of night watchmen come near, clacking their sticks as usual. The professor grows anxious.) Professor’s wife: Let’s talk to them. Night watchman: (shaking the window from the outside) Say, say there! Professor: (jumps up and opens the window) Yes? Have you come back around again? Night watchman: (from the outside) What do you mean sleeping with your gate wide open? A burglar’s broken into Bureau Chief Kim’s house up there!

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Professor’s wife: (dashing to the window) As a matter of fact— Professor: (muzzles his wife’s mouth with his hand) I see. We’ll close the gate. (The night watchman disappears.) Professor’s wife: What did you do that for? Professor: (closing the window) We don’t need to report such a minor incident. Professor’s wife: Actually, it’s something to be ashamed of. (A rooster crows in the distance.) Professor: It’s so late now there’s no point trying to get back to sleep. Why don’t we just keep drinking till we get tired of it? Professor’s wife: Don’t you have classes early in the morning? Professor: That doesn’t matter. I can cancel them for a change. Why don’t you go fix something to eat. Professor’s wife: What do you eat with American whiskey? Professor: That’s a good question. Dried fish and American whiskey don’t belong together. No, they don’t. Professor’s wife: How about some bean-paste-and-vegetable soup? Professor: That doesn’t sound right, either. It’s really hard to think of what would taste right. (a short pause) It’s just for today, anyway, so what difference does it make? Fix anything you like. (His wife turns to leave.) Professor: Darling! Professor’s wife: (turning around) Yes? Professor: You look like a rabbit! Professor’s wife: I look like a rabbit? My goodness! Professor: Go on, hurry up now. (His wife leaves. The professor stretches his arms and yawns, reads a few pages from his notebook, then throws it under the cot. Roosters are crowing loudly. He picks up the two dried fish.) Maybe I look like one of these fish—all dried up and skinny. (throws the fish under the cot also) Well, I’m going to keep drinking and talk to my rabbit! Drink the mouse’s liquor and talk to a rabbit! (As he drops onto the sofa, the curtain slowly falls.) Translation by Song Yo-in

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D. Suggestions for Further Reading Cho Yŏnhyŏn et al., eds. Modern Korean Short Stories and Plays. Seoul: Korean P.E.N., 1970. [Contains plays by Yu Ch’ijin, Ch’a Pŏmsŏk, and Yi Kŭnsam.] Kim, Ah-Jeong, and R. B. Graves, trans. The Metacultural Theater of Oh T’ae-sŏk: Five Plays from the Korean Avant-Garde. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1999. Kim, Jinhee, trans. Korean Drama Under Japanese Occupation: Plays by Ch’i-jin Yu and Man-sik Ch’ae. Paramus, N.J.: Homa and Sekey, 2004. ———, trans. Plays of Colonial Korea: Se-dŏk Ham. Norwalk, Conn.: EastBridge, 2006. Korean National Commission for UNESCO, ed. Wedding Day and Other Korean Plays. Trans. Song Yo-in et al. Seoul: Si-sa-yong-o-sa, 1983.

TEN

Into the New World Literature of the Late Twentieth and Early Twenty-first Centuries

A. Fiction From the Kwangju Uprising to the IMF Crisis On April 19, 1960, a popular uprising spearheaded by university students compelled Yi Sŭngman (Syngman Rhee), the authoritarian first president of the Republic of Korea, to step down. Just as April 19, 1960, looms large in the literature of the Hangŭl Generation, May 18, 1980, the date of the Kwangju Uprising, is a rallying point for much of the fiction of the 1980s and beyond. But more than the victimized aesthetes and inspired rebels of that earlier generation, we see in the later fiction of O Chŏnghŭi as well the early work of Ch’oe Yun, Im Ch’ŏru, and Kong Sŏnok more explicit examples of trauma literature. Building on earlier works involving trauma, such as Hwang Sunwŏn’s Namu tŭl pit’al e sŏda (Trees on a Slope, 1960) and Pak Wansŏ’s Na’mok (The Naked Tree, 1970), O, Ch’oe, and Im added narrative sophistication to their accounts of individuals traumatized by the Korean War, the Kwangju Massacre, and the torture apparatus of the Chŏn Tuhwan (Chun Doo-hwan) regime, respectively. O’s “Param ŭi nŏk” (Spirit on the Wind, 1986) focuses on a young wife seized by wanderlust resulting from a childhood trauma so devastating it has erased her memory of the precipitating incident—the murder by starving bandits of her twin sister and other family members. Ch’oe’s debut work, the novella “Chŏgi sori ŏpshi han chŏm kkonip i chigo” (There a Petal Silently Falls, 1988), weaves together three narrative strands in offering us a more comprehensive view of post-traumatic stress disorder. Im Ch’ŏru’s “Pulgŭn pang” (The Red Room, 1987) and O’s “Param ŭi nŏk” employ a dual narrative, the former to reveal trauma experienced by both a torture victim and his victimizer and the latter to highlight the effects of the wife’s trauma on her unsuspecting husband and son. Trauma within the family

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appears in Kim Yŏngha’s “Tomabaem” (Lizard, 1995) and O Chŏnghŭi’s Sae (The birds, 1996). Literature treating the territorial division of the peninsula and its human costs has continued to appear in a variety of guises. Yi Munyŏl’s Yŏng’ung shidae (see chapter 8) and Kim Minsuk’s “Pongsung’a kkommul” (Scarlet Fingernails, 1987) are sins-of-the-fathers stories, in which family members suffer as a result of the political misadventures of a father. Kang Sŏkkyŏng’s “Pam kwa yoram” (Night and cradle, 1983) and “Nat kwa kkum” (Days and dreams, 1983) are examples of military-camptown fiction (kijich’on sosŏl), involving cultural and specifically gender conflict resulting from a foreign presence on native soil. Kim Wŏnil (see chapter 8) excelled at stories of social activism in a context of widening socioeconomic disparities; his “Maŭm ŭi kamok” (Prison of the heart, 1990) is an excellent example. The mid-1990s saw the intertwining of two landmark events in contemporary Korean literature: the worldwide financial crisis that resulted in International Monetary Fund intervention in Korea and elsewhere, and the founding of the Munhak tongne publishing company. Munhak tongne (Literary community) was built around two emerging women writers, Shin Kyŏngsuk and Ŭn Hŭigyŏng, and has continued to feature women writers prominently in its list. In its quarterly journal, through its colorful covers and its photographs of smiling authors (the stony faces previously de rigeur presumably meant to discourage frivolousness in the serious business of recorded literature), and its publication of fiction by a younger generation of writers as well as literature in translation, Munhak tongne established a more reader-friendly and yet commercially viable strategy for publishing literary fiction. Kim Yŏngha (Kim Young-Ha), one of the most visible Korean fiction writers in English today, was first published in book form by Munhak tongne. The IMF intervention spurred a radical gender shift in the ranks of graduate students in Korean literature departments at the major universities in Seoul, as young men who might otherwise have continued to swell the ranks of the traditionally patriarchal literary power structure of critics, scholars, and publishers gravitated instead toward more economically stable professions. The demographics of this transformation are startling: there are today more women professors of Korean literature (whereas in 2004 there was not a single tenured female professor in the Korean literature department of any of the top five universities in Seoul), more women debuting as literary critics, and more women occupying editorial positions among the publishers of literary fiction. All of this paralleled a rise in the proportion of female writers so striking as to elicit laments from critics

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about the “feminization” of Korean literature as well as novels such as Yi Munyŏl’s Sŏnt’aek (Choice, 1997)—which features an exemplar of female virtue from Chosŏn times—that echo the naehun (“domestic training”) manuals from centuries past. More evidence of the crumbling of the rigid walls of the Korean literature power structure in the late twentieth century comes in the persons of several distinctive writers. Haïlji completed doctoral work in France in the 1980s before returning to Korea and publishing his first novel, Kyŏngmajang kanŭn kil (To the racetrack, 1990). Some hailed the work as Korea’s first postmodern novel, a sharp critique of a nation that had so recently staged a successful coming-out party in the form of the 1988 Seoul Olympics. To others the author was a pretentious outsider; at least one critic suggested that he return to France. Haïlji has since published no fiction except novels (in this respect he is virtually unique in modern Korean literary history). Chang Chŏng’il for his part penetrated the literary establishment after only a middle-school education, and has since proved a provocateur par excellence. Inspired initially by the Marquis de Sade and Jean Genet (whose 1947 play Haute Surveillance [Deathwatch] may have been the model for his one-act play Ŏmŏni [Mother, 1984]; see the “Readings” section of this chapter), Chang has published a variety of poetry, drama, and fiction, most notably the coming-of-age-novella “Adam i nun ttŭlttae” (When Adam opened his eyes, 1992) and the pornographic Kŏjimal haeboa (Tell me lies, 1997), the latter earning him a brief jail term. Chŏng Yŏngmun (Jung Young Moon) writes extensively of the interior landscape, his thought-based works reminding the critics of the Cartesian pronouncement “Je pense, donc je suis.” Representative of his approach are the novel Pasellin putta (Vaseline Buddha, 2010) and the title story of his 2017 fiction collection Ori mujung e irŭda (Not the Foggiest Notion). Yi Insŏng uses overlapping time sequences and stream-of-consciousness narrative in such metatextual works as Hanŏpshi najŭn sumgyŏl (With endlessly bated breath, 1989). The New Millennium The most noteworthy trend in fiction at the dawn of the new millennium is the continuing prominence of women writers. Two writers who debuted in the year 2000, Ch’ŏn Unyŏng and P’yŏn Hyeyŏng, are among the forefront of the new cohort. Both are intensely subversive with respect to traditional gender relations. Ch’ŏn’s debut story, “Panŭl” (Needlework), features a daughter and mother who use needles (tattooing needles and hanbok-stitching needles, respectively) to take control of the male body. In “Shich’e tŭl” (Corpses, 2005), from P’yŏn’s first story collection, Aoi kadŏn

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(Mallow gardens, 2005), a man is set in motion by the police discovery of body parts that may belong to his missing wife. In works such as “Tallyŏra, Abi” (Run, Dad! 2004), Kim Aeran displays a precocious gift for storytelling. Yun Sŏnghŭi, as interested as Kim Aeran in family stories, has developed an influential style of long one-paragraph sections of text in which the multiple voices of family members combine into a polyphonic narrative; her “Konggi ŏmnŭn pam” (An airtight night, 2012) is a good example. Yi Hyegyŏng continues to write fiction that challenges male privilege in the family and by extension the state. Chŏng Ihyŏn takes a cynical view of gender relations. Her “T’ŭrŏnk’ŭ” (In the Trunk, 2003) is a rare example of Korean noir fiction. In works such as “Ppyŏ toduk” (The Bone Thief, 2011) Hwang Chŏngŭn reminds us of the marginal figures who live a shadow existence in a traditional class- and status-based society. Pak Wansŏ (see chapter 8) continued to publish in the new millennium. Her fictionalized memoir Kŭ mantŏn shinga nŭn nu ka ta mŏgŏssŭlkka (Who Ate Up All the Shinga? 2002) is an insightful account of a literate young woman growing up in the Colonial period reading Japanese literature and then upon Liberation in 1945 teaching herself Korean literature to the extent that in 1950 she gained acceptance to the Seoul National University Department of Korean Language and Literature in the very first incoming class to include women students. (Like countless other students she was unable to complete her education due to the outbreak of the Korean War.) The new millennium has also witnessed a weakening of realism as a tried-and-true approach to the writing of fiction. To be sure, issue-oriented fiction has not disappeared, but more writers are placing less emphasis on theme and more emphasis either on interiority (one of the hallmarks of fiction since the early-modern period) or on such intense forms of exteriority as surrealism and microrealism. In the hands of P’yŏn Hyeyŏng this approach has yielded such unsettling stories as “Sayukchang tchogŭro” (To the Kennels, 2007) and “T’ongjorim kongjang” (The Canning Factory, 2012; see the “Readings” section of this chapter) as well as an unusual love story, “Ch’ŏtpŏntche ki’nyŏmil” (The First Anniversary, 2007). Ch’oe Such’ŏl is like P’yŏn an image-driven writer. His “Hwakshin” (Conviction, 2008) blurs the boundaries between life and death. In Kim Sum (Kim Soom)’s “409ho ŭi yubang” (The breast in room 409, 2007) plant life menaces human life. Kim Hun’s “Hwajang” (From Powder to Powder, 2004), in which the corporeal breakdown of a cancer-ridden wife is paralleled by the husband’s infatuation with a healthy young woman at his workplace, is an excellent example of the microrealist approach. In such stories less emphasis is placed on the group and more on the individual. A common setting of a work of fiction is an urban space in which the

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individual increasingly feels lost in the crowd, connecting by social media but increasingly incompetent in interpersonal relations. Kim Yŏngha’s “Hoch’ul” (The Pager, 1996) is a good example. The anomie increasingly characteristic of life in the metropolis of Seoul is captured in Yun Koŭn’s 2010 story collection Irinyong shikt’ak (Table for One). Trauma literature continues to address the murky history of military dictatorship, with Ch’ŏn Unyŏng’s Saenggang (The Catcher in the Loft, 2011) combining a study of a torture specialist during the Chun Doohwan era with a coming-of-age narrative of the university-age daughter who must shelter him during his years as a fugitive. Trauma within the family, especially involving sexual violence, is addressed in works such as Yi Hyegyŏng’s “Kŭrigo ch’ukche” (And then the festival, 2008). Mental illness, rarely described explicitly in modern Korean fiction, is treated with insight in such works as Han Kang’s Kŭdae ŭi ch’agaun son (Your cold hands, 2002) and Ch’aeshikchuŭija (The vegetarian, 2007) and Pae Sua’s “Yŏnggukshik chŏngwŏn” (The English Garden, 2016). Historical fiction is alive and well in the hands of the aforementioned Kim Hun, a career journalist who began publishing fiction in the 1990s and who first drew wide notice with K’al ŭi norae (Sword song, 2001), a novel of Chosŏn admiral-statesman Yi Sunshin as existential hero. Yŏngwŏnhan cheguk (The Everlasting Empire, 1993), Yi Inhwa’s mystery focusing on a day in the life of the Later Chosŏn monarch Chŏngjo, is both historical in its background as well as intertextual (inspired by The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco). Li Shim (2006) by Kim T’akhwan and Li Chin (2007) by Shin Kyŏngsuk portray a young court dancer in the service of Queen Min in the late 1800s. And one of the cultural icons of Korea past and present, the Early Chosŏn kisaeng Hwang Chini, has been the subject of fiction by writers as diverse as Chŏn Kyŏngnin, Ch’oe Inho, Kim T’akhwan, and North Korean writer Hong Sŏkchung (whose 2002 version of her life story was the first work of North Korean literature to earn a major South Korean literary prize; see the “Readings” section of this chapter). The notorious Korean War prisoner-of-war camp on Kŏje Island, setting for Chang Yonghak’s “Yohan shijip” (see chapter 8), is the subject of Ch’oe Such’ŏl’s linked-story novel P’oro tŭl ŭi ch’um (The POWs’ dance, 2016). Ch’oe Myŏnghŭi’s Honpul (Spirit fire, 1996) gained widespread popular and critical acclaim for its representation of traditional Korean women’s culture. In Korean literature from the twentieth century, we seldom see fiction that incorporates three-dimensional foreign characters or that crosses national borders. Rare examples are Kim Chiwŏn’s stories of Koreans transplanted in the New York metropolitan area and An Chŏnghyo’s Hayan chŏnjaeng (White Badge, 1989), a novel based on the author’s experiences

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in the Vietnam War. But the new millennium has brought an increase in border-crossing fiction—from Pang Hyŏnsŏk (Vietnam), Kong Chiyŏng (Germany), Kim Insuk (Australia), Pae Sua (Germany), Yi Hyegyŏng (Indonesia), and Kim Sagwa (New York City). Cho Chŏngnae’s threevolume novel Chŏnggŭl malli (The Human Jungle, 2014) is set in present-day China. North Korea and the Yanbian area of Manchuria, home to hundreds of thousands of ethnic Koreans, have served as settings for novels such as Hwang Sŏgyŏng’s eponymous Paridaegi (2007), in which the avatar of native Korean spirituality is recast as a North Korean refugee, Ch’ŏn Unyŏng’s Chal kara sŏk’ŏsŭ (Farewell, circus, 2005), and Kang Yŏngsuk’s Rina (Rina, 2006). Paralleling the commercial success in the U.S. literary marketplace of Shin Kyŏngsuk’s Ŏmma rŭl put’ak hae (Please Look After Mom, 2009) is the appearance in recent fiction of genre elements such as fantasy, mystery, and political intrigue. Notable examples are Kong Chiyŏng’s Togani (The Crucible, 2008), which incorporates a lurid case of sexual abuse of speech- and hearing-impaired children within the framework of a novel of manners and a courtroom drama; Ch’ŏn Unyŏng’s Saenggang, previously mentioned; and Chŏng Yujŏng’s Ch’illyŏn ŭi pam (Seven Years of Darkness, 2011), which sets a murder mystery within the familiar setting of family history. Ch’oe Inho’s final novel, Nanigŭn t’ain tŭl ŭi toshi (Another Man’s City, 2013), has a Truman Show–like setting and cameo roles for the manga character Sailor Moon and the Power Rangers. Similar to trauma fiction and likewise drawing on the great corpus of Pak Wansŏ, whose own experiences struck a resounding chord in her many readers, testimonial fiction addresses the various abuses, often unresolved, in modern Korean history, the voices of the characters echoing the testimony heard in truth-and-reconciliation movements worldwide. Kong Chiyŏng’s Togani led to the passage of the “togani laws,” which stiffened penalties for the sexual abuse of children. Kim Sum’s Han myŏng (One Left, 2016), the first Korean novel to focus exclusively on the Korean “comfort women” of the Pacific War, draws heavily on the testimony of those women. Recent fiction by Kim T’akhwan embraces the victims of the 2014 Sewŏl ferry tragedy as well as surviving family members. An excellent possibility for diversification in the literary fiction of the new millennium is the graphic novel (manhwa). Manhwa in modern Korea date back to the Colonial period, when an occasional political cartoon escaped the notice of the censors. In recent years manhwa have become almost universally available as webtoons, accessed by personal computer or handheld device. Film versions of webtoons (like film versions of literary works) serve to draw renewed attention to the original work. In the new millennium the most visible manhwa writer is Yun T’aeho (Yoon

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Taeho). A disciple of Hŏ Yŏngman, mentor to a generation of manhwa authors, Yun began publishing adult-themed parodies of traditional tales in the 1990s. The first of these was Yŏn-sshi pyŏlgok (Ballad of a man named Yŏn, 1997), in which the author reverses the roles of good brother Hŭngbu and bad brother Nolbu in the traditional fictional narrative Hŭngbu chŏn. In the following decade Yun gained widespread notice with Ikki (Moss, 2009) and Misaeng (An incomplete life, 2011). The multiple incarnations of these two works attest to their appeal. Ikki first appeared in a five-volume print edition, was made into a film (2013), was reissued in a four-volume print edition, appeared as a webtoon hosted by Spottoon (a cooperative of webtoon authors), and in 2016 was serialized in English translation at The Huffington Post. Misaeng for its part has appeared in print and webtoon versions as well as in a pair of television series. In content these two works share prominent themes of contemporary fiction. Ikki can be read and seen as an allegory of abuse of power by a dictatorial regime and is strongly colored by trauma, whereas Misaeng uses the motif of the game of paduk (go) in charting the lives of twenty-something men struggling to succeed in an increasingly competitive white-collar world. In addition to the narrative innovations of Yun Sŏnghŭi we see experimentation in the short fiction of Pak Mingyu, whose Twitter-length sections of text elide without periods into one another (a technique pioneered by Pak T’aewŏn in the 1930s); the recursive, metatextual narratives of Han Yuju (Han Yujoo), such as “Hŭkpaek sajinsa” (Black-and-White Photographer, 2006); the casting of spiritual entities and body organs in stories such as Kim Aeran’s “Ch’immuk ŭi mirae” (The Future of Silence, 2013) and Han Chisu’s “Paekkop ŭi kiwŏn” (Origin of the belly button, 2010), respectively; and in the melding of poetry and prose in Kim T’aeyong’s novel Sumgim ŏpshi nan’gim ŏpshi (Straight ahead, 2010). Such innovations, in combination with the other trends just noted, are increasingly crucial as literature in Korea continues to compete for recognition, both at home and abroad, with the more accessible dimensions of Korean popular culture. The works of Hwang Sŏgyŏng and Cho Chŏngnae stand out among novels from the 1990s on. Hwang served a jail term for an unauthorized visit to North Korea and resumed publishing almost immediately after his release. First up was Oraedoen chŏngwŏn (The old garden, 2000), a love story set against the backdrop of the student dissident movement of the 1980s and featuring a male protagonist who, like the author himself, has just been released from prison. Next came the brilliantly structured Sonnim (The Guest, 2001), in which he uses the native spiritualist chinogwi ritual (intended to appease the wandering souls of those who have died an unnatural death) as a frame to give voice to the victims of a massacre in

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Shinch’ŏn, Hwanghae Province, shortly after the outbreak of the Korean War in the summer of 1950. The eponymous Shim Ch’ŏng (2003) recasts the paragon of filial virtue as a woman of Later Chosŏn who must attend to the needs of a variety of men throughout East and Southeast Asia. Cho Chŏngnae followed up his epic T’aebaek sanmaek (see chapter 8) with the twelve-volume Arirang (1995; the title is that of Korea’s bestloved folk song), a panorama of colonial Korea, and the ten-volume Hangang (The Han River, 2000), which spans Korea’s post-Liberation history. Together these three epics have sold more than sixteen million volumes, making Cho one of the best-selling authors of literary fiction in modern Korea. With the exception of O hanŭnim (How in Heaven’s Name, 2008), which recounts the saga of a group of young Korean men entering the Japanese imperial army in the late 1930s only to end up in the German army in defense of the Normandy beaches during the Allied invasion of D-Day, June 6, 1944, Cho’s subsequent novels take place in the present day. Hŏsuabi ch’um (Scarecrow dance, 2010) is an exposé of financial corruption among the handful of chaebŏl (industrial conglomerates) that today dominate the Korean economy. Chŏnggŭl malli, mentioned previously, is set in present-day Shanghai and Beijing; it investigates China’s recent economic surge and features an international cast of characters, mostly business people and university students. P’ulkkot to kkot ida (Weeds can flower too, 2016) casts a critical eye on the Korean educational system. No present-day writer addresses the ills of Korean society, especially as manifested in the Seoul metropolitan area—a malaise commonly referred to as Hell Chosŏn—more vividly than Kim Sagwa. In her early twenties Kim burst onto the scene with the novel Mina (2008), which she composed in an attempt to understand the massacre perpetrated by a Korean international student at an American university the previous year. Mina is a devastating portrayal of a dysfunctional high school educational system as well as an utterly realistic account of a psychotic breakdown, a subject Kim also addresses in her story “Umjigimyŏn umjigilsurok isanghan il i pŏrŏjinŭn onŭl ŭn ch’am ŭro shingihan nal ida” (It’s One of Those the-More-I’m-in-Motion-the-Weirder-It-Gets Days, and It’s Really Blowing My Mind, 2010). Kim’s second novel, P’ul i numnŭnda (P’ul recumbent, 2009; the title echoes one of the best-known poems of Kim Suyŏng [see chapter 7], “P’ul”), earned her comparisons with the American Beat Generation writer Jack Kerouac. Intertextuality in new millennium fiction remains alive and well in the works of Kim Kyŏnguk (Kim Kyung-uk). Kim is evaluated perhaps too facilely by the critics for incorporating elements of popular culture in stories and novels such as Morisŭn hot’el (Morrison Hotel, 1997), “Nu ka k’ŏt’ŭ K’obein ŭl chugyŏnnŭnga?” (Who killed Kurt Cobain? 2003), and

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“Chang Kug’yŏng i chugŏttago?” (Leslie Cheung is dead, you say? 2005). But the importance of such works extends beyond mere parody to challenge readers to reevaluate cultural icons and stereotypes—a project that is central to modern Korean fiction, to judge from the multiple intertextual fictional renderings of icons from classical Korea such as Hwang Chini, and the many contemporary retellings of some of Korea’s best-known folk tales, such as “Namukkun kwa sŏnnyŏ” (The woodcutter and the nymph). Kim is especially interested in how individuals manage to reinvent themselves and/or live double lives, and in crafting portraits of such characters he reflects writing by both Korean and non-Korean authors. In its gravitas and apocalyptic background “Sonyŏn ŭn nŭkchi annŭnda” (Boys don’t grow old, 2013), for example, echoes both P’yŏn Hyeyŏng’s “Aoi kadŏn” (Mallow Gardens, 2003) and The Road by Cormac McCarthy. The reading therapist in “Wihŏmhan toksŏ” (Dangerous reading, 2006) resembles the suicide consultant in Kim Yŏngha’s debut novel, Na nŭn na rŭl p’agoehal kwŏlli ka itta (I Have the Right to Destroy Myself, 1996). And with his 2007 novel Ch’ŏn nyŏn ŭi wangguk (Kingdom of a thousand years), inspired by the story of Hendrik Hamel and his band of castaway Dutch sailors, Kim has reached far back into Chosŏn history for a most unusual tale of adaptation and survival. Readers of modern Korean fiction, both in Korea and abroad, often comment on the dark atmosphere that colors much of twentieth-century Korean short fiction. This characteristic may be attributed in part to the emphasis of the Korean literature establishment on the desirability of authors’ maintaining a sense of “historical consciousness” (yŏksa ŭishik) in their works, and it is a commonplace that periods of darkness have abounded in modern Korean history. And yet many of the most distinctive of modern Korean fiction writers have displayed a finely developed wit, ranging from the satire of Ch’ae Manshik and the earthy local color of Kim Yujŏng to Hwang Sunwŏn’s sketches of the conniving denizens of his home province of P’yŏngan and of the humorous interplay between strong women and weak men. Today humor is alive and well in the stories of Cho Sŏnggi, Yi Kiho, and Kim Chunghyŏk. Cho’s 1991 Yi Sang Prize–­ winning story, “Uri shidae ŭi sosŏlga” (A fiction writer for our age), features the esteemed writer of A Goat’s Belly Button bemused at the arrival at his door of a disgruntled reader wanting the author to pay him for the money he wasted on the novel. In Kim’s “Yuri pangp’ae” (Glass Shield, 2006) two friends transfer the all-important first-job interview into performance art and thereby become celebrities. Among the vestiges of Neo-Confucian ideology in Korea is a reluctance to openly acknowledge same-sex desire. And yet from as far back as the Colonial period authors such as Yi Hyosŏk dealt frankly with the

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variety and abundance of human desire (see chapter 8). Contemporary writers have picked up where Yi left off. A lesbian encounter is central to O Chŏnghŭi’s remarkable debut story, “Wan’gujŏm yŏin” (see chapter 8), and a male couple are prominent in her trauma novella Sae. Sŏng Sŏkche’s “Ch’ŏt sarang” (First Love, 1995) features a young man confused at being the object of desire by both male and female. Same-sex encounters and relationships appear as well in the works of such writers as Chang Chŏng’il, Pak Mingyu, Pae Sua, and Hwang Chŏngŭn. B. Poetry Early in the new millennium, in a rare example of cooperation between the two Koreas, the longest rail line on the peninsula, extending from Ŭiju in the far northwest to Pusan in the far southeast, was reconnected at the DMZ; a ceremonial train ride across the DMZ ensued, and a news report in the Western press noted that among the dignitaries on board was “a poet.” This anonymous reference reminds us of the value and status accruing to the Korean man of letters since the introduction of the Chinese writing system to the Korean Peninsula more than two thousand years ago. Poetry is alive and well in the new millennium in Korea, surviving political vicissitudes and economic upheavals. It is a regular feature of the Hankyoreh (Han’gyŏre) daily newspaper, and poems can be seen on the protective sliding doors flanking subway tracks as well as on the walls built along the banks of redeveloped Ch’ŏnggye Stream, running westeast through downtown Seoul. And yet in contrast with the advances secured by women fiction writers, especially since the mid-1990s, the prospects for women’s poetry remain uncertain. No genre reflects the patriarchal nature of the Korean literary world more than poetry. In traditional times poetry was the measure of an educated man, professionally and personally. A mastery of poetry, both its traditions and its craft, was essential for government office and hence was tested on the civil service examination (kwagŏ) that granted entrance (to males only) to the bureaucracy. The composition of poetry was in addition an omnipresent recreational activity among men, “something practiced by most members of the educated class…with about as much frequency as we talk on the telephone,” in the words of Kathleen McCarthy. As a result, writing women in modern Korea have been much more successful with short fiction, widely considered a Western import, than with the venerable native genre that is poetry. Long fiction has also proved viable for women especially if it reflects the realities of Korean history, society, and culture. This is not to say that women poets in Korea

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have not developed distinct and powerful voices. Rather, those voices are not acknowledged by the literary establishment to the extent that those of women fiction writers are. In spite of the obstacles posed to women writers by Neo-Confucian norms that militated against both the education of women and the literary accomplishments of literate women, poets in the modern era such as No Ch’ŏnmyŏng, Kim Namjo, and Kang Ŭn’gyo managed to create enduring bodies of work. But it was not until the 1980s that women poets, working through such progressive networks as the Tto hana ŭi munhwa (Alternative culture) collective, began to explicitly challenge male privilege not only in literature but in society and the world at large. Ko Chŏnghŭi, Kim Sŭnghŭi, Ch’oe Sŭngja, and Kim Hyesun formed the vanguard of this movement. Until her untimely death in 1991, Ko Chŏnghŭi played a leading role in the publication of women’s literature and feminist criticism, of which her 1986 essay “Hanguk yŏsŏng munhak ŭi palchŏn” (The development of Korean women’s literature) is a prototype. In her “Woman in Crisis: Studies in Women’s History” series she championed the accomplishments of women in Korean history and culture. The sixth poem in that series, recounting the 1908 campaign in which Korean women donated their rings and other items of gold so that the dying Chosŏn kingdom could remain solvent, is eerily prescient in that scant years after its publication a similar movement was launched by Korean women at the height of the mid-1990s IMF crisis. “My Neighbor, Mrs. Ku Chamyŏng” (see the “Readings” section of this chapter) is an example of what might be called the poetry of the quotidian as an example of the multiple roles played by women who have emerged from their traditional space in the “inner room” (the women’s quarters in a traditional Korean home) to participate in the public sphere, in this case the workplace. Kim Sŭnghŭi in works such as “Between Sainthood and Whoredom” (1987) investigates polarities in gender stereotypes. Subsequent poetry collections, such as I Want to Hijack an Airplane continue her subversive approach. In her recent “Uulhan Sŏul” (Melancholy Seoul) series, one poem of which focuses on a bridge that is a preferred suicide destination for young women, she contemplates the pathology of life in the metropolis. Ch’oe Sŭngja has from the outset stood up to patriarchy, dictatorship, corruption, and dependency. She was the first woman to edit her university (Korea University)’s literary journal and the first woman poet to be published in Munhak kwa chisŏng (Literature and intellect), a leading literary journal of the 1970s and 1980s. Her harsh language and unpleasant subject matter have drawn fire from critics long accustomed to the stereotype of “delicate and refined” women’s poetry. “Yŏnsŭp” (A

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Practice), from her second poetry collection, Chŭlgŏun ilgi (Cheerful diary, 1984), vividly portrays the insidiousness by which patriarchy, hidden “behind the uneasy fog,” works its way into the soul of the subject. “Nugunji morŭl nŏ rŭl wihayŏ” (For an Unidentified You, 1999) offers a sensual alternative as a response to the blandishments of the patriarch. Kim Hyesun (Kim Hyesoon) is the most imaginative poet of modern Korea, in addition to mentoring numerous women creative-writing students in her capacity as a professor at Seoul Institute of the Arts. She was first published in 1979, in Munhak kwa chisŏng, and by the 1980s was writing subversive poems on gender such as “Kkŏpchil ŭi sam” (A Skin-deep Life, 1985), in which the speaker’s male counterpart is cast as a taxidermist and puppet master. In 1997 she earned the Kim Suyŏng Contemporary Poetry Prize, named after the influential poet of social engagement of the 1950s and 1960s (see chapter 7), for her collection Pulssanghan sarang kigye (Poor love machine); she was the first woman to receive this award. Four years later she received an equally prestigious award, the Kim Sowŏl Poetry Prize. In 2006 she was honored with the Midang Poetry Prize, named after Sŏ Chŏngju, arguably Korea’s most accomplished modern poet; she was also the first woman to receive this award. In her essay collection Yŏsŏng i kŭl ŭl ssŭndanŭn kŏs ŭn (To write as a woman, 2002) Kim acknowledges her indebtedness to muga, the ritual narratives sung by the practitioners of native Korean spirituality, to suggest that in her poetry she serves as a medium giving expression to thousands of years of women’s voices silenced by patriarchy. Especially important to her is the Pari Kongju muga, in which an abandoned princess undertakes an arduous journey to learn the skills and obtain the medicaments with which to revive her dying parents. In drawing upon muga in her poetry Kim embodies the one stream of the Korean tradition that is navigated primarily by women. For the practitioner of native spirituality, termed mudang—or more formally and respectfully, manshin (“ten thousand spirits”), is by definition female. Her primary role is to mediate between the inhabitants of this world and those of the next world or, more important, those suspended in the ether because of a premature or unnatural death and/or an aggrieved life. In her poetry Kim likewise channels women’s voices past and present, breathing life into thousands of years of Korean women’s cultural history. Her long, surreal, and occasionally graphic works invoke the spirits of the anonymous women who left us with some of the most passionate lyrics of the Korean oral tradition, a thousand years ago in Koryŏ times; the kisaeng whose songs contrast emotional freedom with psychological uncertainty; wellborn women such as Hŏ Nansŏrhŏn, who wrote both in hangŭl and in classical

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Chinese; the pioneers of women’s writing during the Colonial period, who were hounded into silence when they attempted to live emancipated lives; writers such as No Ch’ŏnmyŏng, the stereotypical practitioner of “delicate and refined women’s writing,” who died an early and most likely bitter death after being jailed for collaborating with imperial Japan; and feminist poets such as the aforementioned Ko Chŏnghŭi and Yi Yŏnju, the latter authoring poems of military-camptown life and militarized prostitution. Other distinctive women poets in the new millennium include Ch’oe Yŏngmi, Na Hŭidŏk, and Kim Idŭm. Ch’oe’s first poetry collection, Sŏrŭn, chanch’i nŭn kŭnnatta (Thirty, the party’s over, 1994), captures a critical stage in the life of the 386 Generation—those who were born in the 1960s, who came of age during the 1980s, the height of political and labor dissent against military dictatorship, and who confronted a painful decision in their thirties: continue their progressive activism or abandon it for a life of marriage, family, and workplace. Na’s “Taehwa” (Colloquy, 2009) and shijo-like “Ch’ŏnjangho esŏ” (At Lake Ch’ŏnjang, 1997) are wry poems in which the speaker uses images from nature to contemplate a relationship with the other. Kim writes prose poems with strong images reminiscent of the work of Kim Hyesun. It was in the 1980s that the poet-laborer Pak Nohae debuted, a rare example of a writer with only a high school education gaining admittance to the Korean literature establishment. Pak’s first poetry collection, Nodong ŭi saebyŏk (The dawn of labor, 1984), was a commercial success and inspired fiction writers such as Kong Chiyŏng and Pang Hyŏnsŏk. All along he continued his labor-organizing activities, at the cost of a lengthy jail term in the 1990s. Pak continued his activist approach in the new millennium. “Pagŭdadŭ ŭi pom” (Spring in Baghdad, 2003) illuminates the horrors of the Iraq War from the point of view of an Iraqi family. As Kim Chiha, exemplar of resistance poetry in the 1960s and 1970s, brutalized by his years in prison, transitioned to environmental poetry, his banner was taken up for a time by the short-lived Kim Namju. The latter’s first poetry collection, Chinhon’ga (Requiem, 1984), was labeled “the poetry of torture” (komunshi) by one critic. His “Shiin-nim ŭi malssŭm” (Mister Poet’s words, 1993) is an account of an interrogation that manages to be both chilling and humorous. By investing their victim with the name “Mister Poet” the interrogators perhaps unwittingly acknowledge the legitimacy invested in the poet (and especially the male poet) by centuries of activism dating back at least to the Six Martyred Subjects (sayukshin) and the Six Surviving Subjects (saeng’yukshin) of Early Chosŏn. Yi Shiyŏng, Hwang Chiu, and Kim Subok are accomplished storytellers. Yi’s eponymous “Chŏngnimi” (1976) tells of a robust village girl the

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speaker seems to recognize, working as a prostitute in Seoul. Kim’s “Hanŭl uch’eguk” (Heaven’s post office), title poem of his 2015 collection, is a conversation between a son and the spirit of his departed mother, whose chatty tone gives the impression she is sitting right there beside him. Hwang’s “Ŏnŭ nal na nŭn hŭrin chujŏm e anja issŭl kŏda” (One Day I’ll Be Sitting in a Murky Wine House, 1998) is a despairing meditation on the prospect of middle age. Negative aspects of urban life are seen in the poems of Yi Sŏngbu, Ch’oe Sŭngho, Ryu Shihwa, and Ki Hyŏngdo. Already in “Nanjido” (Nanji Island, 1979) Yi had focused on those who made their homes in hovels beside the main dumping ground for the metropolis of Seoul. Ch’oe’s “Muinch’ing ŭi chugŭm” (Non-person death, 1987) recounts the demise of a baby born out of wedlock and consigned by the mother to a public toilet. Ryu’s “Kulttuk sok enŭn tŏ isang kulttuksae ka salji annŭnda” (Chimney birds no longer live in chimneys, 2016) captures the tedium of life. Ki’s “Chŏnmunga” (The Professional, 1989) hints at the cooptation of children by the captains of industry, symbolized by a new neighbor who builds a glass wall around his home. Among contemporary poets, Yi Sŏngbok perhaps best reflects a new sensibility that, in the words of Kevin O’Rourke, is “realist, tough, and unforgiving.” The poems “1959” (1980) and “Kŭ nal” (That Day, 1980) are rife with images of sickness, failure, depravity, and death. “Ŏttŏn ssaum ŭi kirok” (An account of a fight, 1980) is a brutal depiction of violence within the family. The poetry of Yi Munjae is characterized by diversity of image and poetic language. His early poems utilize a language of coming-of-age to depict a young man’s transition from a farming community to the megalopolis. Subsequent works pursue a global imagination centered in an awareness of ecology, a critique of industrial civilization, and a search for alternative lifestyles. At the same time, his poetic subjects have been transformed from wandering orphans and what he conceptualizes as reflexive minorities, to global citizens capable of designing the transformation of our present-day civilization. His 1999 collection Maŭm ŭi oji (The hinterlands of the heart) is representative. Ko Ŭn remains a towering figure in contemporary Korean poetry, as prolific a poet as Cho Chŏngnae is a fiction writer. A former Buddhist monk and political dissident who has spent time in jail, Ko is best at witty Zen-like poems that register epiphany, but he also continues to serialize Maninbo (see chapter 7), a twenty-plus-volume project whose goal is a poem about every person the poet has ever met. Ko has also produced fiction such as Hwaŏmgyŏng (The Garland Sutra, 1991), an abstruse work on a classic of the Buddhist canon.

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Hwaŏmgyŏng is also the title of a shijo anthology published by Pak Chaesam in 1985, midway through his career. Shijo continue to be a vital genre in the new millennium, maintaining the tradition of modern shijo that owes much to Yi Pyŏnggi. Current masters of the form include the Buddhist monk Cho Ohyŏn and Hong Sŏngnan. Other contemporary poets who have written in the shijo form include Ko Ŭn, Yi Kŭnbae, and Ryu Chaeyŏng. C. Drama O T’aesŏk, Yi Kangbaek, and Yi Yunt’aek are among the most influential of later twentieth-century Korean dramatists. O has continued to mine Korean tradition for subject matter that his signature combination of surrealism, absurdism, and folk performance tradition imbues with universality. Toraji (Bellflower, 1992) takes inventory of the reformer Kim Okkyun and other historical personages in Late Chosŏn history, beginning with the Kapshin Coup of 1884. Shim Ch’ŏng’i nŭn oe tu pŏn Indangsu e mom ŭl tŏnjŏnnŭnga (Why Did Shim Ch’ŏng Plunge into the Sea Twice? 1994) features Korea’s paragon of filial virtue jumping into the sea only to find herself not in the Dragon King’s palace but in the Dragon King’s submarine, where among other adventures “women of the night” are televised holding signs indicating their accumulated debt to their pimp, in hopes that a kindhearted viewer with deep pockets will deliver them from their servitude. In 1999 O opened his own theater. Like O a native of Chŏlla Province—home to some of the most socially and politically engaged of Korean fiction writers, poets, and dramatists— Yi Kangbaek has authored more than fifty plays, which are collected in an ongoing Complete Works that now numbers more than a dozen volumes. Yi came of age in the 1970s when government censorship of writing in general was stringent: after his play Kaeppul (Dog horns, 1979), about life during the Park Chung Hee dictatorship, was submitted for review by the government authorities, it was returned to him blacked out in its entirety except for the name of the playwright and the title of the work. Of necessity he developed early on an allegorical approach to his playwriting. P’asukkun (Watchman, 1974), for example, involves vigilance against wolf attacks, the wolves presumably symbolizing North Korean spies. Plays such as Pom nal (Spring Day, 1984), in contrast, set against the backdrop of ongoing Korean economic development, depict the breakdown in traditional mores governing human relationships. Nŭkkim kŭngnak kat’ŭn (A Feeling, Nirvana-Like, 1998) tackles a variety of contemporary issues, such as materialism and fixation on body image, by juxtaposing

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the lingering presence of Neo-Confucian ideology in hierarchical human relationships with the more egalitarian spirituality of Buddhism. Yi Yunt’aek built a reputation as a poet, publishing five poetry collections in the 1980s before turning to playwriting. He gained notice for Shimin K (Citizen K, 1989), an early critique of the torture apparatus of military dictatorship, and Ogu—Chugŭm ŭi hyŏngshik (Ogu: A Ceremony of Death, 1989), a parody of a native spiritualist ritual designed to ease the passage of the souls of the dead to their final resting place. But it is perhaps as founder and artistic director of the Street Theater Troupe, which he launched in 1986, that he has contributed most to modern Korean drama. In 1999 the group moved from its home on Taehangno (University Boulevard; so named because it was the original site of Seoul National University), the center of the theater scene in Seoul, to the small city of Miryang, South Kyŏngsang Province. There the troupe adopted a communal lifestyle and a performance program that has taken them all over South Korea, evoking the itinerant lifestyle of the namsadang troupes of traditional times. In 2015 the company launched a series of productions, some of them restagings, built around the lives of eminent Koreans past and present, such as the Early Chosŏn scientist Chang Yŏnshil (Kungni [Deliberation], 2015), the mid-Chosŏn rusticated scholar Cho Shik (Shigol sŏnbi Cho Nammyŏng [Rural scholar Cho Nammyŏng], originally staged 2001), the twentieth-century poet Paek Sŏk (see chapter 7) (Paek Sŏk uhwa [Paek Sŏk’s fable], 2015), and the twentieth-century painter Yi Chungsŏp (Kil ttŏnanŭn kajok [Family on the road], 2016). Notable among the current generation of playwrights for his treatment of lower-middle-class family life is Pak Kŭnhyŏng. Pak debuted in 1986 with Ch’immuk ŭi kamshi (Observing silence) but did not gain widespread attention until the staging of plays such as Asŭp’irin (Aspirin, 1994), Chwi (Rats, 1998), and especially the sardonically titled Ch’ŏngch’un yech’an (In Praise of Youth, 1999). In the new millennium Pak has combined family history with modern Korean history in plays such as Taedae sonson (From generation to generation, 2000) and Kyŏngsugi Kyŏngsuk abŏji (Kyŏngsuk and her father, 2006). Disempowered fathers figure prominently in several of these recent works. Like Ch’ŏngch’un yech’an, but focusing more on women, Ppalgan pŏsŭ (Red bus, 2012) deals with the alienation of high school students from their uninspiring teachers and their incapable parents. Like Kim Sagwa’s eponymous novel Mina and Cho Chŏngnae’s novel P’ulkkot to kkot ida, the play exposes fundamental shortcomings in the Korean educational system. The politically charged Kaeguri (The frog, 2013) drew censure from the ROK government. Like several of his contemporaries, Pak himself stages most of his plays.

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Pae Samshik is one of the most productive playwrights of the new millennium. Among his works are a musical and several scripts for madang nori. His plays are noted for their structural rigor and command of language. Ch’oe Sŭnghŭi (1994) focuses on the modern dancer of that name, who achieved fame in Japan during the Colonial period then lived out her life in North Korea. The play 3wŏl ŭi nun (Snow in March, 2011) depicts the last day of independent living of an elderly man. Yi Kyŏngsŏng, director of the Creative Va-Qi troupe, incorporates outdoor spaces in his performances. Namsan tok’yument’a (Namsan documenta, 2014), for example, focuses not on individuals but on the Namsan Arts Center, founded in 1962 on the lower reaches of Mt. Nam in Seoul. In situating a public space as a witness to events in contemporary Korean history Yi is evolving in tandem with a recent surge in urban activism that seeks to preserve endangered urban areas such as the Okparaji neighborhood that overlooks the site of the notorious Sŏdaemun Prison. Yi’s 2015 production Chŏnhu (Before, after) probes the pain resulting from the 2014 sinking of the ferry Sewŏl, in an attempt to revive the capacity for empathy in a populace increasingly hardened to catastrophic loss by having become inured through various media to scenes of carnage and disaster. The new millennium is also witness to a resurgence of ch’anggŭk, a performance tradition dating to the end of the Chosŏn period. (The first work performed in this style was an adaptation of Yi Injik’s new-fiction Ŭnsegye [Silver world, 1908]). Five standard p’ansori works (see chapter 5) are being reworked for musical stagings, as are at least two others—Pyŏn Kangsoe t’aryŏng (Ballad of Pyŏn Kangsoe) and Pae pijang t’aryŏng (Ballad of Pae the official). Attesting to the viability, both at home and abroad, of the p’ansori tradition, upon which ch’anggŭk is based, are recent stagings of two p’ansori works, by German opera director and Expressionist painter Achim Freyer (Mr. Rabbit and the Dragon King, based on Sugung ka [Song of the underwater palace], 2011) and Romanian-American director Andrei Serban (Andrei Serban’s Different Ch’unhyang, based on Ch’unhyang ka [Song of Ch’unhyang], 2014). D. Literature in North Korea North Korean literature dates back at least to 1948 and the establishment of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea), but it was not until some four decades later, with the democratization of the political process in the Republic of Korea (South Korea) and the concomitant easing of ROK National Security Law restrictions on access to writing from North Korea that North Korean literature started to become a focus

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of scholarly writing in the South. Like the literature of South Korea, that of North Korea often reflects sociocultural and political changes. In this respect it may be possible to delineate North Korean writing in terms of the following stages: a period of peaceful democracy building that extended from Korea’s liberation from Japanese colonial rule in 1945 to the outbreak of the Korean War (or the War of Liberation of the Fatherland, from the perspective of the North) five years later; the postwar struggle to build the foundation of socialism; the establishment of chuch’e literature concurrent with Kim Il Sung’s consolidation of power; literature reflecting the easing of the Cold War and the crisis in the North following Kim Il Sung (Kim Ilsŏng)’s death; and most recently the literature of the March of Hardship during the Kim Jong Il (Kim Chŏngil) era. Literature in North Korea starts with works of poetry, fiction, drama, and criticism published not only by those native to and resident in the northern sector of post-Liberation Korea but perhaps more importantly with literature produced by the wŏlbuk writers, the hundred-odd established writers, such as Yi Kiyŏng, Kim Namch’ŏn, and Im Hwa, who migrated to the northern sector from the southern sector between Liberation in 1945 and the formation of separate regimes in 1948. Kwon Youngmin’s Wŏlbuk munin yŏngu (Studies of “went-north” writers, 1989) catalogs well over two hundred such publications. Writing in the early years of North Korea was thus spearheaded by the wŏlbuk writers as well as by native northerners, especially Han Sŏrya, whose novel Ryŏksa (History, 1954) helped legitimize the regime of Kim Il Sung. Notable poetic works from this formative period include the epic poem Paektusan (Mt. Paektu, 1949) by Russian-born Cho Kich’ŏn, considered by some to be the father of North Korean poetry, and Kang Sŭnghan’s poetry collection Hannasan (Mt. Halla)—perhaps not coincidentally the titular peaks in these two works mark the northernmost and southernmost prominences of the two Koreas. Literature during the Kim Il Sung era appears to have followed the prescription of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin that writers are “engineers of the human soul.” By the 1960s a variety of literary journals were being published, the most prominent of which was Chosŏn munhak (Chosŏn literature), a monthly featuring didactic, moralistic stories centered in the working masses and typically revolving about a sociopolitical problem and its resolution. Socialist-realist kasa (traditionally, songs with no restriction on length, that may be narrative, lyrical, or didactic) are in evidence as well. Also during the Kim Il Sung regime we begin to see literature written by ethnic Koreans in Manchuria, who in contrast with their diasporic counterparts in Japan and the United States, for example, continue to write in Korean. The great majority of these writers have family origins in North Korea, and some of the works take a critical eye to developments in South Korea.

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In the new millennium the intermittent rapprochement between the two Koreas has been reflected in the awarding in South Korea of the prestigious Manhae Literature Prize (Manhae being the Buddhist name of the distinguished early modern nationalist and poet Han Yongun) to North Korean writer Hong Sŏkchung (grandson of Im Kkŏkchŏng author Hong Myŏnghŭi) for his novel about the celebrated Early Chosŏn kisaeng Hwang Chini. In addition, memoirs by North Korean escapees are appearing, as well as fiction by writers resident in North Korea, perhaps the best known of whom is the author styled Bandi. North Korean literature today exhibits broad variety; there is a long-established tradition of children’s literature, visual literature—both graphic novels and comic books—fiction in the genres of science fiction, political intrigue, and romances, as well as novels involving the personality cult surrounding the Kim family. E. Literature of the Korean Diaspora An increasingly important element of contemporary Korean literature, but one rarely discussed in scholarly writing, is the literature of the Korean diaspora, that is, writing by those of Korean descent living outside Korea. Today these works are usually written in the language of the adopted homeland. (The Chosŏnchok writers—those of the Korean minority in China—appear to be an exception, as are writers such as Kim Chiwŏn and Pak Shijŏng, who continued to write in Korean during their many years in the United States). Several Zainichi writers (those of Korean descent resident in Japan), following upon the success of Colonial-period Korean writers who wrote in Japanese, such as Kim Saryang and Chang Hyŏkchu, have in recent decades been honored with Japan’s most prestigious fiction award, the Akutagawa Prize, among them Yu Miri, Yi Yangji, Yi Hoesŏng (Ri Kaisei), and Kim Hag’yŏng. Soviet-Korean literature owes much to Cho Myŏnghŭi (see chapters 8 and 9), who trained an entire generation of writers before being seized and presumably executed by Soviet authorities. Lavrenti Son (Song)’s “Masteritsa” (The master seamstress, 1987) uses magical realism to retrieve a notorious and long-suppressed chapter in the history of the Koryŏ saram—Korean emigrants to the Russian Far East—the forced removal in 1937 of hundreds of thousands of ethnic Koreans to Central Asia (a topic also treated in Cho Chŏngnae’s O hanŭnim). Don’o Kim of Australia is the author of Password (1974), a political intrigue. One of the most engaging works of diaspora literature is Yi Mirŭk (Mirok Li)’s Der Yalu Fliesst (1946), an account of a childhood in a traditional Korean family in the early 1900s. Written in German, this memoir was subsequently translated into English (The Yalu Flows, 1955) and Korean (Amnokkang ŭn hŭrŭnda, 1979). Yi left colonial Korea for Germany shortly

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after the March 1, 1919, Independence Movement, and lived there the rest of his life. The literature of the Korean diaspora is especially well represented in English. Hawai’i, home to the first Korean immigrants (1903) to the United States, has produced the fiction writer Gary Pak and the poet Cathy Song. The first Korean American author to be published by a commercial American Press was Younghill Kang (Kang Yonghŭl), whose Grass Roof (Ch’odang, 1931; like Der yalu fliesst an account of a boyhood in Korea) and East Goes West (1937; about the author’s life as an American literary intellectual) gained wide visibility in the 1930s. Richard Kim achieved bestseller status in the United States in the 1960s with The Martyred (1964), an account of the dilemma faced by Presbyterian elders in P’yŏngyang amid an ideological climate hostile to Christianity. He followed with another novel sent against the backdrop of recent Korean history, The Innocent (1968), which takes place during the early years of the Park Chung Hee regime. Other notable memoirs about a past life in Korea are Heinz Insu Fenkl, Memories of My Ghost Brother (1996), an account of a biracial boy growing up in an American military camptown in Korea; Richard Kim’s Lost Names: Scenes From a Korean Boyhood (1970); Sook Nyul Choi’s Year of Impossible Goodbyes (1991), which involves a family’s flight from North Korea to South Korea during the chaos of the post-Liberation period; and Helie Lee’s Still Life with Rice (1996), in which the author channels the voice of her grandmother to produce a fascinating account of an independent-minded woman’s life during the Colonial, post-Liberation, and Korean War eras. Displacement and the formation and reconstruction of identity are the material of several contemporary novels, such as Chang-rae Lee’s Native Speaker (1996) and A Gesture Life (1999); Susan Choi’s The Foreign Student (1998), the ironically titled American Woman (2003), and A Person of Interest (2008); and Patti Kim’s A Cab Called Reliable (1997). Leonard Chang’s The Fruit ‘n’ Food (1996) and Dispatches from the Cold (1998) and Don Lee’s The Collective (2011) are visceral accounts of racial and ethnic conflict. Helen Kim’s The Long Season of Rain (1996) is an outstanding English-language example of the novel of family intrigue (kajŏng sosŏl). Conflicted family life is also rendered vividly in An Na’s A Step from Heaven (2001). Korean American authors have written excellent young-adult fiction; especially noteworthy are coming-of-age novels such as Marie Lee’s Finding My Voice (1992), Saying Goodbye (1994), and Necessary Roughness (1996), and An Na’s Wait for Me (2006). Transnational adoption is the subject of Jane Jeong Trenka’s influential memoir The Language of Blood (2003) and Marie Lee’s Someone’s Daughter (2005). Theresa Hak-Kyung Ch’a’s postmodern DICTÉE (1982) has achieved icon status among scholars of contemporary English-language literature.

Literature of the Late Twentieth and Early Twenty-first Centuries  F. Readings Ko Chŏnghŭi My Neighbor, Mrs. Ku Chamyŏng Mrs. Ku Chamyŏng, working mother and wife, Who has a seven-month-old baby, Begins to doze as soon as she boards the shuttle bus in the morning. Warmed by the morning sun, She dozes all the way from Ansan, Kyŏnggi-do, to Yŏŭido, Seoul, Nodding to the front and nodding to the sides. Horn blasts cannot wake her, The seasons flit past the window, And azaleas and chestnut blossoms smile; But Mrs. Ku Chamyŏng dozes away, like a sleeping Buddha. Yes, the first ten minutes Are the ten minutes she suckled her baby last night. And the next ten minutes Are the ten minutes she served medicine to her mother-in-law. That’s right, and the next ten minutes Is the time she spent putting her drunken husband to bed. At the beginning and end of each working day She dozes and shakes like a pansy flower. The flowers on the dining table bind women fast to their duties, Bur from every roof over every kitchen A family’s welfare sustained by a woman Is shooting an arrow of refusal Towards the sleep of death, Unnoticed by anyone. Translation by Suh Ji-moon Kim Hyesun When the Plug Gets Unplugged Chickens die first inside the plastic greenhouse. Eggs rot on the conveyor belt. Rotten pigs packed in the refrigerated trucks are delivered to all the butcher shops, the dead float up in the aquarium. The farmers market at Karak-dong decays and the filth swells up inside my body and you and I begin to rot in the open. I can’t leave the lights on for you any longer. We can no longer look each other in the face. You are completely cut off from me. Our skin melts, so anyone can look into anyone’s intestines. Toilets also overflow in dreams. Nothing goes down no matter

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Part II:  Modern Literature how many times you flush. Even the candles give off a stench. If you have a flame thrower or a tidal wave, please send it to me. Belgrade fell into darkness from the bombs that emitted black smoke. As the fighter jet dropped the bombs, the bombs exploded over the target and released black powder. The charged powder stuck to the power lines, caused a short circuit, burnt the lines, and disabled the power towers. NATO troops paralyzed the Yugoslavian troops’ information network, scrambling their computer system. Inside a dim room where the computers sit not saying anything crazy people increase in numbers. Birds shudder and fall off and flowers begin to eat worms. Furthermore, there are flowers that bite people. Here, below my feet, is the interior of the world. The dead chickens on the mud floor are strewn like mountains. Now, I throw salt at you—what little is left of you—inside my heart. Instead, the microbes that have remained dormant within my skin enlarge. They become as big as ants, then hedgehogs, and this morning they became as big as dogs. The dogs bite off our remaining days and roam. Rotten nipples of the world’s mothers drop like beans. Flies swarm what’s left of the torn bodies. That is how pervasive darkness is. Ghosts eat food that has gone bad and stagger off as if being tied up and pulled away on someone’s rope. Now you and I are merely shadows. Above the shadows, inside the sunlight, our silhouettes melt. We’re alive, but our brains contain only lumps of rice that have gone sour. With all the forms destroyed, only the meanings bubble up from the honey bucket and fall, then bubble up again. Please send me a flame thrower or a tidal wave as soon as possible. Translation by Don Mee Choi An Tohyŏn On a Winter River Bank (Kyŏul kanga esŏ, 2008) The tender snowflakes fell in the water and dissolved without substance, filling the river with profound regret. The river twisted and turned with chill watery gurgles as it struggled to change course before the snow could hit the water floor, but the foolish snow, unaware, kept falling. Last night, the river

Literature of the Late Twentieth and Early Twenty-first Centuries  began to lay a light carpet of ice From its edges out To take the snow to its bosom. Translation by Kevin O’Rourke P’yŏn Hyeyŏng The Canning Factory (T’ongjorim kongjang, 2011) It didn’t take long for the news to spread. The Manager had never been absent before—not once. The quick-witted ones had a hunch—something had happened to him, something bad, since the Manager was always the first to show and the last to go. Some time ago one of the workers had christened him the Custodian, not to his face of course, and the name had stuck. He had been around since the days of manual production, rising from the ranks of the line workers, and like most working people from that vintage era he distrusted automation and machines despite their benefits. So whether it was the rust check or the vacuum-seal test, or something in between, he himself did these “random” inspections of the cans twice as often as protocol demanded. And he availed himself of every opportunity to dress the workers down for gaping slack-jawed at the cans while the machines did all their work for them. His managerial style was to mind everyone’s business and give painfully precise orders. Even a crooked name tag had to be personally addressed. The Manager always took it upon himself to straighten the offending item, placing hand to chest as he did so, and when the female workers reacted with horror, he was quick to humiliate them with gross remarks about their chest sizes. He was a short-tempered man and in any dispute he was quick to fly off the handle. Nor did he ever apologize, even if the misunderstanding or the fault was his. So said the workers, at any rate, when the Boss questioned them about the Manager’s absence. The Boss was inclined to give the Manager the benefit of the doubt—rare was the manager, after all, who didn’t have a bad reputation among the workers. According to Pak, who had worked overtime with the Manager the night before his disappearance, the Manager had suggested a nightcap afterwards. When Pak turned him down, he had stomped off in the direction of the manager’s residence nearby, muttering that young people these days were so damned hard to deal with. “You think he’s passed out somewhere?” the Boss had asked Pak, knowing all too well that this was unlikely. The Manager drank himself silly nearly every night, but the next morning you could bet he’d be the first one to arrive, the stench of alcohol in his wake. You might say the Manager was a high-functioning alcoholic.

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Part II:  Modern Literature When Pak merely shrugged, the Boss had followed up: “What were you guys doing here last night anyway?” There wasn’t so much work that night shifts were necessary. The factory workers followed a nine-to-six workday, a schedule that even the office workers in the big-city companies would envy. By now everyone in the factory had heard that the economic recession was a global trend. And the voices doubting the wholesomeness of the processed foods grew louder by the day. A variety of foreign objects—a piece of a sharp metal here, a fly there, sometimes a worm, sometimes a scrap of plastic, even a fingernail clipping—fueled these voices, insuring that the issue wouldn’t soon be forgotten. Every time a story hit the papers or made the evening news, sales plummeted. Fewer cans were being delivered to domestic markets. It was the export market that sustained the factory, but only barely—the canning factories in the neighboring countries had captured a market share by offering lower prices. “It was a personal request from the Manager,” Pak replied to the Boss. “A personal request? In case you’ve forgotten, this is my factory. No one gets paid to do personal favors.” “We canned things,” Pak was quick to add. “So, you canned things. Why am I not surprised? Yes, this is a canning factory. We put things in cans, it’s all we do. It’s what we did yesterday, it’s what we did twenty-three years ago, it’s what we’ll do tomorrow, and it’s what we will do twenty-three years from now.” “He said they were going to be shipped to T.” The Boss looked Pak straight in the eye. Was T one of the countries his factory exported to? “Why T?” “His daughter is studying there.” “Is that what he said.” The Boss nodded. Pak watched as the Boss clenched his fist tight enough to crush an aluminum can. “That no-good. He’s learned a few tricks,” the Boss muttered to himself. The Boss could guess what was being canned for the Manager’s daughter. When his own son was off studying in U a long while ago, he had regularly canned various foods for him: fresh kimchi, spicy radish cubes, crabs slathered in soy sauce, marinated beef and pork, and stirfried squid. The list went on—sweet rice drink, kimchi stew, radish-leafbean-paste soup, and crispy anchovies. Missing homemade food had never been an issue for the boy. And guess who had done this canning job? The Manager, of course. Initially the Boss was worried. He knew the Manager lived alone, his wife having gone to T to look after their daughter. But the audacity of the man: who did he think he was, running the machines, using up electricity, and working the employees after hours? And so the Boss decided not to bother asking Pak to check on the Manager at the employee residence. And when on the next day, and the day after that, the Manager failed to show up, the Boss sent his operations

Literature of the Late Twentieth and Early Twenty-first Centuries  assistant, who also served as his personal secretary, to the residence to inform the Manager he was fired. And if he ever sets foot in my factory again.… The workers from the various sections were gathered in the break room for lunch. Each opened a can of mackerel, pike mackerel, or spicy sesame leaves as well as a container of pearly steamed rice from home. “It’s so unlike our Custodian,” one of the workers commented as he chewed on a chunk of mackerel. The deadliest flu couldn’t keep their Custodian from showing up before anyone else, reeking of booze as always. “I’m not too worried. But someone ought to call the police,” another added. Everyone nodded in agreement, all the while chewing on mackerel, pike mackerel, or spicy sesame leaves with rice. Someone pointed at an opened can. “That reminds me of him.” The Manager ate canned food for breakfast, alone at his residence. He ate canned food for lunch, with the others in the lounge. He ate canned food for dinner, washing it down with soju. “What kind of a life is that?” someone else asked before chomping into a sesame leaf–wrapped spoonful of rice. “Who here doesn’t live that life?” yet another shot back with a gust of mackerel breath. Silently the workers scooped up their garnish-streaked rice and chunks of mackerel. They chewed more slowly than usual. One by one they had all come to realize that the Manager’s daily life and meals weren’t much different from their own. They worked hard and lived submissively, and perhaps that was why they felt as if their lives had become so mundane, like the taste of the canned food they were eating. It was as if the future had been laid out for them. And this future was not much different from the Manager’s present—as much as they wanted to deny it. Maybe that was why no one liked the Manager and yet no one particularly hated him. They finished with their usual dessert—canned peaches and mandarin oranges. As they worked on the mushy peach flesh they tried to decide who should call the police. Each stole glances at Pak. He had been the last to see the Manager. If something horrible had happened to the Manager—and by now they all feared the worst—would Pak get in trouble? Pak did have an alibi. After his night shift he had dropped by his favorite eatery and joined a co-worker at his table. A popular sitcom was playing on the television. How come the female lead was screaming her head off? Pak had asked the woman who ran the place and had served him his meal. The woman’s answer went on and on, as if she felt she had to defend the actress. Being the last one to see the Manager didn’t necessarily mean Pak would be branded a suspect. The Manager could have had the bad luck to have fallen off a bridge, to have been beaten to death by a gang of robbers, or to have fallen victim to a hit-and-run driver as he wobbled around town drunk. Such misfortunes could happen to anyone.

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Part II:  Modern Literature Just as someone reached for the last slice in his can of peaches the Secretary came running in. After catching his breath he took a swig of peach juice remaining in one of the cans. “You’ll cut your lips drinking it like that,” someone advised him. “As if! Let me tell you—I drank peach juice out of the can yesterday, I drank it the day before that, and I drank it twelve years ago,” the Secretary muttered as he put the can down. “The Boss notified the police.” A short groan filled the room, as if they all had cut their lips on a partially opened can. “And the police.…“ The Secretary slurped the last drops of peach juice and someone gulped. “The police said he might simply have gone off somewhere on his own, so we should be patient for the time being.” So saying, the Secretary found another can of fruit—this time mandarin oranges—to drink. Like a group of friends sharing a hot bowl of fish-cake soup in the cold outdoors, the workers passed around the cans that still had some juice left. No lips were cut. The last one gathered the empty cans, and as if the rattling were a cue, the lunch bell rang. * Pak’s job was to seal cans of pike mackerel. He did, for a short period following the Manager’s promotion, seal plain mackerel as well. This interlude aside, he had always been a sealer of pike mackerel. Theoretically the workers were free to choose which items they worked on. If one was tired of the salty fish stink, one could move on to the produce line and can peaches or mandarin oranges. If the sweet, tangy smell of fruit became nauseating, one could transfer back to the seafood line. But in reality no one switched. It was the Manager who had implemented this freedomof-movement policy. The story went like this: The Manager himself had held the same post—canning pike mackerel—for twelve years, ever since he started working at the factory. Those were the earlier days of the factory. After two years, everything long and pointy, even rulers at the stationery stores, reminded him of a pike mackerel. The pike mackerel alone made him want to quit. And so, stinking of fish, he went to see the Boss. “I’m sick and tired of pike mackerel. I’d rather smell plain mackerel.” He had always liked mackerel. “If that’s how you feel,” said the Boss, “then switch to mackerel. Don’t other companies allow that, too?” The Manager ended up staying at the factory, and for the next ten years he canned mackerel. When Boss number one was dead and buried, his successor ramped up production. The tangy smells of peaches and mandarin oranges, citrus acid, and sugar blended with the odors of salt, fish, and grease, forming the characteristic reek of the factory. Night shifts were increased, and more workers were hired. In his inaugural speech the Manager had encouraged the workers to can whichever item tickled their fancy. Like choosing a favorite song or a favorite movie. Which was

Literature of the Late Twentieth and Early Twenty-first Centuries  their pleasure—mackerel, pike mackerel, peaches, or mandarin oranges? Pak opted for plain mackerel. Food preference wasn’t the issue. He was just a bit tired of handling pike mackerel. Like Pak, most of the workers chose an item they had never worked with. But the fat mackerel rebelled against hands accustomed to a narrow pike mackerel, while the pike mackerel slipped through hands used to plain mackerel. It wasn’t long until the workers realized there was nothing unique about their newly chosen item. In the end, having a choice didn’t matter, for all the items went through the same process: cut or gut, marinate, cook, seal, disinfect, freeze, and then pack. Pak went back to canning pike mackerel. He did after all prefer the familiar to the unknown, and pike mackerel was the perfect fish for him. Different explanations of the Manager’s abrupt disappearance made the rounds. Rumor number one went like this: The Manager had run away fearing the discovery of his affair with one of the workers. This was based on a claim that whenever the Manager got drunk—which was nearly every day—he visited a certain individual at the women’s residence. Someone added that on a day off he had spotted the Manager on a date with said woman. Though from a distance he couldn’t be a hundred percent sure, it could have been another woman, someone who looked similar, or a friend’s wife. In fact this sighting had been a while ago, and so the woman could even have been his wife—she had not yet left for T. The gossip reached everyone’s ears, but only a few believed it. After all, the Manager had a swarthy complexion, a receding hairline, a beer belly, and short legs. Dandruff had turned the shoulders of his dark blue work uniform almost white, and his greasy hair curved up at the base of his neck like a bird’s tail. And whenever he opened his mouth, a fish stench or a sweet tangy smell, like that of a child, escaped from it. In short, he was not the type a woman might become infatuated with. For her part, the heroine of the rumor had a pale face, a taciturn disposition, and a cool air. The other women workers didn’t like it that her appearance was different from theirs, nor were they happy with the men who seemed to look down on them or else ignore them altogether. As it turned out, the secret-affair story was part rumor and part truth. The Manager did visit the woman’s residence—just not every night when he was drunk. And their relationship had started long before his wife left for T, and had ended a while ago. The woman said not a word about the Manager. Maybe she had some information, maybe not. She was entitled to her privacy. Rumor number two was the embezzlement theory. Some said the Manager had been under financial strain ever since he had sent his daughter to T. Those who knew better were aware that the factory wasn’t profitable enough for the Manager to have stolen a large sum. But no one stepped up to counter the theory. “Going back to Korea won’t make my husband appear out of thin air” was the response of the Manager’s wife when the Secretary called to inform her of her husband’s disappearance. The Manager’s daughter had

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Part II:  Modern Literature recently been admitted to a prestigious private school in T and could not miss classes—the semester had already begun and the Manager’s wife had to stay to take care of her daughter. In short, she could not return to Korea right away. “The police said that cases like this are more likely to involve a fatal accident than a simple disappearance.” The Secretary paused for dramatic effect. “He might be dead.” The Manager’s wife heaved a sigh. “I’ll say it again—that does not change the fact that my return will not bring him back from the dead. I’ll pay a visit when his body is found.” As he hung up, the Secretary recalled how his own wife had recently begun pestering him about sending their daughter overseas to study. Perhaps that wasn’t such a good idea. A week into his investigation, the Detective learned that the Manager and Pak had not been on good terms with each other. Someone had reported seeing Pak talking back to the Manager in the locker room on the day of his disappearance. The Detective called Pak to the small office in the storage building. Why had he argued with the Manager in the locker room? Did the Manager often ask him to work after hours as a personal favor? How long had it taken him to can things for the Manager that night? Which items did he can? What did he, Pak, do after he left the factory that night? Did anything seem different about the Manager that day? How did he and the Manager get along usually? When Pak had answered these questions, the Detective rose and walked out into the storage building. Pak followed. “So what did you do with the cans you packed that day?” “The usual—I sent them to T the next day.” “Is it common for the workers to can things for themselves like that?” Pak shook his head slowly. The truth was, all the workers had secretly sealed something inside a can. One of them had put a ring inside a can of tuna and given it to his girlfriend, who opened the aluminum container, heard the ring rattle inside, tried it on, and laughed. Another canned a cheap toy and gave it to his son for Christmas—pulling the lid off revealed a few Lego blocks and a simple robot that could transform into an airplane. The workers soon found that there were no limits to what could be canned—the deed to one’s very first home, love letters to former lovers, a cooked cat for a father’s rheumatism. The cat canner had bought the animal at the market—his co-workers had assumed it was a stray—and poached it to tenderness before canning it. He got caught, though, and had to submit a written explanation. And rumor had it that the Boss used cans instead of a safe to store his cash. Someone claimed to have witnessed him stuffing wads of cash inside cans and then securing the money with the pressurizer button—this was after the Boss had completed his monthly task of reconciling the accounts. Plausible. But the Boss denied it furiously when the rumor reached his ears.

Literature of the Late Twentieth and Early Twenty-first Centuries  One night, when Pak and the Manager were alone in the factory to can things to be sent to T, the Manager had asked him, “So, what’s your secret?” “What do you mean?” “What have you canned?” Pak had never canned anything for personal use. Even if he had wanted to, he didn’t have any treasures of his own to can, nor was there anyone to whom he might have bequeathed canned goods. “Just between you and me,” the Manager began. “My daughter used to have a dog. When it died, she wouldn’t stop crying and she wouldn’t let anybody take it from her. This was in the summer and I was afraid the dog was going to stink to high heaven, but she won’t let me bury it. So when she was sleeping, I sneaked it from her and canned it. The can stayed in her room for a while and she used to pet it and cry over it. But then she got a new dog and forgot about the can. So I threw it in the ocean.” The Manager put his finger over his lips. “Don’t tell anyone.” Pak nodded. A shadow of regret glazed over the Manager’s eyes. Pak had kept silent throughout the story to give the impression that he could be trusted with a secret. But he felt he had to say something lest the Manager mistake his silence for disinterest. “By the way, how did you manage to get the dog into the can?” “It was a tiny little thing and it fit snugly in the largest can. No need to chop it up—but I almost had to.” The Manager frowned as though he was imagining himself doing it. “I shouldn’t have to get blood on my hands because of a dog.” The Manager looked down at his hands and turned the palms up a few times as if checking for blood. “Sometimes I wonder—maybe I’ll change my will so I’m cremated and my ashes are kept in a can. Who wants to rot away beneath a pile of dirt or have his bones dumped in a marble urn and shelved in a charnel house? All my life I worked in the canning factory, and all my life I handled cans. I have seen these cans evolve over time—new materials, new ways to open them. From this I realized that people are enjoying more and more convenience in their lives. The changes in the label designs taught me about new trends in advertising. The different flavors and the new items literally showed me that people’s tastes change. In a way, these cans taught me the ways of the world.” “It’d be a shame if the world turns out as hollow as a can.” It was a hasty remark, and Pak regretted it instantly. He added, “I guess you could at least be canned for transport to the crematory.” The Manager gazed at him blankly. Looking at that humorless face made Pak realize that he and the Manager would never be able to relate to each other; they were like birds that migrate during different seasons. But at the same time, he wondered—it was a bit strange that the Manager had mentioned such things to him out of the blue. If he had followed up with questions, the Manager might have said more. But Pak had not

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Part II:  Modern Literature asked. Would things have changed had Pak asked and the Manager answered? Perhaps. But of course this was only an assumption. “Big cans like these”—the Detective now tapped his fingers against a 10-kilogram canister—“what are they used for?” “They’re used for export or for sale to businesses.” “So, I guess you like eating canned goods?” “Not really. In fact I don’t.” The Detective gave him a puzzled look. “Then how can you eat them every day? And how have you managed to last at a canning factory for nearly ten years?” “Well, I don’t eat canned goods. I don’t like the way they taste. But that doesn’t mean I can’t work at a canning factory. Just because a man doesn’t use tampons doesn’t mean he can’t work in a tampon factory.” The Detective nodded. “I guess you don’t find your job very inter­ esting.” “I’m sure you’d agree that every job has parts you like and parts you hate.” “I suppose so. What’s the hardest part in canning?” “Sometimes I nick my fingers on the rims or the lids. That can be annoying.” “Other than that, you like your job?” “The salty stink of fish is hard to tolerate. The oil smell gets pretty bad too. Right now I’m sealing the cans, but for a while I gutted fish. Back then I didn’t feel like touching anything mushy or smooth. Not even the skin of a woman. But the worst part of all…” The Detective shifted his eyes from the ingredient list on a can label to Pak. “…is everything is repetitive. Me, I seal cans all day. Some people chop off pike mackerel heads all day, some people finger out fish intestines. Some salt fish, some box cans. All day long.” “That does sound kind of boring. Then what’s the fun part?” For the first time since he had graduated all those years ago, Pak felt as if he were taking a test. It was an unpleasant feeling, but the Detective’s indifferent attitude thus far had him feeling obliged to answer as best he could. “The fact that everything is repetitive.” The Detective shot him a look. Is he kidding me? “All day you watch empty cans moving round and round the factory on conveyor belts. It makes you dizzy. It gives you a headache. Small flies buzz around your ears, so you have to pick at your ears constantly. Not a day goes by without a new scab on your ears. If the work required thinking or problem solving, I’d probably have a devil of a time doing it. But all that’s required is that you stand in front of the belt and go through the familiar motions. Your thoughts dry up and you become part of the

Literature of the Late Twentieth and Early Twenty-first Centuries  machine. It’s like reaching a whole new state of being, though I can’t say I’m proud of it.” The Detective nodded curtly, then snapped his notebook shut and asked Pak to show him the manager’s residence. The Detective hadn’t written a word in that notebook. Intimidated all the same, Pak set off toward the manager’s residence, mumbling to the Detective about the time the conveyor belt broke and he had sealed the same can twice. The manager’s residence was a modest bachelor’s apartment. A stifflooking bed more suitable for long-term care in a hospital; a desk and a bookshelf made of compressed sawdust, likely part of a bulk purchase by the general affairs department; and a fabric sofa and a dresser constituted the furniture. The kitchen was minimally equipped. The refrigerator held water, leftover rice, and a bunch of plastic containers of canned food opened up for use as drinking snacks. Almost all the storage space available—the cupboards above the sink and the three drawers below— was filled with cans of mackerel, pike mackerel, pickled sesame leaves, peaches, and mandarin oranges. The dresser likewise yielded not clothes but stacks of cans—in all three drawers. “He must have developed a craving for canned foods—he’s got them squirreled away everywhere,” the Detective commented. Pak selected a couple of cans from one of the piles and handed them to the Detective. “Here, try one.” “As long as you don’t tell the Manager,” the Detective joked. “He wouldn’t mind. We all have plenty of them—in the factory and at home. Actually they’re part of our pay.” “They are?” Pak nodded assuredly. “The factory has always struggled. And the recession is getting worse—the Boss said it could put a small canning factory out of business. What’s worse, no one trusts the cans—or rather their long expiry dates, to be exact. The assumption that canned foods don’t spoil fast makes people skeptical. Killing and processing living things and then sealing them so they’re kept fresh—in other words, artificially treating something that’s dead and then storing it so it doesn’t go bad—that’s what canning is all about. But no one really believes it works—keeping materials in the same state, that is. And so the cans don’t sell, and because they don’t sell, we get to take them home as part of our salary.” “But you said that you don’t eat canned foods. So what do you do with the cans you take home?” “Well, I don’t eat them but my family and my relatives in other cities do. So I send them off.” The Detective nodded. “This can you gave me today, how long will it last?” he asked as they headed back to the factory.

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Part II:  Modern Literature “The expiration date depends on the item, but generally it’s somewhere between twenty-four and sixty months. It’s printed on the lid.” “So, five years at most. So you’re saying it’s possible to keep food from spoiling for as long as five years.…” “Approximately. The assumption is, the food is perfectly safe until the expiry date but right afterwards it starts to break down. That’s why we dispose of cans that are past their expiration date—we don’t even check them.” The Detective shrugged and got in his car. A couple of days later the Boss got a call from the Detective—owing to lack of evidence, the investigation into the Manager’s disappearance was being suspended. * The Manager was gone, but on the whole the factory operated without much trouble. Nothing happened that couldn’t be expected to happen in a canning factory. The machines whirred, the foodstuffs were canned, the cans were sent off for distribution and shipping. When the bell rang at lunchtime, the workers gathered in the break room as usual and sat in a circle around the cans they had opened. And when they opened the cans they were sometimes confused as to whether they were having lunch or performing a post-production inspection. Nevertheless, their mouths, once the food entered, moved mechanically as if that was part of the postproduction inspection. No one was crazy about the canned foods but no one admitted to disliking them either. And so the workers ate them without complaint. One day one of them exclaimed that she was tired of canned and proceeded to cook a pot of kimchi stew in the kitchenette. The stew wasn’t anything exceptional, and the pork she added didn’t do much for it. As the others waited for the stew, they grew so hungry that their appetites were ruined. Everyone fussed about how the noise from the machines and the smell in the factory must have affected their taste buds. The next day, when they didn’t have time to cook anything, they had to resort to canned food and their appetites and taste buds felt normal again. The salty fish taste was what they were comfortable with— thanks to their numb, tolerant taste buds. Most telling of all, the canned foods were plentiful. After lunch, ample amounts of canned peaches and mandarin oranges were available to wash down the canned fish. Someone asked if it was all right to eat canned food every day. Someone else answered that it probably didn’t matter as long as it was just for lunch. But it wasn’t just for lunch. Most of them, when they returned home at the end of the day, threw canned pike mackerel into soup or stew along with kimchi or they diced up canned mackerel and added it to bean paste and had it in lettuce wraps for dinner. One time, a worker sighed about how she had gone grocery shopping and happened to pick up a can of pike mackerel and a can of mackerel produced in their factory. Here and there, reticent voices confessed to having done the same. Another time

Literature of the Late Twentieth and Early Twenty-first Centuries  someone declared, “People can say what they want, but at least we should eat food that we can at our factory.” The same sentiment was voiced the day it was reported nationwide that a worm was found inside a can of mackerel produced at a different factory. But these workers would have been hard pressed to say it was their loyalty that made them use their own factory’s canned goods for lunch. As the Manager had said, eating canned food was a matter of personal preference. While the others were sitting in a circle around the opened cans as they ate, Pak had a quick lunch in the small storage office and then took a nap until it was time to go back to work. All kinds of odors hung in the air in this cramped office—a mixture of phenol, acetic acid, grease from the motors, lubricant thinly applied to the machines, rubber from tubing or boots, fish intestines, and fruit peels. Maybe it was that medley of smells that had Pak dreaming about factory work even during these short naps. In the dreams he was sealing the cans that came up to him on the conveyor belt. In those cans he sometimes sealed his own hand, or an empty can inside another empty can inside yet another empty can. Or the Manager would show up and hand him items to be canned in turn. Some items he could can. Others he couldn’t—the Boss’s safe or a dead dog with its legs amputated. One time he was given a large skull. When Pak asked how he could possibly seal a skull the Manager pointed to a grinder that looked like the ones used in mills to crush grain. Without skipping a beat Pak went to the machine, adjusted its settings, then dropped in the skull. As the pulverized skull spewed out the other end, Pak collected the powder inside a can. The canned skull was mixed in among thousands of identical-looking cans. Lunchtime wasn’t long, and when the second bell rang to signal the return to work, the workers flooded out from the break room and reclaimed their positions on the mackerel line, the pike mackerel line, the pickled radish line, the peaches line, or the mandarin oranges line. The conveyor belt slid along endlessly, bringing mackerel or pike mackerel to cut up, peaches and mandarin oranges to treat with a weak solution of hydrochloric acid and then peel, foods to process with acetate, cans to seal and monitor, and cans to collect at random for inspection. Small accidents did occur, like the one on the produce-canning line. Near the end of the day, a worker tearfully confessed that her right contact lens must have dropped into one of the cans during the sealing process. “How did that happen?” “I was rubbing my eyes because I was sleepy. I think that’s how.” “How come you didn’t notice it earlier?” “Watching the belt go around always makes my head swim. I thought my vision was blurry because I was dizzy, not because I couldn’t see.” She had only discovered the loss of the lens while she was changing out of her uniform to go home. The persistent dizziness owed not to vertigo but to the mismatch of vision of her eyes. She had combed

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Part II:  Modern Literature through every item to which the lens could have stuck, but it didn’t turn up. More than a thousand cans of fruit had passed in front of her that day. Those thousand cans had passed the disinfection stage and were lined up waiting to be boxed. One of those thousand cans stacked along the wall contained her contact lens. To find the fingernail-sized lens she would have had to open a thousand cans. And then reseal them. Easy enough to say, but because microbes start to grow as soon as the cans are opened, resealing was not an option—it was company policy. To the flustered worker, Pak made a suggestion. “Tomorrow morning, just tell people that you found it. Say it was stuck to your uniform.” “But what if someone finds it?” the worker asked anxiously. “The lens could turn up inside one of the cans next month, five years from now, or never. If the can ends up at a drinking place, probably no one will notice. The cook will just pick it out—he won’t be eating food like that. The customers might be too drunk to notice or they might think someone in the kitchen lost it. And if it ends up at a hospital, that’s a luckier outcome. But while we wait for something that may or may not happen, our situation here at the company might change—don’t you think?” The woman slowly nodded, as if understanding for the first time that the sealed cans contained a secret universe of their own. The fourth month after the Manager’s disappearance, there was a recall of mackerel. The recalled cans had been produced around the time the Manager went missing. A consumer had found a red clump inside a can of mackerel he bought at a supermarket. He had thought it was mackerel blood, but the mere sight of blood in a processed food item had made him queasy enough to report it. Shock waves spread when tests revealed it was human blood. The factory spokesman explained that one of the workers had cut his hand and that blood from the wound had found its way into the can. But in fact, there had been no injuries at the factory around that time. And none of the procedures ran the risk of a wound severe enough to result in such severe bleeding. Even a cut finger was bound to have been noticed. Over fourteen hundred cans were produced on the day the tainted product was canned. Some of those recalled cans were discovered to contain a significant amount of blood, some a moderate amount, and others barely any. The resulting suspension of production led the Boss to work his lines night and day to make up the shortfall and meet the quota. Mere mention of the recall caused the Boss’s face to scrunch up. By the time the suspension was lifted, the Boss’s eyes had become redder than blood due to exhaustion and the Secretary’s face seemed to have turned permanently blood-red in reaction to the Boss’s flaring temper. The Manager didn’t own much. If you eliminated his factory uniform, his worn undergarments, and a few outfits for going out on the town, his remaining possessions all fit into a single trunk. The Manager’s wife

Literature of the Late Twentieth and Early Twenty-first Centuries  bequeathed Pak all the cans in the kitchen cupboards and the three drawers. But when Pak attempted to reciprocate with a couple of cans he had packed for her as keepsakes, she adamantly refused. “My daughter and I, we don’t eat canned food anyway. Once I opened a can of mackerel and”—the Manager’s wife shuddered, as if the memory still haunted her—“found a dead dog inside. Since then, my daughter’s been disgusted by canned food. But now that I think about it, a parcel was mailed to us a few days after I got that phone call about him. There were cans of pike mackerel and cans of mackerel. I was sure he would have sent kimchi, pickled radish cubes, or something like that. Why would he send us cans when he knew so well that we didn’t eat canned food?” Pak looked squarely at the Manager’s wife. “His body will turn up someday, won’t it?” she asked in a grief-filled voice. “Don’t say that. He might have just gone off somewhere for a while.” “You know he’s not the type to do that—and where would he go?” Pak couldn’t find any words of consolation, and shut his mouth. After the Manager’s wife returned to T, Pak moved his belongings to the manager’s residence. He didn’t own much—just a few undergarments and lightweight clothing that fit easily into two of the three dresser drawers. He filled the third drawer with cans—but not enough to prevent them from clattering every time he opened or shut the drawer. Among the cans left by the Manager, some were past their expiration date, some were close to it, and others had plenty of time left. Pak took the time to organize the cans in the drawers by type, expiry date, and size. The Boss promoted Pak to fill the vacant managerial position. And now it was Pak, the new manager of the factory, who was the first to arrive in the morning. Being the only one in the factory as he pressed the power buttons that set the silent machines into motion gave him the jitters—it was like awakening a monster. Only when the machines started to roar like a barking beast did he feel as if his day was under way. And he was the last one to leave at the end of the workday. When he turned off the power and was enveloped by the silence, he felt as if he was one of the dead fish sealed inside a can. Once he returned to his private residence, he marinated himself in booze. He needed his sleep. He knew that being the first to show and the last to go had others calling him the Custodian behind his back, but he pretended to be unaware of it. One day he decided to have breakfast, for the combination of working longer hours on an empty stomach and suffering from a hangover gave him heartburn. He hesitated briefly, then took a can from the drawer and opened it. He took a bite—not bad. The salty fish taste gradually disappeared as he chewed on the mixture of bones and flesh, the sauce in the pike mackerel spreading in his mouth. It tasted better than he had imagined. Then a few more bites—pretty tasty. At lunchtime he mingled with the other workers and ate rice with canned food.

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Part II:  Modern Literature “Oh, I thought you didn’t eat canned food,” someone commented as Pak stuffed a chunk of pike mackerel into his mouth. It had been a while now since he had begun joining the others for lunch. Pak grinned ­widely as he spooned in white rice stained with sauce from the canned pike mackerel. For dessert he had canned peaches and mandarin oranges with the others. The sweet tang in his mouth persisted even after he brushed his teeth. It was like sucking on candy all day. It didn’t bother him. After work, back at his residence, he selected some cans and cooked the contents with kimchi or diced them up for a drinking snack. When he had exhausted his own stock of cans he turned to the Manager’s. He opened the first can. What the...? He checked the label, then reexamined the contents. He opened a couple more cans, then burst into laughter. What a splendid joke! The label and contents didn’t match. Sometimes a can of pike mackerel yielded plain mackerel or pickled sesame leaves. Likewise the cans of mackerel. And the cans of fruit. Other cans, probably intended for shipment to T, contained the likes of beans in soy sauce or stir-fried anchovies, or even moldy old boiled potatoes that gave off a sour smell. No can could be judged by its label. As he ate mackerel from pike mackerel cans, beans from mackerel cans, and sesame leaves in sesame leaf cans, he thought to himself that this was the first time the Manager had ever made him laugh. It wasn’t just food that came out of those cans. There were unwashed socks and underwear—repulsive! There were bank statements showing cash transfers to T. A couple of letters from his daughter in T, written in English. A couple months’ worth of pay slips, bank receipts for his pension contributions, an insurance contract. A key chain with the Manager’s initials engraved on it, along with a matching one with someone else’s initials. And then there were the credit card statements. Pak pored over the various payments. There for all to see was the evidence that the Manager had met someone for dinner, coffee, and a movie some time ago. He paid close attention to each and every item, but it did make him uneasy—he felt as if he had gotten himself involved in the Manager’s life without meaning to. The moment he pulled back the lid of a can continued to unnerve him. As for the contents, they were anyone’s guess. What if one day a mysterious gumbo of bones and flesh smelling of blood and rot turned up? Pak gave it some thought and decided he would take it to the factory. After all, the Manager had even canned a dog there. He would put that gumbo in the largest can—carefully, without getting blood on his hands—and seal it nice and tight with the pressurizer. The air trapped in the can would be sucked out with a hiss and the foul-­smelling mix of bone and flesh would again be sealed away in silent secrecy. This would be the first can Pak sealed with something other than pike mackerel or mackerel inside. For some time Pak gazed at the contents of the can he had just opened so slowly with his can opener as he thought to himself—the Manager probably would have done the same thing. Translation by Soohyun Chang

Literature of the Late Twentieth and Early Twenty-first Centuries  Chang Chŏng’il Mother (Ŏmŏni, 1987) Characters: Big Fist, a man in his forties Whiteface, a man in his twenties; he is to be played by a woman Setting: a prison (The curtain rises to reveal both men sitting, eyes closed, with contemplative expressions.) Big Fist: (opening his eyes) Hey, Whiteface! Whiteface: Yes, sir! Big Fist: What’s this I hear about you getting out? Whiteface: That’s what the Grand Magistrate told me. Big Fist: You idiot! He always talks like that: “Now if you listen to me, you’ll get out right away.”... But just because you’re getting out right away, don’t think you can ignore Mister Big Fist here. Whiteface: Yes, sir, I understand. Big Fist: What time is it? Whiteface: Time for your exercise, sir! Big Fist: Right. Get ready. Whiteface: Yes, sir! (gets up and stands at attention) (Big Fist throws Whiteface over his shoulder with a judo-like move. Whiteface springs back up and stands at attention. Big Fist throws him again. Whiteface gets up and stands at attention. The process is repeated ad nauseam.) Big Fist: Okay, that’s enough. Get the snack ready. Whiteface: Yes, sir! Big Fist: (punching Whiteface hard in the stomach) I can’t hear you. Whiteface: (collapses from the blow) Yes, sir! I’ll do better, sir! Big Fist: (turning away from Whiteface) Whew, look at me sweat—now that’s exercise. (Whiteface rises with difficulty, then mixes butter and sugar and presents it on a plate with several pieces of hardtack to Big Fist.)

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Part II:  Modern Literature Whiteface: Your snack is ready, sir! Big Fist: (spreads butter on a piece of hardtack and eats) You can have some too. Whiteface: Yes, sir. (gingerly reaches out and takes a piece of hardtack) Big Fist: (glaring at Whiteface) So, the Grand Magistrate came to see you? Whiteface: Yes, sir. He said I’m getting out right away. Big Fist: And yet you’re having some of my snack? Soon as you’re out you’ll be chewing gum and shoveling down noodles, bananas, short ribs, pork strips, steak—anything your little heart desires—and yet you’re going to help yourself to Mister Big Fist’s snack? You son of a bitch! (Whiteface is filled with fear.) Big Fist: (beating his chest and wailing) Of all the lowlife crooks, helping himself to poor little Big Fist’s snack! (wails, then violently kicks Whiteface) I’ve never seen such a thieving son of a bitch! (kicks him again) You’ve got about as much compassion as a rat’s pecker! (Whiteface writhes in agony on the floor. Big Fist watches for a short time, then picks up Whiteface’s piece of hardtack with his toes and puts it in front of Whiteface’s mouth. Whiteface shakes his head.) Eat it! (Whiteface shakes his head.) Asshole! Eat it! (Whiteface eats the hardtack. Big Fist dips his hardtack in butter and eats.) Now, tell me all the things you’re going to eat when you get out. Relax, take your time. Whiteface: (in a monotone) Sponge cake...sandwiches... salad...peaches... plums...pineapple...cherries...grapes...tomatoes.... (Big Fist closes his eyes and frowns, lost in the reverie of eating the foods Whiteface is listing. He continues to dip pieces of hardtack in butter and eat them. A long pause.) Big Fist: All right, that’s enough. Now, tell me all the things you can do when you get out. Whiteface: (in a monotone) Movies...working in the garden...interior decoration...a walk around the block...pets...cooking...knitting...writing poetry...listening to music.... Big Fist: (shoves Whiteface in the chest with the flat of his foot) Listen to this—it’s all women’s stuff. What’re you in for anyway—stealing flowers, right? How’d I ever get penned up with a pansy picker like you? You’re a disgrace! Listen, asshole, cut the crap and give me something interesting—interesting! Whiteface: smoking—

Soccer...swimming...going

out

with

the

ladies...sex...

Literature of the Late Twentieth and Early Twenty-first Centuries  Big Fist: Hold it—what was that you just said? Whiteface: Smoking. Big Fist: Before that. Whiteface: Going out with the ladies. Big Fist: Not that one, you asshole. Whiteface: Sex. Big Fist: Sex!... You ever had sex? Whiteface: No, sir. Big Fist: How come? Whiteface: I haven’t had time. My mother’s always been sick. I have to work—to make money for her medicine. Big Fist: You haven’t had time? (wails) I’ve had time—twenty years’ worth. That’s a long time—long enough to rot from boredom—and not once have I ever had a whiff of a lady’s hair. Are you telling me that once you get out you’re going to do that thing that Mister Big Fist here hasn’t done for twenty years? Every day you can do what I haven’t done for twenty years, is that it? (Whiteface hangs his head; Big Fist is suddenly solicitous) Hey, it’s okay, it’s okay.… Tell you what, Whiteface—how would you like to do Mister Big Fist here a favor? Whiteface: (delighted) Yes, sir, Mister Big Fist! Don’t think of it as a favor; just tell me what to do. Big Fist: Right. (approaches Whiteface) Well, now, don’t you look just like that forget-me-not you stole. (strokes Whiteface’s chin) How long you been in? Whiteface: I’m kind of embarrassed to say this—a little over six months. Big Fist: And you’re getting out already? Whiteface: I’m really sorry about this, but the Grand Magistrate— Big Fist: Okay, forget it. You realize, don’t you, that a guy like me—a killer, a robber—deserves to be behind bars for life. Whiteface: No, no, no. You should be out right away. If the Grand Magistrate only knew.… Big Fist: (sighs) Twenty years. Who knows how much longer I’ll be cooped up here. Whiteface: I’m sorry.

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Part II:  Modern Literature Big Fist: Time for that favor.… How’d you like to give me a flower? Whiteface: I’m not sure I understand. Big Fist: A flower. Whiteface: A flower? (The lights dim.) Big Fist: Listen—I’m a starving man—a man who hasn’t seen a flower in twenty years. Who knows how much longer I’ll have to wait? Whiteface: No—don’t. Big Fist: No? Hey, it’s okay. Whiteface: No—don’t. Big Fist: Come on, take it easy. It’s not going to hurt. (Lights out. A scream from Whiteface, followed by gasping from Big Fist. Pause. Lights. The two men appear as at the opening curtain—eyes closed, as if in contemplation. Big Fist opens his eyes.) Big Fist: (affectionately) Whiteface. Whiteface: Mmm? Big Fist: (desperately) Are you—are you— Whiteface: What’s the matter? You can tell me. Big Fist: Are you getting out soon? Whiteface: That’s what the Grand Magistrate said. Big Fist: Really? Whiteface: Yeah. Really! Big Fist: (dejectedly) Oh, that’s good, Whiteface. Just think—you’ll be able to see what the world looks like again. Whiteface: (sensing Big Fist’s melancholy) Well, I don’t know.… The Grand Magistrate is always talking like that.… “You’ll be out in no time”…and I’ve put ten years in here.… Big Fist: No. It’s important that he said that. Look at me—thirty years, and no one’s ever said anything like that to me. Whiteface: Let’s not talk about it. What’s the use of trying to predict who’s getting out first? That’s for the Grand Magistrate to decide.… What time is it, anyway?

Literature of the Late Twentieth and Early Twenty-first Centuries  Big Fist: Hard to say. The sunlight’s halfway down the bars, so it must be about two, huh? Whiteface: Let’s get some exercise. Big Fist: Okay. (They stand back to back, lock arms, and take turns lifting each other onto their back. Then they massage each other’s back.) Big Fist: Wow, look at you sweat. (wipes the other’s face with the bottom of his shirt) Whiteface: (kisses Big Fist on the lips) Thanks. I’ll get the snack ready. Big Fist: Fine. (The two of them dip their hardtack in butter and eat, sometimes feeding each other.) Big Fist: Whiteface. Whiteface: Mmm? Big Fist: You know how to write? Whiteface: Sure. Big Fist: You’re going to write me when you get out, aren’t you? Whiteface: Sure, why not? Big Fist: Terrific! It’ll be great getting a letter from you. Tell me what you’re going to write. Give me an idea. Whiteface: What’s the use of getting a letter you already know about? Big Fist: Well…you see, I can’t read. So if I hear it now I’ll know what’s in it. I can memorize it. Whiteface: Well…okay, it’ll be something like this: Dear Big Fist.… (like a grade school boy reading a book aloud) The sky is clear and pastel blue. On a day like this, I miss you even more, because I think about how we used to rest our heads against each other and look out through the bars at a tiny patch of sky. I’m waiting for you, Big Fist—waiting on a hill beside the river where cows are feeding on the soft grass. I hope we can love each other here like we did there. (soft, colored lights) And so…I’m crying because I miss you. My crying is louder than the lowing of the cows, gentler than a flute. None of these cows can call as gently or as loud as I cry. Big Fist, like these grazing cows, I want to touch my mouth to you, and suck your great chest for all I’m worth. I’m a starving man. I love you more than a cow loves grass. Can’t you get out sooner, Big Fist? Give the Grand Magistrate a try. Hurry and take me in your arms. I’m

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Part II:  Modern Literature crying beneath this vast sky—put an end to my sorrow. Hurry, Big Fist, hurry. (Big Fist approaches Whiteface, and the lights fade.) Big Fist, come quickly and take me in your arms! (Lights out as Big Fist and Whiteface embrace. Two gasping, passionate voices. Pause. Lights. The two men appear as at the opening curtain.) Big Fist: Whiteface. Whiteface: Yeah? Big Fist: How long have we been together? Whiteface: Twenty years. Big Fist: For twenty years the Grand Magistrate has been saying he’ll set you free. Whiteface: He said it just yesterday…said I’d be out in no time. (pause) Big Fist: Whiteface, your mother’s still alive, isn’t she? (pause) Whiteface: Yeah, she’s sick in bed. Big Fist: Do you miss her? Whiteface: Very much. (pause) Big Fist: My…uh…my mother…she died…right after I was born…syph, you know?... My mother was a sinner.… I was conceived and born in sin.… Whiteface: That’s too bad. Big Fist: So I ended up drifting around like an animal, always in trouble with the law…manslaughter, armed robbery…and here I am. Whiteface: I’m so sorry, Big Fist. (pause) Big Fist: I just wish I could be born again, without the sin…to a pure mother…in a nice, round womb—but I can’t. (pause) Whiteface…there’s something I should tell you. Whiteface: What’s that? Big Fist: Sometimes I feel like you’re my mother. I don’t know why.

Literature of the Late Twentieth and Early Twenty-first Centuries  Whiteface: Well…I’ve been like a woman to you for more than twenty years.… That woman probably turned into your mother. Big Fist: You have been like a woman, yes.… Whiteface,…Will you, uh, you know…be my mother? Whiteface: Your mother?… How? Big Fist: Dress like a woman. Do everything a mother would. Whiteface: How do you see me? What kind of makeup? What would I wear? Big Fist: Just do like your mother—be like your mother! (Lights dim slowly. Whiteface appears in women’s clothing.) Whiteface: Sweetheart, what time is it? Big Fist: The sunlight’s hitting the bars, so it’s probably about two. Whiteface: Time for my horseback ride. Down on all fours. Big Fist: Yes, ma’am. (Big Fist gets down on all fours, and Whiteface mounts him.) Whiteface: (riding about the room) My god, you’re skinny, sweetie. It’s like riding on a bag of bones, not someone’s back. Big Fist: No, Mother, you’re the one who’s wasting away. We have to get you out of here. Then you can eat all the good things you like. Whiteface: As a matter of fact, I saw the Grand Magistrate yesterday. Big Fist: What did he say? Whiteface: He’s letting me out very soon. Big Fist: You must be delighted, Mother. Whiteface: I am. I’ve got to get out of here. Big Fist: You will. Then you can put on some weight and do all the horseback riding you want. Whiteface: But what about you? Big Fist: We have to get you out first. I’ll be right behind you. (carefully observes the surroundings) I can get over that wall no sweat. Whiteface: For sure. There’s still some bounce in those legs of yours—no wall’s going to stop you. Big Fist: And wherever you are, Mother, I’ll come running.

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Part II:  Modern Literature Whiteface: You’d better.… Okay, that’s enough. (dismounts Big Fist) Big Fist: (getting up) You should have your snack now. (mixes sugar with butter and presents it with several pieces of hardtack to Whiteface) Here, help yourself. Whiteface: All right. You can have some too. (The two of them eat. Lights out. Pause. Lights on to reveal the two of them as at the opening curtain, but Whiteface has a swollen stomach and Big Fist looks sick.) Whiteface: Sweetie, it’s the strangest thing, how this stomach of mine keeps swelling. Some kind of growth, I guess. Big Fist: It looks like a tumor, doesn’t it? You’re probably going to need an operation. Whiteface: Oh, it’ll be all right if we just leave it alone.… You’re the one we should be worrying about. How do you feel? Big Fist: Exhausted. And my eyelids are getting so heavy. Whiteface: We’d better ask the Grand Magistrate to move you to the infirmary. But then I can’t remember the last time I saw him. Big Fist: Well, I can. It was ten years ago—ten years ago he said he’d get you out. Whiteface: Thirty years I’ve been locked up here—hard to believe.… I wonder how my mother’s been.… I wonder if she’s still alive. (pause) Big Fist: Your mother? Whiteface: Yes, my mother.… I guess I’ve never mentioned her to you, have I? She’d be your grandmother. Big Fist: Tell me about her. Whiteface: She was always sick, always on her back, looking up at the ceiling. Wouldn’t budge. And her stomach was always swollen, as if she was about to have a baby…just like a flower in full bloom.… And the pus oozed out of her…bloody pus…out of her ears…nose…eyes…belly button…rear end…just kept oozing out.… There was one hole with no pus, and she turned out the babies one after another…that’s right, one after another.… We sprouted up like weeds, and it was hell for us.… Every day I brought home flowers for Mother and left them at the head of her bed.… I wanted to get rid of that stink that came from her.… One day it would be magnolias…another day wild irises…another day ­baby’s-breath.… Mother liked them all.… I was so happy when I saw

Literature of the Late Twentieth and Early Twenty-first Centuries  how delighted she was.… So I started bringing the flowers twice a day… and then three times a day…then four times a day.… Finally I started stealing them from the florist.… Day by day the bouquets accumulated in her room.… She looked like she was lying in a garden…like a corpse buried in plastic flowers.… Every now and then she’d laugh while she was lying there (mimics her laughter) .… She was so beautiful.… She really was—beautiful.… Big Fist: What do you mean, “beautiful”? I can’t picture her—I’ve never seen her. What does she look like? Whiteface: Imagine you’re a bee—a bee in search of nectar. Now imagine the flowers you’d like to suck that nectar from. What’s the one you like the most—the one you’d like to go into again? Which flower would you like to come out of? What I’m getting at is, what’s the purest thing you can think of? The purest, most beautiful womb, a pure, spotless nest— that’s my mother. Try to imagine a flower like that. (pause) Big Fist: A wild rose. Whiteface: That’s it, my mother’s a wild rose! As beautiful as a wild rose. Can you think of another one? (pause) Big Fist: A violet. Whiteface: Yes! My mother’s as pure as a violet. Another one.… Big Fist: A four-o’clock. Whiteface: Right! As spotless as a four-o’clock. Big Fist: She’s like a hollyhock. Whiteface: Like a potato blossom. Big Fist: Like a touch-me-not. Whiteface: Like a rose moss. Big Fist: Like crape myrtle. Whiteface: Like a tree peony. Big Fist: Like a ramanas rose. Whiteface: Like an azalea. Big Fist: Like a sunflower. Whiteface: Like a wild chrysanthemum.

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Part II:  Modern Literature Big Fist: Like a shepherd’s-purse. Whiteface: Like a peony. Big Fist: Like a gourd flower. Whiteface: Like a lotus blossom. Big Fist: Like a flowering pear. Whiteface: Like a rose. Big Fist: Like a peach blossom. Whiteface: Like a marigold. (Pause; Big Fist collapses.) A plum blossom. (pause) A cockscomb. (pause) A morning glory. (pause) Like a camellia. (pause) What’s the matter? Are you asleep? Big Fist.… Big Fist: My eyelids are getting heavier…heavier and heavier.… I feel like I’m going to sleep.… I don’t think I’m going to wake up again. Whiteface: What do you mean?… You’ve got to wake up. (pause) Big Fist: No…I’m going to dream…and in that dream…I’m going to go back into my mother’s belly.… Yeah, that’s it.… First I shut my eyes tight.… Then I go to sleep.… And then I start dreaming.… And in that dream I’ll go back inside my mother’s belly.… After that I’ll wake up.… Death won’t bother me.… Because I’ll be inside my mother.… And then… and then…I can just rest there nice and quiet.… Mother’ll give birth to me again.… (looks toward the sky) Mother…Mother.… It’s all over.… Mother in the sky, I am yours. Whiteface: Big Fist! Big Fist! Oh, God! (Lights slowly dim to the sound of Whiteface’s weeping. Lights on to reveal Whiteface lying on his back, looking at the ceiling. His stomach is hugely swollen. Big Fist lies where he collapsed.) Whiteface: Dear Big Fist. (suppressing his emotions) The sky is clear and pastel blue. On a day like this, I miss you even more, because I think about how we used to rest our heads against each other and look out through the bars at a tiny patch of sky. I’m waiting for you, Big Fist— waiting on a hill beside the river where cows are feeding on the soft grass. I hope we can love each other here like we did there. (colored lights) And so…I’m crying because I miss you. My crying is louder than the lowing of the cows, gentler than a flute. None of these cows can call as gently or as loud as I cry. Big Fist, like these grazing cows, I want to touch my mouth to you, and suck your great chest for all I’m worth. I’m a starving man. I love you more than a cow loves grass. Can’t you get out sooner, Big Fist? The Grand Magistrate is there, isn’t he? Won’t he send you back

Literature of the Late Twentieth and Early Twenty-first Centuries  to me? Fly from your heaven, Big Fist, and put an end to my tears and sorrow here in this hell. Quickly, Big Fist, ask God’s favor. Come quickly, and take me in your arms. Hurry here and take me in your arms. Hurry. (reaches out into space and shouts as loud as he can) Hurry, Big Fist! Hurry! (Lights out as soon as this speech ends. Screams are heard, together with the ringing wail of a newborn. Lights. Whiteface holds a baby in swaddling clothes in his arms.) Whiteface: Rockabye, my love, rockabye. You were gone so long, so long. Did you drop from the sky? Shoot up from the earth? Come wrapped in the summer clouds hanging from the mountain summits? Rockabye, my love, rockabye. To see the flowers once is enough; But children.… My child, my love, is sleeping; My love, my new love, is sleeping. Intestines, intestines, my intestines; Gallbladder, gallbladder, my gallbladder. Bowels, bowels, my bowels, And my asshole too— Always resemble me. In all ways resemble me. Sleep, sleep, my love; sleep, sleep, my love. (Lights slowly dim. Pause. Lights. The two men appear as at the opening curtain. Both are nodding off.) Big Fist: (Abruptly straightens and shouts, as if in a dream) Mother! Whiteface: (also straightens, startled) Yes, sir! It’s time for your exercise, Mister Big Fist, sir! Big Fist: (not yet completely awake, looks blankly at Whiteface): Nah, forget it.… No exercise today.… Think I’ll take a nap instead. (lies down) Sing me to sleep—sing me a lullaby. Whiteface: Tell me what you’d like me to sing, sir! Big Fist: “Tell me what you’d like me to sing.” Asshole! Do you know any other song besides the one you sing me every day? (rests his feet on a pillow and closes his eyes) Whiteface: No, sir! Sleep well, sir! (sings)

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Part II:  Modern Literature Wild roses beside the road my Mother takes to work. I like the taste of their white flowers. On days when I’m hungry I pick and eat them. Calling, “Mama, Mama,” I pick and eat them. (The lights dim as Whiteface, studying the sleeping Big Fist, stands stiffly at attention and sings.) (curtain) Translation by Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton. The translators wish to thank playwright Mark Handley for his assistance in preparing this translation. Hong Sŏkchung Hwang Chini (excerpt) It was a day of cloud and wind, the time of year when summer begins to give way to autumn, and already a few leaves were dropping from branches to be sent whirling into the sky. From South Gate a flock of dusky sparrows took flight, looping about the slate-gray sky before scattering like a shower of dark hail among the paddies and dry fields beyond the city wall to feast upon the nearly ripened grain. Overhead a lone crow uttered an eerie caw, drawing looks of displeasure from passersby who then answered this ill-omened bird by spitting over their shoulders. There was a desolate feel to the day. Since early morning would-be spectators had been gathering along the gully between the foot of Chanam Mountain and the wall behind Hwang Chinsa’s dwelling in anticipation of the funeral procession for young Ttobok of Granary Row. Word had gotten out that the pallbearers would likely be passing this way, for the lane that ran along the gully was filled before the morning sun had crested the ridges, and the mountainside as far as Prominence Rock now wore a snowy blanket of onlookers garbed in their traditional white attire. For days now the dwellings—the quarters of the menfolk, the womenfolk, and the hired help alike—had been abuzz with talk of Chini and Ttobok of Granary Row. Ears perked up at the story of how this son of a minor official had fallen for the only daughter of a yangban family, of how his heart had finally broken when his love went unanswered, of how he was now a wandering ghost, but what really drew the attention of listeners was the news that in a single morning the yangban’s daughter’s engagement had been broken off by the family of Young Master Yun of Hanyang and that her status had suddenly fallen to the level of a slave girl’s. Herein lay the reason for the burst of activity that swept the people from the first light of dawn, even those sluggards loath to stir from home,

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once it was known that the young man’s bier would pass by the young lady’s home. The previous night Old Granny had lingered outside the paper-­ paneled sliding door to Chini’s room, worry creasing her face, before finally venturing across the threshold. “I know I shouldn’t be bothering you at a time like this, but I don’t know what else I can do. It’s just that I’m afraid Nomi will get to fussing and fighting and make a big scene. And when I mention this to him, he’s not about to listen.” “What do you mean?” “Well, if you can believe it, people are already staking out a place for themselves out back to watch tomorrow morning when they come by with the body of the Granary Row boy. That’s made Nomi as mad as a snake, and he’s hissing that he’s going to round up the tough guys from the kisaeng quarters, tear the onlookers limb from limb, and chase them away. I don’t know, I’m just afraid that if he gets away with beating up those people and driving them off, well, you might be able to avoid humiliation tomorrow, but by and by the storm will break when we least expect it, and there goes your reputation—what then?” When Chini didn’t answer, Old Granny continued: “Young lady, at this point you’re the only one who can rein Nomi in. If we don’t move smartly we’ll have an awful mess on our hands, and for you, young lady, an awful mess means a spectacular disgrace. Just now I was out to the servants’ quarters and I can tell you that Nomi had the bloodwrath look about him—worse than She-Who-Beat-Her-Daughter-in-Law-to-Death. There he was with the head thug of this area—you know, the man that everyone calls Monster—and the way they were muttering and palavering made my skin crawl. Egu! There’s no reasoning with Monster.” “Bring Nomi here.” Ever since that day when Nomi had encountered Chini’s ill mother at Prominence Rock on Chanam Mountain, he had hovered about Chini, a constant and protective presence. And when Nomi had come to Chini’s rescue in the hills, she had offered him a heartfelt if formal word of thanks, but thereafter had remained aloof while still keeping a mindful eye on him. At the odd moments when their eyes met, it would be Nomi who turned away, recoiling like a hand from a hot stove, while Chini was left with the sensation that in his gaze was something that hadn’t been there before, but never did she openly betray this feeling. Whatever might happen, until such time as Nomi might prove useful when Chini finally had to accept her downgraded status, in his presence she gave no thought to abandoning her superior position. Indeed, there were occasions when she was more stiff and haughty than usual. Nomi arrived from the servants’ quarters and after he had offered his respects with a deep bow, Chini gave him a frosty look and addressed him in a tone as quiet and yet lucid as the sound of a pearl rolling on jade.

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Part II:  Modern Literature “I would not want any disturbance, no fussing or fighting, when the funeral procession for the Granary Row boy passes our way.” Nomi remained silent. “I would not have you harm those who have gathered along the way.” Chini allowed these words to sink in. “Have I made myself clear?” “Yes.” Chini did not know that her words had left Nomi feeling contrary. She did know that Nomi was incapable of outwardly refusing her instructions. As soon as Nomi had withdrawn, Old Granny approached. Her concerned expression had not changed. “As they used to say,” she murmured, “fight fire with fire, and if you spread your legs to a man, he won’t notice your harelip. When the pallbearers come parading by and start in with that damned curse hex, you’d better have the fabric ready for them.” It was this curse hex that on the one hand accounted for Old Granny’s worries, and on the other hand gave the spectators high hopes of feasting their eyes on something thrilling and exciting. For when the pallbearers come to a stop outside a house and the call-and-response begins, the calls from the head pallbearer are like messages from the dead conveyed by a spirit-possessed mudang in a kimil exorcism. When a call-and-response is directed toward a family, it’s in their best interest to offer up a bolt of fine cotton fabric to the head pallbearer, who is the speaker for the departed, lest out of his mouth like jumping frogs come all manner of shameful and hidden facts, and if the family is the least bit slow in presenting the fabric, in an instant their good name is dragged through the mud. It was with indifferent silence that Chini the previous night had met Old Granny’s worries about the curse hex. For this reason Old Granny could not bring herself to repeat her concerns that morning, but at the same time she could not conceal her uneasy expression, which seemed to say “What now?” Onlookers continued to throng beyond the wall, while inside the house dead silence reigned. Chini’s mother had not set foot outside her room since the day she had explained to Chini her origins, and Chini’s brother had disappeared without a trace after his brutal attack on Igŭmi the servant girl. It being early morning, the outer quarters of the home should have been bustling, but the servants in both the inner and outer quarters, buoyed by curiosity, must have joined the spectators outside, for the house was dead-rat still. What a coldhearted world! thought Chini. It’s one thing to take pleasure in viewing the celebrations and happy events of others, but if you have to satisfy your curiosity by witnessing others’ pain and sorrow, then your goodness of heart has left you. Indeed, she asked herself, what was

Literature of the Late Twentieth and Early Twenty-first Centuries  the use of even thinking in terms of good and bad if people were heartless and ignorant enough to pack a lunchbox and journey from distant hamlets to see a prisoner lose his head in the marketplace outside Ojŏng Gate? Chini listened attentively to the voices from beyond the back wall— voices calling out in search of others, foul-mouthed voices saying “I was here first!” voices erupting in belly laughter.… All of them titillated by the prospect of witnessing her pain and sorrow, her embarrassment and humiliation. All right, then, I’d best make sure to show them what they want to see. And with that, Chini opened her mother-of-pearl chest and retrieved the wedding finery she had stored deep inside. It was the sashi hour, midmorning, when the funeral procession came into sight around the corner outside the wall. Appearing first was the guardian, clad in crimson jacket and black skirt, wearing a gourd mask draped with bells, brandishing a lance and shield, followed in turn by the bearers of the red banner inscribed with the name and title of the deceased, the silk spirit-banner, the elegy banner, and the pole-mounted hempen cloth, and finally the coffin-laden frame itself, the head pallbearer jingling his handbell as he sang a plaintive dirge, to which the eight pallbearers, headbands low on their brows, carrying poles across their shoulders, responded with a dismal refrain. The time had come for the spectacle all were awaiting. When the head of the procession arrived at Hwang Chinsa’s back gate, the pallbearers came to a stop and began marching in place, signaling the call-and-­ response that precedes the casting of the spirit hex. The call of the head pallbearer and the response of the other pallbearers were as piteous as the weeping of a resentful ghost: Farewell, mountains and streams; farewell, flowers and trees I begin my journey to the yellow heavens Pass over now, oh yes. But once did I see her, and how lovely she was, The only daughter of Hwang Chinsa Pass over now, oh yes. A goose on the wing without a mate, my love unrequited, I’m a lonely ghost Pass over now, oh yes. The funeral procession resembled a trembling line, the marchers taking one step forward then two steps back, one step back then two steps forward, their dirge blending with the ringing of the bells. Chini clutched the ring handle of the back gate and steeled herself. She could sense the gazes of the assembled onlookers directed toward

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Part II:  Modern Literature the gate. She would have to present herself before these people at just the right time, not too soon and not too late. Behind her stood Old Granny and Igŭmi, gripping tension showing on their fear-blanched faces as they observed their mistress. Meanwhile, in the attached quarters, sequestered at his mistress’s command, Nomi paced the yard like a caged tiger, his body racked with fever. The head pallbearer’s recitation was gradually closing in on its target: Heartbreaking it is that a body, once gone, Can never come back Pass over now, oh yes. Arrived we are at the home of Hwang Chinsa, Here we shall stay until.… Pass over now, oh yes. It was then that Chini opened the gate. The instant she appeared, the eyes of all assembled fixed themselves upon her like spear points. The murmuring of the crowd built until finally it muffled the dirge. The onlookers were in a state of shock. Instead of fleeing to the farthest reaches of the kingdom in fear of being cursed by the deceased, instead of locking herself up and hiding beneath a quilt, Chini had dared to appear before them in the flesh. None of them could have imagined this in his wildest dreams. Chini approached the bier as it swayed on its framework of carrying poles. The call-and-response came to a stop. The pallbearers lowered their burden to the ground; the ringing of the bells ceased and the head pallbearer fell silent. Chini faced the young man’s casket. With a flourish she spread wide the folds of her long crimson skirt with its flower pattern and draped it over the casket. Dead silence fell over the lane. It was as if the throng had been doused with cold water. Chini’s lips began to move, as if she were whispering to someone visible before her. And amazingly enough, there arose with unmistakable clarity the face of the young man who had gazed at her in thrall beneath the moon of the Yudu festival. “Please hear my words. Though I know you not, apart from a single glance that night, through your death I have learned of your ardor for me. Now that our paths have diverged, it is not possible for me to return your love in all its sincerity. But if perchance we were to meet again in the other world”—and here Chini paused—“surely would I offer you recompense for your love that went unrequited in this world. As a token of my promise to you, I bestow on this your altar my wedding finery— understand me and receive it. Though human life be entwined with heaven’s will, how can the heart not be wrenched by such as this? The

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living are forever separated from the dead, but with this pledge between us in the next life, may it please you now to depart.…” Chini’s voice broke and she could not finish. Tears streamed from her eyes. The assemblage was frozen in place. You could have heard a pin drop. And then Chini withdrew from the bier. A leaden silence remained in the lane until she had disappeared through the gate. Chini returned to the detached quarters and went inside and sat. She had just pledged her love with a dead person’s soul, in front of all those people. Was it the right thing to do? It was not that Chini feared the inevitable and endless posturing over the rights and wrongs of what she had done, nor was she fazed by the prospect of being bandied about on the tongues of numerous gossips. Rather, it was perfectly clear to her that her action was not a matter of rashness or whim; instead, and most important, she had just bestowed upon this dead person’s soul every last ounce of love in her possession, and so until her life in this world was spent, she would be like stone or wood, absent this emotion that was love. Such was Chini’s earnest wish at that moment, a desire that infused her entire being, and to this end did she entreat the Seven Star deity. Translation by Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton

G. Suggestions for Further Reading Fiction Cho Chŏngnae. How in Heaven’s Name: A Novel of World War Two. Trans. Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton. Portland, Me.: MerwinAsia, 2012. ———. The Human Jungle. Trans. Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton. Seattle: Chin Music Press, 2016. Ch’oe Yun. There a Petal Silently Falls: Three Stories by Ch’oe Yun. Trans. Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton. New York: Columbia University Press, 2008. Ch’ŏn Un-yŏng. The Catcher in the Loft. Trans. Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton. New Paltz, N.Y.: Codhill Books, 2019. Fulton, Bruce, ed. Waxen Wings: The Acta Koreana Anthology of Short Fiction from Korea. St. Paul, Minn.: Koryo Press, 2011. Fulton, Bruce and Ju-Chan, trans. The Future of Silence: Fiction by Korean Women. Brookline, Mass.: Zephyr Press, 2016 ———, trans. The Red Room: Stories of Trauma in Contemporary Korea. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2009. [Stories by Pak Wansŏ, O Chŏnghŭi, and Im Ch’ŏru; foreword by Bruce Cumings.]

280

Part II:  Modern Literature

Han Yujoo [Han Yuju]. The Impossible Fairytale. Trans. Janet Hong. Minneapolis: Graywolf Press, 2017. Hwang Sŏgyŏng. The Guest. Trans. Chun Kyung-Ja and Maya West. New York: Seven Stories Press, 2005. Kim, Dahee [Dafna Zur], et al., trans. Reading Korea: Twelve Contemporary Stories. Manila: Anvil Publishing, 2008. Kim Sagwa. Mina. Trans. Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton. San Francisco: Two Lines Press, 2018. Kim Soom [Kim Sum]. One Left. Trans. Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2020. Kim Young-Ha [Kim Yŏngha]. Black Flower. Trans. Charles LaShure. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012. ———. I Have the Right to Destroy Myself. Trans. Chi-Young Kim. New York: Harcourt, 2007. ———. Photo Shop Murder. Trans. Jason Rhodes. Seoul: Jimoondang, 2003. ———. Your Republic Is Calling You. Trans. Chi-Young Kim. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010. Reunion So Far Away: A Collection of Contemporary Korean Fiction. Seoul: Korean National Commission for Unesco, 1994.

Poetry Cho Oh-hyun [Cho Ohyŏn]. For Nirvana: One Hundred and Eight Zen Sijo Poems. Trans. Heinz Insu Fenkl. New York: Columbia University Press, 2016. Choi, Don Mee, trans. Anxiety of Words: Contemporary Poetry by Korean Women. Brookline, Mass.: Zephyr Press, 2006. [Poems by Ch’oe Sŭngja, Kim Hyesoon (Kim Hyesun), and Yi Yŏnju.] Kim Hyesoon [Kim Hyesun]. Mommy Must Be a Mountain of Feathers. Trans. Don Mee Choi. Notre Dame, Ind.: Action Books, 2008. Poems of Kim Yideum [Kim Idŭm], Kim Haengsook [Kim Haengsuk] & Kim Min Jeong [Kim Minjŏng]. Trans. Don Mee Choi, Johannes Göransson, Jiyoon Lee, and Jake Levine. Newtown, Australia: Vagabond Press, 2017. “Special Feature: Sijo.” Azalea 4 (2011): 158–224. [Consists of an essay by David McCann on Yi Pyŏnggi; a selection of works by (mostly) contemporary poets in both the original Korean and English translation; and a selection of Englishlanguage works.]

Drama Kim, Alyssa, and Hyung-jin Lee, trans. Allegory of Survival: The Theater of Kangbaek Lee. Amherst, N.Y.: Cambria Press, 2007. Kim, Dongwook, and Richard Nichols, trans. Four Contemporary Plays by Lee YunTaek. Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 2007.

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Kim Seulgi, ed. Three Plays. Seoul: National Theater Company of Korea, 2013. [Consists of Snow in March by Pae Samshik, trans. Alyssa Kim; The Master Has Come by Ko Yeonok [Ko Yŏnok], trans. Alyssa Kim; and Red Bus by Park Kunhyung [Pak Kŭnhyŏng], trans. Heidi Shon. All translations edited by Paul Tewkesbury; commentary on all three plays by Richard Nichols.] Nichols, Richard, ed. Modern Korean Drama: An Anthology. New York: Columbia University Press, 2009. [Plays by Ch’a Pŏmsŏk, Pak Choyŏl, Yi Manhŭi, O T’aesŏk, Yi Kangbaek, Pak Kŭnhyŏng, and Pae Samshik.]

Literature in North Korea Han Ungbin. “Second Encounter.” Trans. Stephen Epstein. Acta Koreana 5, no. 2 (July 2002): 81–97. “Inside North Korea.” Ed. Heinz Insu Fenkl. Special feature in Azalea 2 (2008): 73–194. [Includes fiction, poetry, and excerpts from a graphic novel and a comic book.]

Bibliography

Sources in English Hoyt, James. Soaring Phoenixes and Prancing Dragons: A Historical Survey of Korean Classical Literature. Seoul: Jimoondang, 2000. Kim Hunggyu [Kim Hŭnggyu]. Understanding Korean Literature. Trans. Robert J. Fouser. Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1997. Kim, Kichung. An Introduction to Classical Korean Literature: From Hyangga to P’ansori. Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1996. Lee, Ki-baik [Yi Kibaek]. A New History of Korea. Trans. Edward W. Wagner with Edward J. Shultz. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1984. Lee, Peter H., ed. A History of Korean Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. McCann, David. Early Korean Literature: Selections and Introductions. New York: Columbia University Press, 2000. O’Rourke, Kevin. “Sŏ Chŏngju and Modern Korean Poetry.” Azalea 8 (2015): 105–143. Pettid, Michael J., Gregory N. Evon, and Chan E. Park, eds. Premodern Korean Literary Prose: An Anthology. New York: Columbia University Press, 2018. Pratt, Keith, and Richard Rutt, with additional material by James Hoare. Korea: A Historical and Cultural Dictionary. Richmond, U.K.: Curzon Press, 1999. Skillend, W. E. Kodae Sosŏl: A Survey of Korean Traditional Style Popular Novels. London: School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 1968. Suh, Serk-Bae. Treacherous Translation: Culture, Nationalism, and Colonialism in Korea and Japan from the 1910s to the 1960s. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013. Yoo Min-Young [Yu Minyŏng]. “Fifty Years of Korean Drama since Liberation.” Korea Journal 36, no. 1 (1996): 114–143.

284Bibliography Sources in Korean Cho Namhyŏn. Han’guk hyŏndae sosŏlsa [A history of contemporary Korean fiction]. 2 vols. Seoul: Munhak kwa chisŏng sa, 2012. Cho Tongil. Han’guk munhak t’ongsa [A general history of Korean literature]. 2 vols. Seoul: Chishik sanŏp sa, 1988. Chŏn Kwangyong. Sinsosŏl yŏn’gu [A study of the “new fiction”]. Seoul: Saemunsa, 1986. Chŏng Hanmo. Han’guk hyŏndae shimunhak sa [A history of contemporary Korean poetry]. Seoul: Ilchisa, 1974. Im Hyŏngt’aek. Han’guk munhaksa ŭi shigak [A perspective on the history of Korean literature]. Seoul: Ch’angjak kwa pip’yŏng sa, 1984. Kim Hŭnggyu. Han’guk munhak ŭi ihae [Understanding Korean literature]. Seoul: Minŭmsa, 1998. Kim Pyŏngch’ŏl. Han’guk kŭndae pŏnyŏk munhak sa yŏn’gu [A study of the history of literary translation in modern Korea]. Seoul: Ŭryu munhwa sa, 1975. Kim Yongjik. Han’guk kŭndae shi sa [A history of modern Korean poetry]. 2 vols. Seoul: Hagyŏnsa, 1986. Kim Yunshik. Han’guk kŭndae munhak sasang sa [A history of modern Korean literary thought]. Seoul: Han’gilsa, 1984. ———. Han’guk kŭndae munye pip’yŏng sa yŏn’gu [A study of the history of literary criticism in modern Korea]. Seoul: Ilchisa, 1973. ——— and Chŏng Houng. Han’guk sosŏl sa [A history of Korean fiction]. Seoul: Munhak tongne, 1974. Kim Yunshik and Kim Hyŏn. Han’guk munhak sa [A history of Korean literature]. Seoul: Minŭmsa, 1974. Kwon Youngmin. Han’guk hyŏndae munhak sa [A history of contemporary Korean literature]. 2 vols. Seoul: Minŭmsa, 2002. ———. Han’guk hyŏndae munhak taesajŏn [Directory of contemporary Korean literature]. Seoul: Sŏul taehakkyo ch’ulp’anbu, 2004. ———. Han’guk hyŏndae munhak ŭi ihae [Understanding contemporary Korean literature]. Seoul: T’aehaksa, 2010. ———. Hanguk hyŏndae munin taesajŏn [Directory of contemporary Korean writers]. Seoul: Asea munhwasa, 1991. ———. Hanguk kŭndae munin taesajŏn [Directory of modern Korean writers]. Seoul: Asea munhwasa, 1990. ———. Han’guk kyegŭp munhak undong yŏn’gu [A study of the Korean Proletarian Literature Movement]. Seoul: Sŏul taehakkyo ch’ulp’anbu, 2014. ———. Sŏsa yangshik kwa tamnon ŭi kŭndaesŏng [Modernity in narrative form and discourse]. Seoul: Sŏul taehakkyo ch’ulp’anbu, 1999. ———. Wŏlbuk munin yŏngu [A study of “went-north” writers]. Seoul: Munhak sasang sa, 1989.

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285

O Se-yŏng. 20-segi Han’guk shi yŏn’gu [A study of twentieth-century Korean poetry]. Seoul: Saemunsa, 1989. ———. Han’guk nangmanjuŭi shi yŏn’gu [A study of Korean romantic poetry]. Seoul: Ilchisa, 1986. Paek Ch’ŏl. Shinmunhak sajo sa [A history of the trends in “new literature”]. Seoul: Shingu munhwasa, 1982. Shin Tonguk. Han’guk hyŏndae munhak ron [A treatise on contemporary Korean literature]. Seoul: Pagyŏngsa, 1972. Sŏ Yŏnho. Han’guk kŭndae hŭigok sa [A history of modern Korean plays]. Seoul: Koryŏ taehakkyo ch’ulp’anbu, 1994. Sŏng Kiok. Han’guk shiga yulgyŏk ŭi iron [A theory of Korean poetic meter]. Seoul: Saemunsa, 1986. Song Minho. Han’guk kaehwagi sosŏl ŭi sachŏk yŏn’gu [A historical study of Korean enlightenment fiction]. Seoul: Ilchisa, 1986. Yi Chaesŏn. Han’guk hyŏndae sosŏl sa [A history of contemporary Korean fiction]. Seoul: Hongsŏngsa, 1979. ———. Han’guk kaehwagi sosŏl yŏn’gu [A study of Korean enlightenment fiction]. Seoul: Ilchogak, 1982. Yu Minyŏng. Han’guk hyŏndae hŭigok sa [A history of contemporary Korean plays]. Seoul: Hongsŏngsa, 1985. ———. Han’guk yŏngŭk undong sa [A history of the Korean Theater Movement]. Seoul: T’aehaksa, 2001.

Acknowledgments

Selections from The Book of Korean Poetry: Songs of Shilla and Koryŏ, translated and edited by Kevin O’Rourke. Published by the University of Iowa Press. Copyright © 2006 University of Iowa Press. Used with permission. All rights reserved. Excerpt from The Memoirs of Lady Hyegyŏng: The Autobiographical Writings of a Crown Princess of Eighteenth-Century Korea, translated with an introduction and annotations by JaHyun Kim Haboush. Published by the University of California Press. © 1996 by The Regents of the University of California.  “Score One for the Dancing Girl,” in Score One for the Dancing Girl, and Other Selections from the Kimun ch’onghwa: A Story Collection from Nineteenth-­Century Korea, translated by James Scarth Gale, edited by Ross King and Si Nae Park, annotations by Donguk Kim. Published by the University of Toronto Press. © University of Toronto Press 2016. Reprinted with permission of the publisher. “Tangun,” translated by Peter H. Lee in Anthology of Korean Literature: From Early Times to the Nineteenth Century, compiled and edited by Peter H. Lee. Copyright © 1981 by The University Press of Hawaii. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Excerpt from “Pongsan T’al-Ch’um (Pongsan Masked Dance-Drama),” Shortened Version, anonymous. Text recorded by Duhyun Lee. Translated by Theresa Ki-ja Kim. Edited by Geoffrey Paul Gordon. Published by The Performing Arts Program of The Asia Society. Copyright by Theresa Ki-ja Kim 1976. “Window 1,” translated by Daniel A. Kister in Distant Valleys: Poems of Chong [Chŏng] Chi-yong. Berkeley, Calif.: Asian Humanities Press. Copyright © Daniel A. Kister, 1994. “Poem No. XV” [from A Crow’s-Eye View], translated by Walter K. Lew in “Selected Poems of Yi Sang,” Muae: A Journal of Transcultural Production, 1995. Copyright Walter K. Lew.

288Acknowledgments “How Chong [Chŏng] Mong-ju Died,” translated by Kevin O’Rourke in Poems of a Wanderer: Selected Poems of Midang So Chong-ju [Sŏ Chŏng-ju]. Dublin: Daedalus Press. Copyright © Kevin O’Rourke/The Daedalus Press, 1995. Han Yongun, “Looking for the Cow,” translated by Kevin O’Rourke in Looking for the Cow: Modern Korean Poems. Dublin: Daedalus Press. Copyright © 2000 Kevin O’Rourke/The Daedalus Press. Pak T’aewŏn, “The Man Who Ran the Fragrant Orchid Café,” translated by Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton in Ricepaper, 10 August 2018. Copyright Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton. “The Cloudburst,” translated by Edward W. Poitras in The Stars and Other Korean Short Stories by Hwang Sunwŏn. Hong Kong: Heinemann Asia, 1980. Copyright Edward W. Poitras. Yi Gun-sam [Kŭnsam], “A Respectable Profession,” translated by Song Yo-in in Modern Korean Short Stories and Plays. Seoul: Korean Centre, International P.E.N. Copyright 1970 by the Korean P.E.N. Ko Chŏnghŭi, “My Neighbor, Mrs. Ku Chamyŏng,” in “Seven Feminist Poems,” translated by Suh Ji-moon, Korea Journal, September 1987. Copyright Suh Ji-moon. “When the Plug Gets Unplugged,” in When the Plug Gets Unplugged: Poems by Kim Hyesoon [Hyesun], translated by Don Mee Choi. Honolulu: Tinfish Press, n.d. Copyright Don Mee Choi. Chang Chŏng’il, “Mother,” translated by Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton, Korea Journal, October 1989. Copyright Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton.

Glossary

aak: court music aeguk ka: patriotic kasa published in Enlightenment period newspapers aeguk kyemong undong: Patriotic Enlightenment Movement aekcha sosŏl: “frame fiction”; story-within-a-story; story with an embedded narrative akpushi: “scored poems”; hanshi meant to be recited to the accompaniment of musical instruments amhaeng ŏsa: undercover inspector aniri: spoken portion of a p’ansori performance chaa: poetic self chaebŏl: industrial conglomerate chaedam: witty stories chaesa: man of talent ch’aja p’yogi: borrowed-graph orthography: any of the various ways in which sinographs were used to render vernacular Korean linguistic elements chajŭnmori: tempo that lends a light, cheery mood to a p’ansori performance ch’amyŏ: engagement; participation ch’amyŏ shi: engaged poetry ch’amyŏng: the use of sinographs to represent substantives in the Korean language ch’ang: sung portion of a p’ansori performance chang shi: “long poetry” changdan ku: metered verse changga: “long songs”; another name for Koryŏ kayo ch’angga: “sung songs”; variety of kasa pioneered by Ch’oe Namsŏn ch’anggŭk: “sung drama,” “sung theater”: a twentieth-century term for p’ansori ch’angja: see kwangdae Ch’angjak kwa pip’yŏng (Creation and criticism): quarterly literary arts journal Ch’angjo (Creation): coterie arts magazine

290Glossary Changmi ch’on (Rose village): coterie arts magazine ch’ang’u: professional singing entertainer ch’angŭi ka: kasa praising the ŭibyŏng Chaosŏn (Meridian): small-scale coterie magazine chapsŏl: “miscellaneous stories”; another term for kojŏn sosŏl chayŏn: nature Chayu munhak (Free literature): literary arts journal launched in 1956 chayu shi: free verse chayu yŏnsang: free association Cheguk shinmun (Imperial post): late Enlightenment period newspaper Chejak kŭkhoe (Association for drama production): postwar theater group chesŏk shin: the god who oversees birth and life chi’goe: “stories of the strange”; a category of kojŏn sosŏl chinogwi kut: ritual intended to appease the wandering souls of those who have died an unnatural death chinsŏ: “true writing”; writing in classical Chinese chinyangjo: slow tempo in a p’ansori performance chishin palpki: ceremonial song for appeasing the earth god Chogwang (Morning light): general-interest monthly magazine launched during the Colonial period chŏlgu: quatrain; a hanshi consisting of four lines chŏn: simple narrative centered in the life of an individual Ch’ŏngbok (Blue uniform): proletarian theater company chŏngch’i shi: political poetry chŏn’gi sosŏl: “strange tales”; a variety of kojŏn sosŏl involving strange happenings chŏnghan: resentment chŏngjong: a variety of refined rice brew chŏnhu p’a: postwar poets chŏnhu sosŏl (“postwar fiction”): works of fiction from the 1950s and into the 1960s that record the aftermath of the Korean War chŏnsŏl: legend Chosŏn: Korean kingdom, 1392–1910 Chosŏn ilbo (Chosŏn daily): newspaper launched during the Colonial period Chosŏn mundan (Korean literary world): Colonial period journal focusing on fine arts Chosŏn munhakka tongmaeng (Chosŏn writers league): post-Liberation writers group Chosŏn p’ŭrollet’aria yesul tongmaeng (Chosŏn p’ŭro yemaeng; Korean proletarian arts league): post-Liberation arts group Chosŏn p’ŭrollet’aria yŏngŭk tongmaeng (Korean proletarian theater league): post-Liberation theater group

Glossary

291

Chosŏn yŏngŭk kŏnsŏl ponbu (Foundation for the establishment of Korean theater): post-Liberation theater group chuch’e: (a) North Korean doctrine of self-reliance; (b) national identity ch’uimsae: shouts of encouragement to the kwangdae from the kosu and audience during a p’ansori performance Chujahak: “learning from Chuja [Zhu Xi]”; see Neo-Confucianism chung madang: mocking-the-monk scene in a mask dance chunggoje: style of p’ansori singing popular in Kyŏnggi and Ch’ungch’ŏng provinces ch’unghyo yŏllyŏ: exemplary woman Chunghyŏng (“middle-form”) shijo: see ŏt shijo chungin; a member of the “in-between” (between yangban and commoners) class, consisting of various functionaries chungjungmori: faster tempo in a p’ansori performance, lending a refined air to the story chungmori: moderate tempo in a p’ansori performance ch’ungŭi: loyalty, a virtue espoused by Chosŏn officialdom Ch’usŏk: “autumn eve”; traditional Korean holiday celebrated at the time of the harvest moon Colonial period: years in which Korea was a colony of imperial Japan (1910–1945) Daoist: referring to works of Chinese philosophy predating the Han dynasty, especially Laozi Early Chosŏn: the period extending from the founding of Chosŏn in 1392 to the Japanese invasions of the 1590s Enlightenment period: period during the late 1800s and early 1900s in which knowledge of the world beyond the Korean Peninsula was stressed Expressionism: modernist movement in drama and theater that developed in Europe in the early decades of the twentieth century  Four Great Writers: Hwang Hyŏn, Kang Wi, Kim T’aegyŏng, and Yi Kŏnch’ang— admired as writers of hanshi in the last years of Chosŏn Great Han Empire (Taehan cheguk): designation of Chosŏn, 1897–1910; the name was adopted after a Japanese-sponsored change in the title of the Korean monarch to reflect that he and the Korean nation were no longer subservient to China hach’ŭngmin: the peasant class halmi madang: “dancing grandmother” scene in a t’alch’um

292Glossary han: a sentiment involving frustration, resentment, bitterness, resignation, and/ or regret, along with a desire for whatever might assuage those feelings hanbok: traditional Korean clothing hancha: Chinese characters; sinographs Hanguk minjok: the Korean people Hanguk munhak (Korean literature): monthly literary arts journal Hanguk yŏngŭk (Korean theater): journal for the publication of dramatic works hangŭl: the Korean script hangŭl generation: the first generation of Korean writers to have been educated in Korean Han’gyŏre (Hankyoreh): daily newspaper hanmun hak: education in literary Chinese hanmun munjang: writing in literary Chinese hanmun sosŏl: traditional fictional narrative written in classical Chinese hanmun tanp’yŏn: short fictional narrative written in classical Chinese hanmunhak: literature written in classical Chinese hanshi: “poetry in Chinese”; versification by Koreans using sinographs hongik ingan: seeking the welfare of humankind Hunmin chŏngŭm: “proper sounds to instruct the people”; the name for hangŭl when it was promulgated in 1446 hwajŏn ka: song about the joys of spring, sung on the occasion of flower-viewing outings by wellborn women hwalchabon: book printed with movable type hwarang: “flower of youth”; bands of teenage boys trained in ceremonial singing and dancing, performed during pilgrimages to sacred mountains and rivers in Shilla hwat’u: “flower contest”; playing cards arranged in a deck of 48 cards in 12 suits hwimori: fast tempo in a p’ansori performance hyangak: music native to Korea hyangch’al: hybrid script, predating hangŭl, that used certain sinographs for their meaning and others for how they were pronounced by Koreans hyangga: “native songs”; verse produced from Shilla times into early Koryŏ hyŏndae: contemporary; referring to literature dating from 1945 on Hyŏndae munhak (Contemporary literature): literary arts journal Hyŏndae yŏngŭk (Contemporary theater): journal for the publication of dramatic works Hyŏngsŏlhoe (Association for diligent study): Colonial period theater group hyonyŏ: dutiful daughter ibon: different versions of a text idu: “clerk’s readings”; sinographs used to render vernacular Korean forms in certain types of (typically administrative or juridical) sinographic texts

Glossary

293

iin: extraordinary individual ilsa sosŏl: hanmun fictional narrative about a retired scholar living a quiet life of seclusion Inmun p’yŏngnon (Humanities review): “pure literature” journal launched late in the Colonial period inshin kongyang: human sacrifice iyagi cho: referring to a traditional fictional narrative written in a storytelling style kabo kaehyŏk: Kabo Reforms (1894) Kaebyŏk (Genesis): Colonial period journal focusing on literature kach’i: moral value kaehwa kyemong shidae: see Enlightenment period kaehwagi: see Enlightenment period kaejak: rewriting of a text kaesangjil sori: threshing song kagok ch’ang: the classic style of singing shijo, involving accompaniment by court music and the changing of the three-line lyric form into a five-line musical form kagye sosŏl: lineage narrative kajoksa sosŏl: lineage narrative kajŏn: “disguise tale”; tale in which the protagonist is represented allegorically by a personified object kajŏn munhak: allegorical literature kajŏng sosŏl: family narrative; household narrative; moralistic tale about family intrigue and conflict Kaldophoe (Kaldop association): Colonial period theater group kamgak: feeling kamun sosŏl: lineage narrative Kando: historically, the eastern part of Jilin Province in Manchuria; today the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in the People’s Republic of China kanggang sullae: dance performed by women to bring about a bountiful harvest kangho kasa: kasa written in praise of rivers and lakes and emphasizing the unity of man and nature kapcha sahwa: Literati Purge of the kapcha year (1504) KAPF (Korea Proleta Artista Federatio): see Chosŏn p’ŭrollet’aria yesul tongmaeng karak: melody Karak: see Kaya kasa: “sung words,” i.e., lyrics; vernacular verse form with no restrictions on length Kaya (also known as Karak): Korean kingdom, first century–582 kayagŭm: a type of zither

294Glossary kayo: song kihaeng kasa: travel kasa kijich’on sosŏl: military-camptown fiction kim maenŭn sori: seaweed-harvesting song kirok munhak: “recorded literature”; literature in written form kisaeng: young women trained in the arts for the purpose of entertaining highclass men kisŭng chŏn’gyŏl: the yulshi mandate that a hanshi follow a pattern of theme, elaboration, reversal, and conclusion Ko Chosŏn: ancient Korean kingdom, traditionally dated 2333–108 BC koch’eshi: “old-form poems”; another term for koshi kodam: “old tales”; another term for kojŏn sosŏl Koguryŏ: Korean kingdom, 37 BC–AD 668 kojŏn sosŏl: “classic fiction”; traditional fictional narrative written in Chinese konggamdae: feeling of affinity (between performer and audience) kop’ungshi: “old-fashioned poems”; another term for koshi Koryŏ: Korean kingdom, 918–1392 Koryŏ kayo: native music to which lyrics were added Koryŏ saram: Korean emigrants to the Russian Far East koshi: “old-style” hanshi kosok ka: “old popular songs”; another name for Koryŏ kayo kosu: drummer who accompanies the kwangdae in the performance of a p’ansori work ku sosŏl: “old fiction”; term coined during the Enlightenment period to differentiate kojŏn sosŏl from shin sosŏl kubi munhak: oral literature kugŏ undong: National Language Movement kŭgyesul: dramatic arts Kŭgyesul hyŏphoe (Dramatic arts association): Colonial period theater group Kŭgyesul yŏn’guhoe (Society for the study of the dramatic arts): Colonial period theater group kugyŏl: vernacular Korean nominal particles and verb endings, rendered either in sinographs (full-form or abbreviated) or in hangŭl, used to gloss canonical texts in classical Chinese for pronunciation in Korean Kuinhoe (Circle of nine): Colonial period coterie that established new trends in Korean fiction kujŏn shinhwa: myth passed down orally kukka: nation-state kukkŭk: national theater kŭktan: theater company kŭl: native Korean term for writing Kŭmsŏng (Gold star): coterie arts magazine

Glossary

295

kŭnch’eshi: hanshi written in the “modern” (i.e., Tang dynasty) style kŭndae: early modern; designating modern literature predating Liberation in 1945 from Japanese colonial rule kundam sosŏl: military fiction kungjŏng sosŏl: “palace fiction”; traditional fictional narrative centered in events taking place in the royal palace Kungmingŭk undong (National Theater Movement): movement sponsored by imperial Japan kungmun munhak: literature in hangŭl kungmun shiga: native verse kungmun sosŏl: traditional fictional narrative written in hangŭl or in a mixture of hangŭl and classical Chinese Kungnip kŭkchang (National theater): postwar theater company kut: ritual performed by a mudang kutp’an: outdoor area for the performance of a kut kuyŏn shinhwa: myth transmitted through performance instead of in written form kuyŏnsŏng: performativity kwagŏ chedo: civil service examination system kwajang: scene in a mask dance kwalli: government official kwangdae: itinerant male entertainer of the Chosŏn period kyegŭp munhak: class literature kyenyŏ ka: song of admonition kyŏkku: “in-between line” in a hyangga; often begins with a short exclamation of concentrated sentiment kyŏlgu: end phrase of a kasa kyŏnggich’e ka: “What a sight that would be!” song kyŏngp’anbon: book edition printed in Seoul kyubang (“boudoir”) kasa: see naebang kasa kyuwŏn ka: song of a daughter-in-law or yet-to-be-married woman Later Chosŏn: the period extending from the Japanese invasions of the 1590s to the end of the Chosŏn kingdom in 1910 li: unit of distance, often expressed in a multiple of ten, with ten li referring to a distance that could be be covered in an hour’s walk Literati Purge: any of twelve purges of scholar-officials taking place at court between 1453 and 1722 Mach’i (Hammer): proletarian theater company madang: standard work in the p’ansori repertory; scene in a mask dance madang nori: traditional outdoor folk theater madanggŭk: traditional outdoor theater performance

296Glossary Maek (Barley): magazine published by a small poetry circle Manchurian Incident: the seizure in 1931 by the Japanese military of the Manchurian city of Mukden as a pretext for its invasion of Manchuria manhwa: comic; graphic novel manshin (“ten thousand spirits”): honorific term for a mudang March 1, 1919, Independence Movement: nationwide movement, inspired by U.S. president Wilson’s emphasis on national self-determination, to liberate Korea from Japanese colonial rule mindam: folk tale Ming: Chinese dynasty, 1368–1644 min’gan sŏlhwa: popular legend minjok: people; ethnicity minjok munhak: people’s literature minjung: the national collective minjung munhak: literature of the national collective; populist literature minjung shi: populist poetry minkwŏn undong: civil rights movement minyo: folk song monaegi norae: rice-planting song mongyurok: allegorical narrative framed in a dream moshimki norae: rice-planting song moshimnŭn sori: rice-planting song much’ŏn: heaven-worshipping ceremony in Ye mudang: practitioner of native Korean spirituality muga: song performed by a mudang mun: Sino-Korean term for writing munhak: literature Munhak chungang (Literature central): quarterly literary arts journal Munhak kwa chisŏng (Literature and intellect): quarterly literary arts journal Munhak sasang (Literature and thought): monthly literary arts journal Munhak tongne: innovative literary publisher that issues a literary journal of the same name Munhak yesul (Literary arts): literary arts journal munhŏn shinhwa: “document myth”; myth transmitted in written form munhŏn sŏlhwa: “document tale”; folk tale transmitted in written form Munjang (Writing): “pure literature” journal launched late in the Colonial period munjasŏng: “literariness” Munye (Literary arts): literary arts journal musok: native Korean spirituality muŭimi ŭi shi: meaningless poem muwi: inactivity

Glossary

297

nabu ka: song of an idle women naebang kasa: “song of the inner room” (i.e., the women’s quarters) naehun (“domestic training”): prescriptions for proper behavior for wellborn women nakku: “ending tag” in a hyangga namsadang: itinerant troupe of low-class male entertainers narye: ceremony for driving away evil spirits from the preceding year naryehŭi: late Koryŏ entertainment Neo-Confucianism: the governing ideology of Chosŏn; a belief system that promoted pragmatic rationality and was based in moral precepts nim: the loved one nodong minyo: work song nonjaeng: public debate nonsŏl: editorial in a newspaper or magazine noraep’an: outdoor area for performance of songs nori: entertainment nŏrŭmsae: a kwangdae’s theatrical gesture to enliven a p’ansori performance ŏndam: sosŏl written in vernacular Korean ŏnmun: “vulgar writing”; pejorative designation for writing in hangŭl ŏnmun ilch’i: concordance of spoken and written language ŏnp’ae: “vulgar stories”; another term for kungmun sosŏl ŏnsŏ: sosŏl written in vernacular Korean ŏnsŏ kodam: “old tales in vulgar books”; another term for kungmun sosŏl ŏnŭi: “tales”; another term for kojŏn sosŏl ŏt (“contrary”) shijo: a shijo containing a one-syllable variation in any of its phrases paduk: board game also known as go Paekche: Korean kingdom, 18 BC–AD 660 Paekcho (White tide): coterie arts magazine paennorae: boatman’s song p’aesŏl: “folk stories”; another term for kojŏn sosŏl p’aesŏl munhak: folk literature p’algwanhoe: Buddhist memorial rite held on November 15 of the lunar calendar p’allim: see nŏrŭmsae p’an’gakpon: book printed from woodblocks p’ansori: “open-air singing”; a sung narrative performed in an outdoor space by a kwangdae p’ansori kye sosŏl: fictional narrative based on a p’ansori tale p’iri: traditional flute-like instrument

298Glossary post-Liberation: referring to the period between August 15, 1945, when Korea was liberated from Japanese colonial rule, and the establishment of the Republic of Korea (South Korea) and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) in 1948 postwar: referring to literature postdating the Korean War (1950–1953) pujae: absence Pulgaemi (Fire ant): proletarian theater company p’ungnyu shi: “aesthetic poetry” Puyŏ: kingdom in northeastern Manchuria, second century BC–AD fifth century; partly subsumed by Koguryŏ P’yehŏ (Ruins): coterie arts magazine pyŏ penŭn sori: rice-harvesting song pyŏksa madang: demon-expelling scene in a mask dance pyŏlgok: “special songs” pyŏlshin kut nori: mask-dance tradition originating in Hahoe Village, North Kyŏngsang Province p’yŏng shijo: “regular” (employing the standard three-line structure) shijo Qing: Chinese dynasty, 1644–1911 sach’in ka: song expressing a married woman’s yearning for her parents sadaebu: scholar-official saengmyŏng: life sahyang ka: song expressing a married women’s yearning for her ancestral home Samsa munhak (3.4 literature): small-scale coterie magazine sandae nori: mask drama, performed originally on a makeshift platform sangyŏ sori: ceremonial song performed while the coffin of the deceased is transported from home to the burial ground sanmun shi: prose poetry sanoega: (a) songs sung by Buddhist clergy in the area surrounding the Shilla capital of Kyŏngju; (b) all Korean verse composed during the Shilla period sanye: Shilla entertainment involving dancing by masked performers sasŏl: narrative sasŏl shijo: narrative shijo Sasanggye (The world of thought): literary arts journal Segye ŭi munhak (World literature): quarterly literary arts journal shichŏk inshik: poetic epistemology shichŏk taesang: poetic object shiga: “poetry and song”; verse shihaeng: poetic line shihwa: “talks on poetry”; treatises and anecdotes about poetry Shiin purak (Poets’ village): small-scale coterie magazine

Glossary

299

shijo: “current tunes”; three-line vernacular verse form shijo ch’ang: a simpler style of singing shijo shijŏngin: man of the people Shilla: Korean kingdom, 57 BC–AD 935 shimsŏng: the moral mind Shimunhak (Poetic literature): small-scale coterie magazine shin shi: “new poetry”; verse that integrates the formal freedom of enlightenment kasa and the formal attainment of enlightenment shijo shin sosŏl: “new fiction”; fictional narratives written during the Enlightenment period shin yŏsŏng: “new woman” shinch’e shi: new-form poetry Shindonga (New East Asia): general-interest monthly magazine launched during the Colonial period Shin‘gŏnsŏl (New construction): proletarian theater company Shingŭk hyŏphoe (Shinhyŏp; New theater association): postwar theater company shinhwa: “story about a god”; myth shinp’a: “new wave”; designation for early 1900s fiction and drama influenced by contemporary Japanese trends shinsŏng: sacredness shinsŏn’gwan: ascetic view Shirhak: Practical Learning Shiwŏn (Poetry garden): small-scale coterie magazine shōka: Japanese counterpart to ch’angga sinograph: Chinese character Six Martyred Subjects (sayukshin): six men executed in the aftermath of a plot to restore the deposed King Tanjong to the throne (1456) Six Surviving Subjects (saeng’yukshin): six men who refused to serve in office after King Tanjong was deposed sog’ak: “popular music”; designation for native verse forms of Koryŏ sog’yo: “popular songs”; another name for Koryŏ kayo sŏja: child born of a concubine; child born out of wedlock soktok: Shilla entertainment involving dancing by masked performers sŏlhwa: story; legend sŏlhwach’e: referring to a traditional fictional narrative written in the style of a legend Sŏn: division of Buddhism that emphasizes meditation as the route to enlightenment sŏnbi: scholar in the Chosŏn era sŏngnihak: Neo-Confucianism Sonyŏn: Boys (magazine) sŏŏl: sons of yangban fathers and non-yangban mothers

300Glossary sŏp’yŏnje: style of p’ansori singing popular in Chŏlla Province west of the Sŏmjin River Sŏrabŏl: capital of Shilla and former name of the city of Kyŏngju sori: vocal song; p’ansori sŏsa muga: narrative shaman song sosŏl: “small stories”; originally, various writings about history as well as writing in the form of folk tales, personal anecdotes, and even poetry; today, fiction Student Revolution: popular uprising, April 19, 1960, that toppled Yi Sŭngman (Syngman Rhee), the first president of the Republic of Korea sunsu shi: pure poetry sup’il: short anecdotal essay, often drawn from an incident in the writer’s daily life taeha sosŏl: “great-river fiction”; multivolume fictional work Taehak: National Confucian Academy Taehan cheguk: “Great Han Empire”: designation for Chosŏn announced by King Kojong, 1897 Taehan maeil shinbo: (Taehan daily news): Enlightenment period newspaper Taemyŏn: Shilla entertainment involving dancing by masked performers T’aesŏ munye shinbo: Western Literary Arts (weekly newspaper) taesŏng ak: Chinese traditional music imported from Song China t’alch’um: mask-dance drama talgu sori: ceremonial song performed as gravediggers pound the earth flat over a newly interred coffin tamshi: poem-tale Tanch’ŭng (Dislocation): magazine published by a small poetry circle Tang: Chinese dynasty, 618–907 Tang’ak: Chinese music tangnon: political factionalism Tan’gun: mythical progenitor of the Korean people and first ruler of Ko Chosŏn; according to tradition, born in 2333 BC Tano: traditional Korean holiday celebrated on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month t’aryŏng: ballad Three Great Poets of Tang Verse: Yi Tal, Paek Kwanghun, Ch’oe Kyŏngch’ang to: hangŭl letters inserted into a text as grammatical markers To (Dao): the (Daoist) Way todŏk ka: song of morality toksŏ ch’ulshin kwa: state examination in the reading of texts for societal advancement Tonga ilbo (East Asia daily): newspaper lauched during the Colonial period

Glossary

301

Tonghak: “Eastern learning”; religion and movement culminating in an 1894– 1895 rebellion tonghak kasa: kasa extolling the teachings of the Tonghak religion tongmaeng: heaven-worshipping ceremony in Koguryŏ Tongnip hyŏphoe: Independence Club Tongnip shinmun (The Independent): Enlightenment period newspaper tongp’yŏnje: style of p’ansori singing popular in Chŏlla Province east of the Sŏmjin River tosul: Daoist sorcery T’owŏlhoe (Association for the real and the ideal): Colonial period theater group Tto hana ŭi munhwa (Alternative culture): progressive, feminist-oriented association Tŭrama (Drama): journal for the publication of drama literature twip’uri: reconciliation ceremony uhwa: fable ŭibyŏng: “righteous army”; patriotic grassroots army ŭijŏk: “righteous bandit” ŭishik yo: ceremonial song ŭm: sound (of a sinograph) Unified Shilla: Korean kingdom, 668–935 wanp’anbon: book edition printed in Chŏnju, North Chŏlla Province wihang: designating a less class-conscious style of writing introduced by members of the chungin class in Later Chosŏn wŏlbuk (“went north”): referring to those writers native to present-day South Korea who migrated to North Korea after Liberation in 1945 Wŏlgan munhak (Monthly literature): monthly literary arts journal wŏllam (“went south”): referring to those writers native to present-day North Korea who migrated to South Korea after Liberation in 1945 yadam: “vulgar tale,” “dubious tale,” “unofficial narrative”; anecdotal tale written in classical Chinese yangban: elite literati class in Chosŏn society yangban madang: aristocrat-and-hick scene in a t’alch’um Ye (also known as Tong’ye, “Eastern Ye”): ancient tribal state north of the Yalu River, third century BC–AD fifth century yŏksa ŭishik: “historical consciousness”: acknowledgment of the importance of history, as reflected in a writer’s works yŏllyŏ: virtuous woman yŏn: stanza

302Glossary yŏn shijo: shijo cycle yŏndŭnghoe: festival in which lamps were lit and hung for decoration at night on the first full moon of the first lunar month yŏnggo: heaven-worshipping ceremony in Puyŏ Yŏngŭk p’yŏngnon (Theater review): journal for the publication of dramatic works yŏng’ung chŏn’gi: “hero tale” appearing during the Enlightenment period yŏngung sosŏl: traditional fictional narrative incorporating a heroic protagonist yŏnŭi: a common synonym for sosŏl yŏyo: “Koryŏ songs”; another name for Koryŏ kayo yubae kasa: kasa bemoaning a scholar-official’s life in exile yuhak: see Neo-Confucianism yuhŭi yo: “entertainment song”; song intended to enliven the atmosphere at a recreational or cultural event yulshi: regulated verse; a hanshi consisting of eight lines

Index of Names

An Chohwan (An Chowŏn, An Towŏn; d.u.), 17 An Chŏnghyo (b. 1941), 231 An Ch’uk (1282–1348), 11 An Minyŏng (1816–?), 15 An Sugil (1911–1977), 169 Bandi (b. 1950), 245 Ch’a Ch’ŏllo (1556–1615), 16 Ch’a Pŏmsŏk (1924–2006), 204 Cha, Theresa Hak-Kyung (1951–1982), 246 Ch’ae Manshik (1902–1950), 157, 160, 166, 202, 203 Chang Chiyŏn (1864–1921), 146 Chang Chŏng’il (b. 1962), 229, 236, 263 ff Chang Hyŏkchu (1905–1998), 245 Chang, Leonard, 246 Chang Sŏŏn (d.u.), 117 Chang Yonghak (1921–1999), 167, 231 Cho Chihun (1920–1968), 122, 123, 124, 126–127 Cho Chŏngnae (b. 1943), 175, 232, 233–234, 242, 245 Cho Chunghwan (1863–1944), 149 Cho Hŭisun (1905–?), 200 Cho Kich’ŏn (1913–1951), 244 Cho Myŏnghŭi (1894–1938), 154, 155, 196–197, 198, 245 Cho Ohyŏn (1932–2018), 241 Cho P’ungyŏn (1914–1991), 117 Cho Pyŏnghwa (1921–2003), 127 Cho Sehŭi (b. 1942), 174

Cho Sŏnggi (1638–1689), 30 Cho Sŏnggi (b. 1950) 235 Cho Susam (1762–1849), 69 Cho T’aeil (1941–1999), 132 Ch’oe Cha (1188–1260), 68, 88 Ch’oe Chaesŏ (1908–1964), 117 Ch’oe Ch’anshik (1881–1951), 149 Ch’oe Cheu (1821–1864), 17 Ch’oe Chŏnghŭi (1912–1990), 163, 164 Ch’oe Harim (1939–2010), 132 Ch’oe Inho (1945–2013), 174, 231, 232 Ch’oe Inhun (b. 1936), 170–171 Ch’oe Kyŏngch’ang (1539–1583), 69 Ch’oe Myŏnghŭi (1947–1998), 231 Ch’oe Namsŏn (1890–1957), 110, 111, 112–113 Ch’oe Sŏhae (1901–1932), 154–155 Ch’oe Sŏndal (Ch’oe Yeun; 1726–1805), 91 Ch’oe Such’ŏl (b. 1958), 230, 231 Ch’oe Sŭngho (b. 1954), 240 Ch’oe Sŭngil (b. 1967), 196 Ch’oe Sŭngja (b. 1952), 237–238 Ch’oe Sŭngno (927–989), 68 Ch’oe Yŏngmi (b. 1961), 239 Ch’oe Yun (Ch’oe Hyŏnmu; b. 1953), 227 Choi, Sook Nyul (Ch’oe Sungnyŏl; 1938), 246 Choi, Susan (b. 1969), 246 Chŏn Kyŏngnin (b. 1962), 231 Ch’ŏn Unyŏng (b. 1971), 229, 231, 232 Chŏng Chiyong (1902–1950), 117, 118, 122, 138 Chŏng Ch’ŏl (1536–1593), 13, 16, 20–21

304 Chŏng Hun (1563–1640), 16 Chŏng Hyŏnjong (b. 1939), 135, 136 Chŏng Hyŏnung (1911–1976), 117 Chŏng Ihyŏn (b. 1972), 230 Chŏng Mongju (1337–1392), 11, 68 Chŏng T’aeje (1612–1669), 73 Chŏng Tojŏn (1342–1398), 12 Chŏng Yagyong (1762–1836), 69, 77 Chŏng Yakchŏn (1758–1816), 17 Chŏng Yŏngmun (b. 1965), 229 Chŏng Yujŏng (b. 1966), 232 Chu Yohan (1900–1979), 111, 112 Fenkl, Heinz Insu (b. 1960), 246 Freyer, Achim (b. 1934), 243 Ha Handam (Ha Ŭndam; d.u.), 91 Ha Yusang (1928–2017), 204­–205 Haïlji (Im Chongju; b. 1955), 229 Ham Hyŏngsu (1914–1946), 117 Ham Sedŏk (1915–1950), 201, 203, 204 Han Chisu (b. 1967), 233 Han Kang (b. 1970), 231 Han Sŏrya (1900–1976), 156, 244 Han Yongun (Han Pongwan; 1879–1944), 110, 111, 113–114, 142, 245 Han Yuju (b. 1982), 233 Hŏ Kyun (1569–1618), 5, 25, 33–59, 74 Hŏ Nansŏrhŏn (1563–1589), 22–24, 69, 238 Hong Myŏnghŭi (1888–1968), 159, 245 Hong Set’ae (1653–1725), 69 Hong Sŏkchung (b. 1941), 231, 274–279 Hong Sŏngnan (b. 1958), 241 Hwang Chini (d.u.), 13, 20, 69, 231, 235, 245 Hwang Chiu (b. 1952), 239 Hwang Chŏngŭn (b. 1976), 230, 236 Hwang Hyŏn (1855–1910), 70 Hwang Sŏg’u (1895–1959), 111 Hwang Sŏgyŏng (b. 1943), 173­­–174, 179, 232, 233–234 Hwang Sunwŏn (1915–2000), 163, 167–168, 184–192, 227, 235 Hwang Tonggyu (b. 1938), 135–136 Hyegŭn (1320–1376), 15 Hyŏn Chingŏn (1900–1943), 152, 159–160

Index of Names Im Che (1549–1587), 73 Im Ch’ŏru (b. 1954), 227 Im Ch’un (d.u.), 68 Im Hŭijae (1922–1970), 204 Im Hwa (1908–1953), 115, 116, 122, 244 Kang Hŭimaeng (1424–1483), 88 Kang Kyŏngae (1907–1943), 163–164 Kang Sŏkkyŏng (Kang Sŏngae; b. 1951), 228 Kang Sŭnghan (1918–1950), 244 Kang Ŭn’gyo (b. 1945), 237 Kang Yŏngsuk (b. 1967), 232 Kang Younghill (Kang Yonghŭl; 1903–1972), 245 Kang Wi (1820–1884), 70 Ki Hyŏngdo (1960–1989), 240 Kil Chae (1353–1419), 11 Kim Aeran (b. 1980), 230, 233 Kim Ch’angsul (1903–1950), 115 Kim Charim (1926–1994), 204 Kim Chiha (b. 1941), 132, 239 Kim Chinsŏp (1903–?), 200 Kim Chinsu (1909–1966), 204 Kim Chiwŏn (1943–2013), 231, 245 Kim Chongjik (1431–1492), 69 Kim Chunghyŏk (b. 1971), 235 Kim Ch’unsu (1922–2004), 127–128 Kim, Don’o (1936–2013), 245 Kim Haegang (1903–1984), 115 Kim Hag’yŏng (1938–1985), 245 Kim, Helen, 246 Kim Hun (b. 1948), 230, 231 Kim Hyesun (b. 1955), 237, 238, 247–248 Kim Idŭm (b. 1969), 239 Kim In’gyŏm (1707–1772), 17 Kim Insuk (b. 1963), 232 Kim Kijin (1903–1985), 195 Kim Kirim (1908–?), 117, 122 Kim Kwanggyun (1914–1993), 117 Kim Kwangsŏp (1905–1977), 122 Kim Kyoje (1883–?), 149 Kim Kyŏnguk (b. 1971), 234 Kim Manjung (1637–1692), 26, 30 Kim Minsuk (b. 1948), 228

Index of Names Kim Myŏngsun (1896–1951), 163 Kim Namjo (b. 1927), 127, 128–129, 237 Kim Namju (1946–1994), 239 Kim Ŏk (1896–?), 111, 112 Kim, Patti (b. 1970), 246 Kim Pokchin (1901–1940), 195 Kim Pushik (1075–1151), 65, 68, 86 Kim, Richard (1932–2009), 246 Kim Sagwa (b. 1984), 232, 234, 242 Kim Sakkat (Kim Pyŏng’yŏn; 1807–1863), 69, 77, 176 Kim Sangyong (1902–1951), 117 Kim Saryang (1914–1950), 245 Kim Sowŏl (Kim Chŏngshik; 1902–1934), 89, 111, 113, 118, 138 Kim Subok (b. 1953), 239–240 Kim Sum (b. 1974), 230, 232 Kim Sŭnghŭi (b. 1952), 135, 237 Kim Sŭngok (b. 1941), 172 Kim Suyŏng (1921–1968), 127, 129–130, 131, 141 Kim T’aeg’yŏng (1850–1927), 70 Kim T’aeyong (b. 1974), 233 Kim T’akhwan (b. 1968), 231 Kim Talchin (1907–1989), 117 Kim Tonghwan (1901–?), 112 Kim Tongin (1900–1951), 151–152 Kim Tongni (Kim Shijong; 1913–1995), 117, 162–163, 168–169 Kim Ujin (1897–1926), 196, 197–198 Kim Ŭlhan (d.u.), 195 Kim Uong (1540–1603), 73 Kim Wŏnil (b. 1942), 175, 228 Kim Wŏnju (1896–1971), 163 Kim Yŏngha (b. 1968), 228 Kim Yŏngnang (1903–1950), 117, 118–119 Kim Yŏngp’al (1902–1950), 198–199 Kim Yujŏng (1908–1937), 156–157, 161 Ko Chŏnghŭi (1948–1991), 237, 247 Ko Ŭn (b. 1933), 127, 134, 240, 241 Kong Chiyŏng (b. 1963), 232, 239 Kong Sŏnok (b. 1963), 227 Ku Sang (1919–2004), 127, 141–142 Kwŏn Kŭn (1352–1409), 68 Kwŏn Samdŭk (1772–1841), 91

305 Lee, Chang-rae (b. 1965), 246 Lee, Don (b. 1971), 246 Lee, Helie (b. 1964), 246 Lee, Marie (b. 1964), 246 Li Mirok (see Yi Mirŭk) Mo Hŭnggap (ca. 1800–?), 91, 93 Mo Yunsuk (1910–1990), 117 Mun Chŏnghŭi (b. 1947), 135 Na, An (b. 1972), 246 Na Hŭidŏk (b. 1966), 239 Na Hyesŏk (1896–1948), 163 Na Tohyang (1902–1926), 152–153 No Chayŏng (1901–1940), 111 No Ch’ŏnmyŏng (1912–1957), 117, 237, 239 Ŏ Sukkwŏn (fl. 1525–1554), 70 O Changhwan (1918–1951), 117, 122 O Chŏnghŭi (b. 1947), 177, 178–179 O Sangsun (1894–1963), 111 O Seyŏng (b. 1942), ix, 135, 137 O T’aesŏk (b. 1940), 206–207, 241 O Yŏngjin (1916–1974), 201–202, 203, 204 Pae Samshik (b. 1970), 243 Pae Sua (b. 1965), 231, 232, 236 Paek Kwanghun (1537–1582), 69 Paek Shinae (1906–1939), 163, 164 Paek Sŏk (1912–1995/1996), 120, 242 Pak Chaesam (1933–1997), 127, 128, 241 Pak Chega (1750–1805/1815), 69 Pak Chonghwa (1901–1981), 122 Pak Choyŏl (b. 1930), 206 Pak, Gary (b. 1952), 246 Pak Hwasŏng (1904–1988), 163 Pak Hyogwan (1781/1800–1880?), 15 Pak Hyŏnsuk (b. 1926), 204 Pak Illo (1561–1642), 16 Pak Illyang (d. 1096), 68 Pak Kŭnhyŏng (b. 1963), 242 Pak Kyŏngni (1926–2008), 177 Pak Mingyu (b. 1968), 233 Pak Mogwŏl (1916–1978), 122, 123, 124, 125

306 Pak Nohae (Pak Kip’yŏng; b. 1958), 239 Pak P’aryang (1905–1988), 115–116, 122 Pak Seyŏng (1902–1989), 115, 122 Pak Shijŏng (b. 1942), 245 Pak Sŭnghŭi (1901–1964), 195 Pak T’aewŏn (1910–1986), 156–157, 158, 162, 179–184, 233 Pak Tujin (1916–1998), 122, 123, 124–125 Pak Ŭnshik (1859–1925), 146 Pak Wansŏ (1931–2011), 177–178, 230, 232 Pak Yongch’ŏl (1904–1938), 117 Pak Yŏngho (1911–1953), 203 Pak Yujŏn (1834–?), 93 Pang Hyŏnsŏk (b. 1961), 232, 239 Pyŏn Kyeryang (1369–1430), 12 Pyŏn Yŏngno (1897–1961), 111 P’yŏn Hyeyŏng (b. 1972), 229, 230, 249–262 Ri Kaisei (see Yi Hoesŏng) Ryu Chaeyŏng (b. 1948), 241 Ryu Shihwa (b. 1957/1958), 240 Shim Ŭi (1475–?), 73 Shin Ch’aeho (1880–1936), 146–147 Shin Chaehyo (1812–1884), 91 Shin Kosong (1907–?), 203 Shin Kyŏngnim (b. 1936), 132, 133–134 Shin Kyŏngsuk (b. 1963), 228, 232 Shin Paeksu (1915–1946), 117 Shin Sŏkch’o (1909–1975), 117 Shin Sŏkchŏng (1907–1974), 117, 123 Shin Tongyŏp (1930–1969), 130–131 Shin Wi (1769–1845), 69 Sŏ Chŏngju (1913–2000), 117, 122, 123–124, 140–141 Sŏ Hangsŏk (1900–1985), 200 Sŏ Kŏjŏng (1420–1488), 68–69, 88 Sŏ Yŏngŭn (b. 1943), 179 Sŏk Shigyŏm’ang (d.u.), 71 Son Ch’angsŏp (1922–2010), 169 Son, Lavrenti (b. 1941), 245 Song, Cathy (b. 1955), 246 Song Chusŏk (1650–1692), 17 Song Hŭngnok (ca. 1790–?), 91, 93

Index of Names Sŏng Sŏkche (b. 1960), 236 Song Yŏng (Song Muhyŏn; 1903–1978), 155–156, 199, 203, 204 Sŏng Hyŏn (1439–1504), 88 Trenka, Jane Jeong (b. 1972), 246 Ŭn Hŭigyŏng (b. 1959), 228 Yang Chudong (1903–1977), 111 Yi Chaehyŏn (b. 1940), 207 Yi Chehyŏn (1287–1367), 68 Yi Ch’ŏm (1345–1405), 71 Yi Ch’ŏngjun (1939–2008), 172–173 Yi Haejo (1869–1927), 148–149 Yi Hayun (1906–1974), 117 Yi Hoch’ŏl (1932–2016), 169–170 Yi Hoesŏng (Ri Kaisei; b. 1935), 245 Yi Hŭijun (d.u.), 75 Yi Hwang (1501–1570), 16 Yi Hyegyŏng (b. 1960), 230, 232 Yi Hyŏngsang (1653–1733), 15 Yi Hyosŏk (1907–1942), 156, 160, 235–236 Yi I (1536–1584), 16 Yi Illo (1152–1220), 68 Yi Inhwa (b. 1966), 231 Yi Injik (1862–1916), 147–148 Yi Insŏng (b. 1953), 229 Yi Kahwan (1742–1801), 17 Yi Kangbaek (b. 1947), 241–242 Yi Kiho (b. 1972), 235 Yi Kiyŏng (1895–1984), 155, 244 Yi Kok (1298–1351), 71 Yi Kŏnch’ang (1852–1898), 70 Yi Kŭnbae (b. 1940), 241 Yi Kŭnsam (1929–2003), 204, 205, 208–225 Yi Kwangsu (1892–1950), 103–104, 112, 150–151, 159 Yi Kyŏngsŏng (b. 1983), 243 Yi Kyubo (1168–1241), 68, 70, 76, 78 Yi Maech’ang (1573–1610), 69 Yi Mirŭk (Yi Ŭigyŏng; 1899–1950), 245–246 Yi Mungu (1941–2003), 174

Index of Names Yi Munjae (b. 1959), 240 Yi Munyŏl (b. 1948), 176–177 Yi Ok (1716–1815), 74 Yi Pŏmsŏn (1920–1981), 169 Yi Pyŏk (1754–1785), 17 Yi Pyŏnggak (1910–1941), 117 Yi Pyŏnggi (1891–1968), 110, 112, 241 Yi Saek (1328–1396), 11, 68, 76 Yi Sang (Kim Haegyŏng; 1910–1937), 119, 139 Yi Sanghwa (1901–1943), 111, 114–115 Yi Sanghyŏp (1893–1957), 149 Yi Sangjŏk (1804–1865), 69 Yi Shiu (d.u.), 117 Yi Shiyŏng (b. 1949), 239–240 Yi Sŏ’gu (1899–?), 195 Yi Sŏngbok (b. 1952), 240 Yi Sŏngbu (b. 1942), 132 Yi Sŏnhŭi (1911–?), 163, 165 Yi Sugwang (1563–1628), 70 Yi Sungin (1343–1392), 68 Yi T’aejun (1904–?), 156–157, 161, 231 Yi Tal (1539–1612), 69 Yi Tŏngmu (1741–1793), 69 Yi Ŭnsang (1903–1982), 110, 112

307 Yi Wŏnmyŏng (1807–1887), 75 Yi Yangji (1955–1992), 245 Yi Yongch’an (1927–2003), 204 Yi Yŏnju (1953–1992), 239 Yi Yuksa (Yi Wŏllok; 1904–1944), 117, 121 Yi Yunt’aek (b. 1952), 241, 242 Yŏm Kyedal (ca. 1800–?), 93 Yŏm Sangsŏp (1897–1963), 153 Yu Ch’ihwan (1908–1967), 120–121, 123 Yu Ch’ijin (1905–1974), 200–201, 203, 204 Yu Mongin (1559–1623), 88 Yu Tŭkkong (1748–1807), 69 Yu Miri (b. 1968), 245 Yu Yŏp (1902–1975), 111 Yun Hŭnggil (b. 1942), 179 Yun Kon’gang (Yun Pungwŏn; 1911–1950), 117 Yun Koŭn (b. 1980), 231 Yun Kyesŏn (1577–1604), 73 Yun Paengnam (1888–1954), 200 Yun Taesŏng (b. 1939), 207–208 Yun Sŏndo (1587–1671), 13–14, 19–20 Yun Sŏnghŭi (b. 1973), 230, 233 Yun T’aeho (b. 1969), 232–233 Yun Tongju (1917–1945), 121–122, 140

Index of Titles of Literary Works

3wŏl ŭi nun (Snow in March), 243 “409ho ŭi yubang” (The breast in room 409), 230 “1929nyŏn ŭi ŏnŭ toshi ŭi p’unggyŏng” (Scenes from a city, 1929), 116 “1959” (1980), 240 “Adam i nun ttŭlttae” (When Adam opened his eyes), 229 “Adŭl ŭi maŭm” (A son’s mind), 155 Aeguk puin chŏn (Tale of a patriotic woman), 146 Aerin (Love thy neighbor), 133 “Ahop kyŏlle ŭi kudo ro namŭn sanae” (The Man Who Was Left as Nine Pairs of Shoes), 179 Akchang kasa (Lyrics for song and music), 10 Akhak kwebŏm (Musical studies guide), 9 American Woman, 246 “Amsa chido” (The Uncharted Map), 166 “Amso” (The cow), 174 “Amya” (Dark night), 153 Andrei Serban’s Different Ch’unhyang, 243 “Anhae” (Wife), 161 “Anmin ka” (Appeasing the People), 8 Ansŏ shijip (Poems by Ansŏ), 112 “Aoi kadŏn” (Mallow Gardens), 235, Aoi kadŏn (Mallow gardens), 229–230 Arirang, 234 “Arŭmdaun noŭl” (The beautiful afterglow), 164

Asanyŏ (The maiden Asa), 130 Asŭp’irin (Aspirin), 242 “B sagam kwa lŏbŭ let’ŏ” (Dormitory mistress B and the love letter), 152 A Cab Called Reliable, 246 “Cha” (Measuring stick), 137 Ch’aeshikchuŭija (The vegetarian, 2007), 231 Chaesaeng (Resurrection), 151 “Chagyŏng pyŏlgok” (Song of selfadmonition), 16 “Chahasan” (Mt. Chaha), 125 “Chahwasang” (Self-portrait), 121 Chal kara sŏk’ŏsŭ (Farewell, circus), 232 Chamyŏng ko (The self-sounding drum), 203 “Ch’an Kip’a rang ka” (Song in Praise of hwarang Kip’a), 8 Chang Kilsan, 173 “Chang Kug’yŏng i chugŏttago?” (Leslie Cheung is dead, you say?), 235 “Chang Poksŏn chŏn” (Tale of Chang Poksŏn), 74 “Chang saeng chŏn” (Tale of scholar Chang), 74 “Chang sanin chŏn” (Tale of Chang the hermit), 74 Changhanmong (A dream of everlasting han), 174 “Changhwa Hongnyŏn chŏn” (Tale of Changhwa and Hongnyŏn), 30

310 Changkki t’aryŏng (Ballad of a cock pheasant), 91 “Changmi pyŏng tŭlda” (The rose who fell ill), 160 “Changsa ŭi kkum” (A strong man’s dream), 173 “Ch’angsŏn kamŭi rok” (An account of propriety and justice), 30 “Ch’angŭi ka” (Song of righteousness), 17 “Chaninhan toshi” (The cruel city), 172 “Chayŏn” (Naturally), 128 Che 18 konghwaguk (The eighteenth republic), 205 Chehyang nal (Memorial day), 202 “Chesŏk ponp’uri” (Song of the embodied Sakra), 86–87 “Cheya” (A new year’s eve), 153 Chi’aksan (Chi’ak Mountain), 147 Chibong yusŏl (Cyclopedia by Chibong), 70 “Chihach’on” (The underground village; story by Song Yŏng), 156 “Chihach’on” (The Underground Village; story by Kang Kyŏngae), 163 “Chiju hoeshi” (Spider meets pig), 161 Ch’illyŏn ŭi pam (Seven Years of Darkness), 232 Chilmajae shinhwa (The myth of Chilmajae), 124 “Ch’ilsŏng p’uri” (Song for the Big Dipper god), 87 “Ch’ilwŏl paekchung” (July, Paekchung), 120 “Chimaek” (The pulse of the earth), 164 Ch’immuk ŭi kamshi (Observing silence), 242 “Ch’immuk ŭi mirae” (The Future of Silence), 233 “Chindallae kkot” (Azaleas), 113 “Chindallae sanch’ŏn” (Azalea landscape), 131 “Chingnyŏ” (Weaver Woman), 178 Chinhon’ga (Requiem), 239 “Chinnaganŭn pi” (Passing Rain), 163 “Ch’isuk” (My Innocent Uncle), 160

Index of Titles of Literary Works Cho Chihun shisŏn (Selected poems of Cho Chihun), 126 “Chŏ kiap” (Low pressure), 155 “Chŏ saeng chŏn” (Tale of Master Mulberry), 71–72 “Cho Saengwŏn nok” (Tale of Cho Saengwŏn), 30 “Cho Shin,” 71 “Ch’ŏ ŭi sŏlgye” (A wife’s design), 165 “Cho Ung chŏn” (Tale of Cho Ung), 29 Ch’obun (The Grass Tomb), 207 Ch’oe Sŭnghŭi, 243 “Ch’oehu e on soshik” (The final piece of news), 115 “Chŏgi sori ŏpshi han chŏm kkonip i chigo” (There a Petal Silently Falls), 227 “Choguk” (Fatherland; poem), 131 Choguk (Fatherland; play), 203 “Chŏk” (Enemy), 130 “Chŏkpin” (Naked poverty), 164 Chŏkpyŏk ka (Song of the red cliffs), 32, 91 Chŏkto ŭi kkot (Equatorial flowers), 174 “Chŏlchŏng” (The Vertex), 121 Chŏlgyu (Scream), 205 “Chŏlmang” (Despair), 130 “Chŏlmŭn nal ŭi chosang” (Portrait of youthful times), 176 Chŏlmŭn sedae ŭi paeksŏ (A white paper on the younger generation), 204 “Chŏlmŭni ŭi shijŏl” (The season of youth), 152 “Chŏmgyŏng” (Sketches), 116 Ch’ŏn Kaesomun chŏn (Tale of Chŏn Kaesomun), 146 Ch’ŏn nyŏn ŭi wangguk (Kingdom of a thousand years), 235 Ch’ŏnbyŏn p’unggyŏng (Streamside sketches), 158, 162 Ch’ondam hae’i (Humorous stories from the countryside), 88 Chŏng Chiyong shijip (Poems of Chŏng Chiyong), 118 “Chŏng Kwajŏng kok” (Chŏng Kwajŏng’s Song), 8, 10

Index of Titles of Literary Works “Ch’ŏng noru” (Blue deer), 125 “Ch’ŏng p’odo” (Grapes), 121 “Chŏng shija chŏn” (Tale of attendant Chŏng), 72 Chongch’akchi (Final destination), 205 Ch’ŏngch’un yech’an (In Praise of Youth), 242 Ch’ongdok ŭi sori (The voice of the director-general), 170–171 “Ch’ŏnggang saja hyŏnbu chŏn” (Tale of Master Tortoise, messenger from the clear waters), 71–72 Ch’ŏnggiwa chip (The house with the blue-tile roof), 204 Ch’ŏnggu p’ung’a (Elegant verses from Korea), 69 Ch’ŏnggu yadam (Yadam from Korea), 75, 88 Ch’ŏnggu yŏng’ŏn (Enduring poetry of Korea), 14–15 Chŏnggŭl malli (The Human Jungle), 232, 234 Chŏngjikhan sagihan (The honest crook), 203 “Chŏngjowŏn” (A rant against chastity), 164 Ch’ŏngma shich’o (Verse by Ch’ŏngma), 120 “Chŏngnimi,” 239 Ch’ŏngnok chip (Blue deer poems), 124–126 Chŏngnyŏm ŭi ki (Flag of sentiments), 129 Chŏng’o (Noontime), 197 “Chongsaenggi” (The end of a life), 161 “Ch’ŏngsan pyŏlgok” (Song of the Green Mountain), 10 “Ch’ŏngsandaek” (The woman from Ch’ŏngsan), 175 “Ch’ŏngsando” (Green mountain way), 124 “Chŏngsŏk ka” (Song of Chŏngsŏk), 10 “Ch’ŏn’gun ki” (Tale of the heavenly prince), 73 “Ch’ŏn’gun yŏnŭi” (Tale of the heavenly prince), 73

311 “Chŏngŭp sa” (Song of Chŏngŭp), 9 Chŏnhu (Before, after), 243 Ch’ŏnjamun (The thousand-character classic), 65 “Ch’ŏnjangho esŏ” (At Lake Ch’ŏnjang), 239 “Ch’ŏnju konggyŏng ka” (Song in worship of the Lord), 17 “Chŏnmunga” (The Professional), 240 “Chŏnyŏk ŭi keim” (Evening Game), 178 “Chŏptong sae” (Cuckoo), 113 Chosŏn ui ŏlgul (The faces of Korea), 152 “Ch’ŏt sarang” (First love), 236 “Ch’ŏtpŏntche ki’nyŏmil” (The First Anniversary), 230 Ch’ŏyong, 127 “Ch’ŏyong ka” (Ch’ŏyong’s Song; hyangga), 7–8, 18 “Ch’ŏyong ka” (Ch’ŏyong’s Song; Koryŏ kayo), 9 “Ch’ŏyong tanjang” (Ch’ŏyong fragments), 127–128 “Choyulsa” (The piano tuner), 172 “Chu saeng chŏn” (Tale of Chu), 75 “Chukkye pyŏlgok” (Song of Bamboo Valley), 11 “Chukpuin chŏn” (Tale of Madam Bamboo), 71–72 Chŭlgŏun ilgi (Cheerful diary), 238 “Chŭlgŏun p’yŏnji” (A cheerful letter), 135 Chumong myth (foundation myth of Koguryŏ), 86 “Chunggugin kŏri” (Chinatown), 178 Ch’unhyang chŏn (Tale of Ch’unhyang; traditional fictional narrative), 26–27 Ch’unhyang chŏn (Tale of Ch’unhyang; play), 200 Ch’unhyang ka (Song of Ch’unhyang), 32, 90–91, 128, 243 “Ch’unhyang tyŏn” (Tale of Ch’unhyang), 171 Ch’unhyangi maŭm (Ch’unhyang, heart and soul), 128 Ch’unp’ung ŭi ch’ŏ (Ch’unp’ung’s Wife), 207

312 “Ch’uŏk esŏ” (As I recall), 128 Chwi (Rats), 242 “Chwi iyagi” (A Tale of Rats), 155 “Ch’wiyu Pubyŏkchŏng ki” (Drunken merriment at Pubyŏk Pavilion), 72 The Collective, 246 Der Yalu Fliesst (The Yalu Flows; Amnokkang ŭn hŭrŭnda), 245–246 DICTÉE, 246 Dispatches from the Cold, 246 East Goes West, 246 Finding My Voice, 246 The Foreign Student, 246 The Fruit ‘n’ Food, 246 A Gesture Life, 246 The Grass Roof, 246 “Hae egesŏ sonyŏn ege” (From the Sea to the Boys), 111 “Haebang chŏnhu” (Liberation, before and after), 166 Haebang kinyŏm shijip (Poems commemorating Liberation), 122 Haebyŏn ŭi unmunjip (Seaside verses), 134 Haedong kayo (Songs of Korea), 15 Haedong yuju (Pearls from Korea), 69 Haep’ari ŭi norae (Jellyfish songs), 112 Haetpit sok esŏ (Among the sunbeams), 128 Haeyŏn (The sea urchin), 201 Hak (Cranes), 167 “Hak maŭl saram tŭl” (The People of Crane Village), 169 “Hallim pyŏlgok” (Song of the Confucian Scholars), 11 Hanne ŭi sŭngch’ŏn (The ascension of Hanne), 202 “Han-sshi yŏndaegi” (Chronicle of a Man Named Han), 173 “Han yŏrŭm pam” (A midsummer night), 155

Index of Titles of Literary Works Hangang (The Han River), 234 “Hanguk yŏsŏng munhak ŭi palchŏn” (The development of Korean women’s literature), 237 “Han’gwi” (The drought demon), 163 Hanjungnok (The Memoirs of Lady Hyegyŏng), 31, 59 Hannasan (Mt. Halla), 244 Hanŏpshi najŭn sumgyŏl (With endlessly bated breath, 1989), 229 “Hanŭl uch’eguk” (Heaven’s post office), 240 “Haru ŭi kwajŏng” (The course of a day), 116 Hayan chŏnjaeng (White Badge), 231 “Hellik’opt’ŏ” (Helicopter), 130 “Hŏ saeng chŏn” (Tale of Master Hŏ), 74–75 Hoaetpul: Haebang kinyŏm shijip (Torch fire: Poems commemorating Liberation), 122 “Hoch’ul” (The Pager), 231 Hoesaegin (The gray ones), 170 “Hojil” (The tiger’s admonition), 74 “Hong Kiltong chŏn” (Tale of Hong Kiltong), 5, 25–26, 28, 33 “Hong Paekhwa chŏn” (Tale of Hong Paekhwa), 75 “Hongsu” (The flood), 155 “Hongsu chŏnhu” (The flood, before and after), 163 “Hongyŏm” (Bloody Flames), 154 “Hŏnhwa ka” (Presenting the Flowers), 7 Honpul (Spirit fire), 231 “Hŏrŏjin ch’ŏngnyŏn’gwan” (The abandoned youth center), 163 Hoshinsul (The art of self-protection), 199 Hŏsuabi ch’um (Scarecrow dance), 234 “Hŭkpaek sajinsa” (Black-and-White Photographer), 233 “Hŭngbo-sshi” (A Man Called Hŭngbo), 160–161 Hŭngbu chŏn (Tale of Hŭngbu), 27, 30, 32, 87, 171, 233 Hŭngbu ka (Song of Hŭngbu), 32, 91

Index of Titles of Literary Works “Hunmin ka” (Instructing the people), 13 “Hwa sa” (A history of flora), 73 Hwabun (Pollen), 158, 160 Hwaga Yi Chungsŏp (Yi Chungsŏp, artist), 207 “Hwajang” (From Powder to Powder), 230 “Hwakshin” (Conviction), 230 “Hwamunbo ro karin i ch’ŭng” (Second floor hidden behind a flower-print cloth), 115 Hwang Chini (novel by Hong Sŏkchung), 274 Hwang Sunwŏn tanp’yŏnjip (Short fiction by Hwang Sunwŏn), 163 Hwanggŭmsan (Gold mountain), 199 “Hwanghon” (Twilight), 128 Hwangje rŭl wihayŏ (Hail to the emperor), 176 Hwangt’o (Yellow earth), 132 “Hwangt’ogi” (Loess Valley), 162 Hwanjŏlgi (Change of seasons), 206 Hwaŏmgyŏng (The Garland Sutra; novel by Ko Ŭn), 240 Hwaŏmgyŏng (The Garland Sutra; shijo anthology by Pak Chaesam), 241 “Hwarang ŭi huye” (A Descendant of the Hwarang), 162 Hwasa chip (Flower snake poems), 123 “Hwasangbo” (Genealogy of a romance), 128 Hwasŏngdon chŏn (Tale of [George] Washington), 146, 148 Hwich’ŏnggŏrinŭn ohu (A staggering afternoon), 178 “Hyangsu” (Longing for home), 115 “Hyesŏng ka” (Comet Song), 7 Hyŏl ŭi nu (Tears of Blood), 147 “Hyŏlsŏ” (Blood letter), 169 “Hyŏndaeshik kyoryang” (Modern bridges), 130 Hyŏnhaet’an (The Korea-Japan Strait), 116 “Hyungga” (The Haunted House), 164

313 “I ttang ŭi pom” (Spring in this land), 163 I Want to Hijack an Airplane, 237 Ikki (Moss), 233 Ilch’e myŏnhoe sajŏlhara (Refuse all interviews!), 199 “Iltong chang’yu ka” (Song of a glorious voyage to Japan), 17 Im Kkŏkchŏng, 159, 245 Ingan chŏmmok (Human grafting), 168 “Ingan millim” (Dense human forest), 124–125 “Ing’yŏ ingan” (Superfluous beings), 169 Inhyŏn wanghu chŏn (The True History of Queen Inhyŏn), 28, 31 Im Hwa Chŏng Yŏn (Tale of the families Im, Hwa, Chŏng, and Yŏn), 31 “Im Kyŏngŏp chŏn” (Tale of Im Kyŏngŏp), 29, 75 Imjinnok (The imjin wars), 29, 75 Ingan munje (From Wŏnso Pond), 163, 164 “Inmaek” (The pulse of humanity), 164 Ipsan (Taking to the monastery), 134 Irinyong shikt’ak (Table for one), 231 Irwŏl (The sun and the moon), 168 “Isang kok” (Treading the Frost), 10 It’aeri kŏnguk sam kŏl chŏn (Tale of three heroes who built the Italian nation), 146 Kaech’ŏkcha (The pioneers), 151 Kaeguri (The frog), 242 “Kaekchi” (Far from home), 173 Kaeppul (Dog horns), 241 “Kaesalgu” (Wild apricots), 160 “Kaet maul” (Seaside Village), 166 Kagok wŏllyu (Anthology of Korean songs), 15 K’ain ŭi huye (The Descendants of Cain), 168 Kajang ŏduun nal chŏnyŏk e (On the eve of the darkest day), 137 “Kajŭrang chip” (Home at Kajŭrang Pass), 120 K’al ŭi norae (Sword song), 231

314 “Kamagwi” (Crows), 161 “Kamagwi ŭi norae” (A crow’s song), 120 “Kamja” (Sweet Potato), 151–152 “Kananhan saram tŭl” (Poor folk), 155 “Kangch’on pyŏlgok” (Song of river and village), 16 “Kangdo mongyurok” (Dream journey to Kanghwa), 73 K’ap’ŭ shiin chip (Verse by KAPF poets), 116 Karujigi t’aryŏng (Ballad of a ghost’s revenge), 91 “Kashiri” (Must You Go?), 10 “Kasujae chŏn” (Tale of Kasujae), 74 “Kaŭl ŭi kido” (Autumn prayer), 129 “Ki” (Flag), 125 “Kia wa saryuk” (Starvation and murder), 154 Kil ttŏnanŭn kajok (Family on the road), 242 “Kim Hyŏn kamho” (Kim Hyŏn who loved the tiger), 71 “Kim Shinsŏn chŏn” (Tale of wizard Kim), 74 Kim yakkuk ŭi ttal tŭl (The daughters of pharmacist Kim), 177 Kim Yŏng’il ŭi sa (The death of Kim Yŏng’il), 196 King Suro (foundation myth of Karak), 86 “K’ipko p’urŭn pam” (Deep Blue Night), 174 “Kippal” (The flag), 120 Kirŏgi (Wild geese), 167 “Kkach’i sori” (Cry of the Magpie), 168 “Kkŏpchil ŭi sam” (A Skin-Deep Life), 238 “Kkŏptaegi nŭn kara” (Away with the shell!), 131 “Kkŏraei” (Koreans), 164 “Kkot” (Flowers), 121 “Kkot kwa hanggu” (Flowers at the harbor), 125 Kkot ŭi somyo (Sketches of flowers), 127 “Kobang” (The storage shed), 120

Index of Titles of Literary Works “Kŏdaehan ppuri” (The giant root), 130 Kogŭm kagok (Korean songs past and present), 15 “Kogyesa” (Acrobats), 167 Kogyesa (Acrobats), 167 Kohyang (Home), 155 Kŏjimal haeboa (Tell me lies), 229 Koltongp’um (Curios), 167 Kŏmi wa sŏngjwa (Spiders and constellations), 124 Kŏmŭn san hayan pang (Black mountain, white room), 133 “Kŏmungo” (Zither), 119 “Kongbang chŏn” (Tale of Mr. Cash), 71 “Konggi ŏmnŭn pam” (An airtight night), 230 “K’ongjwi P’atchwi chŏn” (Tale of K’ongjwi and P’atchwi), 30 “Kop’ung ŭi sang” (Old-style clothing), 126 Korae sanyang (Whale hunting), 174 “Kŏri ŭi pusa” (Adverbial Avenue), 163 Kŏrukhan chigŏp (A Respectable Profession), 205, 208 Koryŏ sa (History of Koryŏ), 88 “Kosan ku kok ka” (Nine songs of Kosan), 13 “Kŏul” (Mirror), 119 “Kŭ chŏnhu” (Before and after), 156 “Kŭ kaŭl” (That autumn), 131 Kŭ mantŏn shinga nŭn nu ka ta mŏgŏssŭlkka (Who Ate Up All the Shinga?), 230 “Kŭ nal” (That Day), 240 “Kŭ pang ŭl saenggak hamyŏ” (Thinking of that room), 130 Kŭdae tashi nŭn kohyang e kaji mot’ari (You can’t go home again), 176 Kŭdae ŭi ch’agaun son (Your cold hands, 2002), 231 “Kuk sŏnsaeng chŏn” (Tale of Master Malt), 71 “Kukhwa yŏp esŏ” (Beside a Chrysanthemum), 123 “Kuksun chŏn” (Tale of yeast), 71–72

Index of Titles of Literary Works “Kulttuk sok enŭn tŏ isang kulttuksae ka salji annŭnda” (Chimney birds no longer live in chimneys), 240 “Kŭm ttanŭn k’ongbat” (Gold nuggets in a bean field), 161 Kŭmgang (The Kŭm River), 131 Kŭmsam ŭi p’i (Blood on a brocade blouse), 159 “Kŭmshijo” (The bird with gilded wings), 176 Kŭmo shinhwa (New tales from Golden Turtle Mountain), 6, 71–73 “K’ŭn san” (Big Mountain), 170 “Kŭrigo ch’ukche” (And Then the Festival), 231 Kuro Arirang, 176 Kurŭm kwa changmi (Clouds and roses), 127 “Kuun mong” (A nine-cloud dream; story by Ch’oe Inhun), 171 Kuun mong (The Nine-Cloud Dream; novel by Kim Manjung), 26–27 “Kwadogi” (A time of transition), 156 Kwanch’on sup’il (Tales of Kwanch’on), 174 “Kwandong pyŏlgok” (Song of the east coast; kyŏnggi-style song by An Ch’uk), 11 “Kwandong pyŏlgok” (Song of the East Coast; kasa by Chŏng Ch’ŏl), 16 “Kwanghwasa” (The Mad Painter), 152 Kwangin ŭi ch’ukche (Festival of madmen), 205 Kwangjang (The Square), 170 Kwan’gwang chidae (Sightseeing zone), 206 “Kwangya” (The wilderness), 121 “Kwang’yŏm sonat’a” (Fire sonata), 151 “Kwansa saram tŭl” (People with official residences), 179 “Kwansŏ pyŏlgok” (Song of the West Coast), 16 “Kwanŭm ka” (Song to the Goddess of Mercy), 8 “Kwa’nyŏk” (Target), 172

315 Kwi ŭi sŏng (Voice of the demon), 147 Kwich’okto (The cuckoo), 123–124 Kyech’uk ilgi (Journal of the kyech’uk year), 31 “Kyesansŏ” (The bill), 165 Kyesŏ yadam (Yadam from Kyesŏ), 75, 88 “Kyodae shigan” (Shift time), 156 Kyŏndil su ŏmnŭn kabyŏun chonjae tŭl (Beings of unbearable lightness), 136 “Kyŏngbu chŏlto ka” (Song of the Kyŏngsŏng–Pusan rail line), 110 Kyŏngmajang kanŭn kil (To the racetrack), 229 Kyŏngsangdo ŭi karangip (Dead leaves in Kyŏngsang), 126 “Kyŏngse ka” (Song of awakening to the times), 17 Kyŏngsugi Kyŏngsuk abŏji (Kyŏngsuk and her father), 242 Kyŏul koltchagi (Winter valley), 175 Kyŏul nagŭne (Winter wayfarer), 174 Kyŏul pada (Winter sea), 129 Kyun’yŏ chŏn (Life and songs of Kyun’yŏ), 8 The Language of Blood, 246 Laran puin chŏn (Tale of Madame Roland), 146 Li Chin, 231 Li Shim, 231 The Long Season of Rain, 246 Lost Names: Scenes From a Korean Boyhood, 246 “Ma Chang chŏn” (Tale of Ma Chang), 74–75 Ma ŭi t’aeja (The crown prince who wore hemp; play), 200 Ma ŭi t’aeja (The crown prince who wore hemp; novel), 159 Madang kip’ŭn chip (The house with the recessed yard), 175 “Maejabi” (The Falconer), 172 “Maemi urŭm e” (Hearing the cicadas sing), 128

316 Maeng chinsa taek kyŏngsa (Wedding Day), 202 “Maeng sunsa” (Constable Maeng), 166 “Maesobu” (The woman who prostituted her laughter), 165 Majak (Mahjong), 199 “Manboksa chŏp’o ki” (Casting the dice at Manbok Temple), 72 “Manbun ka” (Song of infinite rancor), 16 “Man’ga” (Elegy), 128 Mangnani (Rogue), 207 Maninbo (Ten thousand lives), 134–135, 240 “Manjŏnch’un pyŏlsa” (Spring Pervades the Pavilion), 10, 12 “Manmubang” (Rascals), 161 “Manŏn sa” (An Exile’s Life), 17 “Mansejŏn” (On the Eve of the Uprising), 153 “Masteritsa” (The Master Seamstress), 245 “Maŭm ŭi kamok” (Prison of the Heart), 228 Maŭm ŭi oji (The hinterlands of the heart), 240 “Memilggot p’il muryŏp” (When the Buckwheat Blooms), 160 Memories of My Ghost Brother, 246 Mich’ŏganŭn ch’ŏnyŏ (A maiden going insane), 198 “Mihaegyŏl ŭi chang” (A chapter left unwritten), 169 “Mikkuraji” (Mudfish), 169 Mimang (Delusions), 178 “Min ong chŏn” (Tale of old man Min), 74 Mina, 234, 242, 280 “Minch’on” (A village), 155 “Minjok ui choein” (A sinner against the people), 166 Minyo kihaeng 1 (Folk-song travel 1), 133 “Mir’ŏ” (Secret language), 123 Misaeng (An incomplete life), 233 Mishiryŏng ŭi k’ŭn param (Strong winds at Mishi Pass)

Index of Titles of Literary Works “Misut’o Pang” (Mister Pang), 166 “Mo Chukchi rang ka” (Song in praise of hwarang Chukchi), 7–8 “Moksum” (Life), 167 Moksum (Life), 128–129 “Mŏn kŭdae” (Dear Distant Love), 179 “Mongnŏmi maŭl ŭi kae” (The Dog of Crossover Village), 167 Mongnŏmi maŭl ŭi kae (The Dog of Crossover Village), 167 “Moran i p’igi kkaji nŭn” (Till the peonies bloom), 119 Morisŭn hot’el (Morrison Hotel), 234 Morundae haeng (A trip to Morundae), 136 Mr. Rabbit and the Dragon King, 243 Mugi ŭi kŭnŭl (The Shadow of Arms), 173 “Muinch’ing ŭi chugŭm” (Non-person Death), 240 “Mujin kihaeng” (Record of a Journey to Mujin), 172 Mujŏng (Heartlessness), 150–151 “Mulle panga” (The water mill), 153 Mumyŏng yŏnshi (Without enlightenment), 137 “Mun” (The gateway), 170 Munŭi maul e kasŏ (When I went to Munŭi Village), 134 “Munyŏdo” (The Shaman Painting), 162 Musŏrok (Eastern Sentiments), 161 Muyŏng t’ap (Pagoda without a shadow), 159–160 “Myŏnangjŏng ka” (Song of Myŏnangjŏng), 15–16 Myŏngju powŏl ping (Marriage sealed by a lovely gem and a precious pendant), 31 “Myŏngmun” (The letter of the law), 151 Na nŭn na rŭl p’agoehal kwŏlli ka itta (I Have the Right to Destroy Myself), 235 Na nŭn pak’wi rŭl pomyŏn kulligo ship’ŏjinda (When I see a wheel I want to spin), 136

Index of Titles of Literary Works Na nŭn pyŏl ajŏsshi (I am the star man), 137 Na nŭn sarayahanda (I must live), 204 “Na ŭi ch’imshil lo” (To my bedroom), 114 “Na ŭi kajok” (My family), 130 “Nae kohyang ŭn aniŏssŏnne” (That wasn’t the home I knew), 131 Nae sarang ŭn (The one I love), 128 “Naenghyŏl tongmul” (Cold-blooded creatures), 169 “Nagil” (Sunset), 128 “Nakcho” (Sunset), 166 Nakhwaam (Falling Blossoms Hermitage), 201 “Naktonggang” (The Naktong River), 155 “Nalgae” (Wings), 161 “Nam yŏmbuju chi” (The mythical southern state of Yŏmbuju), 72 “Namgung sŏnsaeng chŏn” (Tale of Master Namgung), 74 Namhangang (South Han River), 133 Namhun t’aep’yŏng ka (Harmonious songs from Namhun), 15 “Namjŏng ka” (Song of an attack on the south), 16 Na’mok (The Naked Tree), 227 Namp’ung pukp’ung (South wind, north wind), 170 Namsan tok’yument’a (Namsan documenta), 243 Namu tŭl pit’al e soda (Trees on a Slope), 167–168 Namu wa param (Trees and wind), 129 “Namukkun kwa sŏnnyŏ” (The woodcutter and the heavenly maiden), 87, 235 Nanigŭn t’ain tŭl ŭi toshi (Another Man’s City), 232 Nanjangi ka ssoaollin chagŭn kong (The Dwarf), 174 “Nanjido” (Nanji Island), 240 Nanp’a (Shipwreck), 197 “Nasang” (The nude), 169

317 “Nat kwa kkum” (Days and Dreams), 228 Necessary Roughness, 246 “Negŏri ŭi Suni” (Suni at the crossroads), 116 “Nim ŭi ch’immuk” (The silence of the loved one), 114 “Nŏ ege” (To you), 129 Nŏ to mŏkko mullŏnara (Eat then scram, you!), 208 “Nŏ wa na man ŭi shigan” (Time for you and me), 167 Nŏ wa na man ŭi shigan (Time for you and me), 167 Nobi munsŏ (The slave archives), 207 Nodong ŭi saebyŏk (The dawn of labor), 239 “Nogye ka” (Song of Nogye), 16 “Nojŏng ki” (My itinerary), 121 “Nolbu tyŏn” (play; Tale of Nolbu), 171 “Nolbu tyŏn” (story; Tale of Nolbu), 171 “Non iyagi” (A Tale of Two Paddies), 166 “Non kalttae” (Cultivating the paddies), 163 “Nongch’on saram tŭl” (Rural villagers), 155 Nongmu (Farmers dance), 133 “Noryŏng kŭnhae” (Along the Russian coast), 160 Noŭl (Evening glow), 175 “Nu ka hanŭl ŭl poatta hanŭnga” (Who said they saw the sky?), 131 “Nu ka K’ŏt’ŭ K’obein ŭl chugyŏnnŭnga?” (Who killed Kurt Cobain?), 234 “Nugunji morŭl nŏ rŭl wihayŏ” (For an Unidentified You), 238 “Nuhang sa” (On a Wretched Life), 16 Nŭkkim kŭngnak kat’ŭn (A Feeling, Nirvana-Like), 241 “Nŭp” (The Pond), 163 O Changgun ŭi palt’op (O Changgun’s Toenail), 206 O hanŭnim (How in Heaven’s Name), 234

318 “Obalt’an” (A Stray Bullet), 169 Ŏbu sashi sa (The Fisherman’s Calendar), 14, 19 Odo (Afternoon prayer), 124 Ŏdum ŭi hon (Soul of darkness), 175 Ogamdo (A Crow’s-eye View), 119 Ogu—Chugŭm ŭi hyŏngshik (Ogu: A Ceremony of Death), 242 “Ojŏk” (Five bandits), 132 “Ok nangja chŏn” (Tale of the maiden Ok), 30 “Oktanch’un chŏn” (Tale of the kisaeng Oktanch’un), 30 “Ŏm ch’ŏsa chŏn” (Tale of Ŏm, a retired scholar), 74 Ŏmma rŭl put’ak hae (Please Look After Mom), 232 “Ŏmma ŭi malttuk” (Mother’s Hitching Post), 178 Ong kojip t’aryŏng (Ballad of a stubborn old man), 91 “Ongnin mong” (A dream of beautiful deer), 30 “Ŏnŭ nal kogung ŭl naomyŏnsŏ” (Emerging from an old palace), 130 “Ŏnŭ nal na nŭn hŭrin chujŏm e anja issŭl kŏda” (One Day I’ll Be Sitting in a Murky Wine House), 240 Oraedoen chŏngwŏn (The Old Garden), 233 Ori mujung e irŭda (Not the Foggiest Notion), 229 Ŏrin kŏt tŭl yŏp esŏ (With the kids), 128 Ŏttŏn kaein nal (One fine day), 135 “Ŏttŏn ssaum ŭi kirok” (An account of a fight), 240 Pabo tŭl ŭi haengjin (Procession of fools), 174 “P’ada” (Sea), 118 Pae pijang t’aryŏng (Ballad of Pae the official; p’ansori version), 91 Pae pijang t’aryŏng (Ballad of Pae the official; twenty-first-century ch’anggŭk version), 243

Index of Titles of Literary Works Paebaengi kut (Ritual for a dead girl’s spirit), 201–202 Paegun sosŏl (Notes on poems and other trifles), 70 P’aegwan chapki (A Storyteller’s Miscellany), 70 Paek Sŏk uhwa (Paek Sŏk’s fable), 242 “Paekkop ŭi kiwŏn” (Origin of the belly button), 233 Paekp’al pŏnnoe (108 afflictions), 112 Paektusan (Mt. Paektu; epic poem by Ko Ŭn), 134 Paektusan (Mt. Paektu; epic poem by Cho Kich’ŏn), 244 Paengnoktam (White Deer Lake), 118 “Paettaragi” (Boat Song), 151–152 “Paeyŏk tŭl” (The Players), 163 P’ahan chip (Collection to dispel boredom), 88 Pak Hyŏkkŏse myth (foundation myth of Shilla), 86 “Pak Tol ŭi chugŭm” (The death of Pak Tol), 154 Pak Tujin shisŏn (Selected poems of Pak Tujin), 124 “Pakchwi” (The bat), 120 “Pak-sshi chŏn” (Tale of Lady Pak), 29 Pallanhanŭn pit (Rebellious light), 137 “Pam ch’a” (Night train), 115 “Pam kwa yoram” (Night and cradle), 228 “Pamkil” (Night journey), 161 Panggyŏnggak oejŏn (Extraordinary stories from the tower that puts forth jewels), 74 “Pang’i sŏlhwa” (Legend of Pang’i), 87 “Pangnanjang chuin” (The Man Who Ran the Fragrant Orchid Café), 162 “P’anmunjŏm” (P’anmunjŏm), 170 “Panshiron” (A theory of the anti-poem), 130 “Panŭl” (Needlework), 229 “Param kŭrimja rŭl” (Regarding wind shadows), 128 “Param ŭi nŏk” (Spirit on the Wind), 227 Param ŭi nŏk (Spirit on the wind), 178

Index of Titles of Literary Works “Pari kongju” (Princess Pari), 86–87 Paridaegi, 232 P’asa (This frail world), 196 Pasellin putta (Vaseline Buddha), 229 Password, 245 P’asukkun (Watchman), 241 “Pawi” (The rock; poem), 120 “Pawi” (The rock; short story), 162 “P’ayŏlgu” (Explosion), 169 A Person of Interest, 246 “P’i saeng mongyurok” (P’i’s dream journey), 73 P’ian kamsŏng (Other shore sensibility), 134 “P’iano ka innŭn kaŭl” (Autumn with Piano), 163 Piga (Elegy), 135 “Pinch’ŏ” (The poor wife), 152 “P’iri” (Reed flute), 128 Pisamaek chŏn (Tale of Bismarck), 146 Pŏdŭnamu sŏn tongni p’unggyŏng (Scenes from the village with the willows), 200 P’ohan chip (Collection of supplemental stories), 88 “Pohyŏn shibwŏn” (The ten vows of Bodhisattva Samantahabra), 8 “P’okp’o” (Waterfall), 130 “Poktŏkpang” (The Broker’s Office), 161 “Pom e ŭi kyŏk” (An appeal to spring), 125 Pom nal (Spring Day), 241 “Pom pom” (Spring, Spring), 161 Pom ŭi norae (Spring songs), 112 “Pongbyŏlgi” (Meetings and Farewells), 161 “Pŏng’ŏri Samnyong” (Samnyong the mute), 153 P’oro tŭl ŭi ch’um (The POWs’ dance), 231 “Ppaeatkin tŭl e to pom ŭn onŭn’ga?” (Does Spring Come to Stolen Fields?), 114 Ppalgan pŏsŭ (Red Bus), 242 “Ppong” (Mulberries), 153 “Ppyŏ toduk” (The Bone Thief), 230

319 “Pumokhan chŏn” (Tale of a temple factotum), 74 “Pubyŏk mongyurok” (Dream journey to Pubyŏk Pavilion), 73 Puk kando (North Manchuria), 169 “Pukch’ŏn ka” (Song of exile to the north), 17 “Pukhaeng ka” (Song of a journey to the north), 17 “Pukkwan kok” (Song of a northern frontier post), 17 “Pul” (Fire), 152 “P’ul” (Grasses), 130, 234 P’ul i numnŭnda (P’ul, recumbent), 234 Pul iya (Hey, fire!), 198 Pul t’anŭn mul (Water ablaze), 137 Pul ŭi chejŏn (Festival of fire), 175 “Pul ŭi kang” (River of Fire), 178 “Pulgŭn pang” (The Red Room), 227 “Pulgŭn san” (Red Mountain), 152 “Pulkkot” (Flowers of Fire), 166 P’ulkkot to kkot ida (Weeds can flower too), 234, 242 Pullori (Playing With Fire), 175 Pulmoji (Barren land), 204 “Pulshin shidae” (Age of disbelief), 177 Pulssanghan sarang kigye (Poor love machine), 238 “P’ung yo” (Song of the Wind), 7–8 P’ungjang (Wind Burial), 136 “P’ungsok” (Custom), 163 P’ungyo samsŏn (Three collections of customary songs), 69 P’ungyo soksŏn (Further selection of customary songs), 69 “Punnyŏ,” 160 P’urip tanjang (Leaves of grass: Literary fragments), 126 “P’urŭn hanŭl ŭl” (Blue sky), 130 Puŭm (A report of a death), 199 “P’yobonshil ŭi ch’ŏng kaeguri” (The green frog in the specimen room), 153 Pyŏl tŭl ŭi kohyang (Homeland of the stars), 174

320 “Pyŏl ŭl ankŏdŭn uljina malkŏl” (No tears when I embrace the stars), 152 Pyŏlpat ŭl urŏrŭmyŏ (Looking up to the field of stars), 133 “Pyŏlsa” (Words of Farewell), 178–179 Pyŏn Kangsoe t’aryŏng (Ballad of Pyŏn Kangsoe; p’ansori version), 32 Pyŏn Kangsoe t’aryŏng (Ballad of Pyŏn Kangsoe; twenty-first century ch’anggŭk version), 243 “Pyŏngshin kwa mŏjŏri” (The Wounded), 172 P’yŏngwa kagok chip (Songs of P’yŏngwa), 15 Pyŏn’gyŏng (Borderlands), 176 P’yŏnggyunnyul (Averages), 135 Ran, kit’a (“Orchids” and other poems), 125 “Redimeidŭ insaeng” (A Ready-Made Life), 157, 193 Rina, 232 “Sa miin kok” (Thinking of the Loved One), 16 Saban ŭi shipchaga (The cross of Saphan), 168 “Sabang kongsa” (Erosion control), 156 Saebyŏk kil (Path at daybreak), 134 Saejae (Bird Pass), 133 Saenggang (The Catcher in the Loft), 231–232 Saengmyŏng ŭi sŏ (The book of life), 120 “Saengmyŏng yŏnsŭp” (Life practice), 172 Saeroun toshi wa shimin tŭl ŭi hapch’ang (Chorus for a new city and citizenry), 129 “Samak ŭl kŏnnŏnŭn pŏp” (How to cross a desert), 179 Samdae (Three Generations), 153–154 Samdaemok (Hyangga from the three periods of Shilla history), 7 Samguk sagi (History of the Three Kingdoms), 65, 86–88

Index of Titles of Literary Works Samguk yusa (Memorabilia of the Three Kingdoms), 7, 71, 86–88 Samnam e naerinŭn nun (Snow falling on the three southern provinces), 136 “Samo kok” (Song to a Mother), 10 “Samp’o kanŭn kil” (Bound for Samp’o), 173 Samul ŭi kkum (Objects’ dreams), 136 “San” (In the Mountains; story by Yi Hyosŏk), 160 “San” (The mountain; poem by Yu Ch’ihwan), 120 San chebi (Mountain swallow), 115 San hŏguri (The mountainside), 201 San twaeji (The boar), 197–198 Sandohwa (Blossoms of the mountain peach), 125 “Sangch’un kok” (Song in Praise of Spring), 15 “Sangdae pyŏlgok” (Song of the censorate), 11 Sanguozhi yanyi (Romance of the Three Kingdoms), 70 “Sangjŏ ka” (Song of the Mill), 10 “Sangnang chŏn” (Tale of a woman extolled), 74 “Sangnangja chŏn” (Tale of the man in the straw sack), 74 Sangnoksu (The evergreen), 159 “Sanje” (Mountain festival), 162 “Sankol ŭi kongjang” (Backwoods workshop), 115 “Sannam” (A man of the hills), 163 Sanpul (Burning Mountain), 204 “Sanyu hwa” (Mountain Flowers), 113 Sarainnŭn Yi Chungsaeng kakha (His excellency Yi Chungsaeng lives on), 203 Sarang (Love), 151 “Sarang ŭi pyŏnju’gok” (Love rhapsody), 130 Sarang ŭi sujokkwan (Aquarium of love), 158 Saranghal shigan i manchianta (So little time to love), 137

Index of Titles of Literary Works “Sa-sshi namjŏng ki” (Lady Sa’s journey to the south), 26, 30 Sasŭm (Deer), 120 Saying Goodbye, 246 “Sayukchang tchogŭro” (To the Kennels), 230 “Segye ilchu ka” (Song of a journey around the world), 110 Sejong shillok chiriji (Gazetteer from the veritable records of King Sejong), 88 “Shi yŏ, ch’im ŭl paet’ŏra” (Spit, poetry!), 130 “Shich’e tŭl” (Corpses), 229 Shiin (The Poet), 176 “Shiin-nim ŭi malssŭm” (Mister Poet’s words), 239 “Shijak e issŏsŏ ŭi chuji chuŭi-jŏk t’aedo” (The intellectualist attitude in poetic creation), 118 Shijang kwa chŏnjang (Marketplace and battlefield), 177 Shilla ch’o (Poems of Shilla), 124 Shim Ch’ŏng, 234 Shim Ch’ŏng chŏn (Tale of Shim Ch’ŏng), 26–27, 30, 32 Shim Ch’ŏng ka (Song of Shim Ch’ŏng), 90–91 Shim Ch’ŏng’i nŭn oe tu pŏn Indangsu e mom ŭl tŏnjŏnnŭnga (Why Did Shim Ch’ŏng Plunge into the Sea Twice?), 241 Shim Pongsa (Blindman Shim), 203 “Shim saeng chŏn” (Tale of young Shim), 74 Shimin K (Citizen K), 242 “Shim’ujang” (Looking for the Cow), 142 Shin tŭl ŭi chusawi (The dice of the gods), 168 “Shin’a chŏn” (Tale of Shin, a mute), 74 Shinim yisajang (The new director), 198–199 Shinshi (Divine city), 207 “Shipkyemyŏng ka” (Song of the Ten Commandments), 17

321 “Shiwŏl” (October), 135 Shiyong hyangak po (Notes on contemporary Korean music), 10 “Shwipke ssŭyŏjin shi” (An easily written poem), 121 “Shyori K’im” (Shorty Kim), 166 So (The ox), 200 “So Taesŏng chŏn” (Tale of So Taesŏng), 29 “Soch’an” (Humble repast), 125 Sodae p’ungyo (Customary songs of our bright age), 69 “Sŏdaeju chŏn” (Tale of the great rat state), 73 “Sŏdong yo” (Sŏdong’s Song), 7–9 “Sogŭm” (Salt), 163 “Sŏ’gyŏng pyŏlgok” (Song of the Western Capital [P’yŏngyang]), 10 “Sŏhwa” (Rat Fire), 155 “Sojakch’on” (Sharecropper village), 156 “Sok miin kok” (Thinking further of the loved one), 16 “Sŏkkong chohap taep’yo” (The stonemasons’ union representative), 156 “Somang” (Juvesenility), 160 Someone’s Daughter, 246 “Somun ŭi pyŏk” (Wall of rumor), 172–173 “Sŏn e kwanhan kaksŏ” (A memorandum on lines), 119 “Sonagi” (The Cloudburst), 167 “Sonakpi” (A sudden shower), 161 “Songgok sanin chŏn” (Tale of Songgok the hermit), 74 “Sŏngju p’uri” (Song for the home site god), 86–87 “Sŏngsan pyŏlgok” (Song of Star Mountain), 16 Sŏng’ung Yi Sunshin (Yi Sunshin, sacred hero), 207 Sonnim (The Guest), 233 “Sŏnsang t’an” (Shipboard Lament), 16 Sŏnt’aek (Choice), 229 “Sonyŏn ŭn nŭkchi annŭnda” (Boys don’t grow old), 235

322 “Sŏok ki” (Prison of rats), 73 “Sora” (Trumpet Shells), 163 Sŏrŭn, chanch’i nŭn kŭnnatta (Thirty, the party’s over), 239 “Sŏshi” (Prelude), 121 Soshimin (The petty bourgeois), 170 “Sosŏlga Kubo-sshi ŭi iril” (A Day in the Life of Kubo the Novelist; novella by Pak T’aewŏn), 162, 171 Sosŏlga Kubo-sshi ŭi iril (A day in the life of Kubo the writer; novel by Ch’oe Inhun) 171 “Sŏul 1964nyŏn kyŏul” (Seoul: Winter 1964), 172 Sŏul ŭn manwŏn ida (Seoul is packed to capacity), 170 “Sŏwang ka” (Song of vowing rebirth in the Western Pure Land), 15 “Sowi kŭndae kŭk e taehayŏ” (On “modern theater”), 197 Soyangjŏng (Bright Pavilion), 148 “Ssanghwa chŏm” (The Mandu Shop), 10 Ssaum (Fight), 198–199 “Sshirŭm” (Wrestling), 156 Ssŏlmul (Ebb tide), 207 A Step from Heaven, 246 Still Life with Rice, 246 Sugun cheil yŏngung Yi Sunshin chŏn (Tale of Yi Sunshin, premier naval hero), 146 Sugung ka (Song of the underwater palace), 32 “Sug’yŏng nangja chŏn” (Tale of the maiden Sug’yŏng), 30 “Sujŏng ka” (Song of a pure heart), 128 “Sukhyang chŏn” (Tale of Sukhyang), 75 “Sul kwŏnhanŭn sahoe” (A Society That Drives You to Drink), 152 “Sulkkun” (The Boozer), 174 “Sullyeja ui norae” (Wayfarer), 178–179 Sumgim ŏpshi nan’gim ŏpshi (Straight ahead), 233 “Sŭngmu” (The monk’s dance), 126 “Sŭngwŏn ka” (A monk’s song), 15 Susŏk yŏlchŏn (The lives of stones), 125

Index of Titles of Literary Works “Susŏng chi” (Melancholy fortress), 73 “Sut changsu ŭi ch’ŏ” (The wife of the manly general), 165 “Tabuwŏn esŏ” (At Tabuwŏn), 126 T’ae (Lifecord), 207 Taedae sonson (From generation to generation), 242 Taedong p’ung’a (Elegant songs of Korea), 15 “Tae’gwanjae mongyurok” (Dream journey of Tae’gwanjae), 73 Taeha (Scenes from the Enlightenment) 157 “Taehwa” (Colloquy), 239 T’aehyŏng (Flogging), 151 T’aep’yŏng ch’ŏnha (Peace under Heaven), 157 T’aep’yŏng hanhwa kolgye chŏn (Idle talk and humorous tales from a peaceful era), 88 T’aep’yŏng ka (Song of great peace), 136 “T’aep’yŏng sa” (Great peace), 16 Taesŏl nam (Saga of the south), 132 Taewang ŭn chukki rŭl kŏbuhaetta (The great king refused to die), 205–206 “T’aeyang ŭl tŭngjin kŏri u esŏ” (Out on the street, back to the sun), 115 “T’ain ŭi pang” (Another Man’s Room), 174 “T’ajak” (Threshing), 115 “Takche” (The Sacrifice), 163 T‘al (Masks), 167 Tal nara ŭi changnan (Mischief on the moon), 129 “Talch’ŏn mongyurok” (Dream journey to Talch’ŏn), 73 “T’alch’ulgi” (An escape), 154 Tallŏmse (One more month to go), 133 “Tallyŏra, Abi” (Run, Dad!), 230 “Talpam” (An Idiot’s Delight), 161 “Tang’in-ni kŭnch’ŏ” (Near Tangin Village), 125 Tangnang ŭi chŏnsŏl (Legend of the praying mantis), 202

Index of Titles of Literary Works T’angnyu (Muddy currents), 157, 202 Tangshin tŭl ŭi ch’ŏn’guk (This Paradise of Yours), 172 Tan’gun myth (foundation myth of Ko Chosŏn), 86, 96 “T’angung ka” (Lament on destitution), 16 Tanjong aesa (The sorrowful history of King Tanjong), 159 T’anŭn mongmarŭm ŭro (With a burning thirst), 132 “Tarajinŭn sal tŭl” (Wearing Thin), 170 “T’arakcha” (The depraved), 152 “T’arhyang” (Far from Home), 169 T’aryŏng cho, kit’a (“Song of lament” and other poems), 127 Tashi kŭrium ŭro (Again the longing), 128 “To ijang ka” (Lament for two generals), 8 “Todŏk ka” (Song of morals), 16 Togani (The crucible), 232 T’oji (Land), 177 “Tok chinnŭn nŭlgŭni” (The Old Potter), 167 “Tok ŭl ch’ago” (Heart full of poison), 119 T’okki chŏn (Tale of the hare and the tortoise), 32, 87 “Tol ŭi ch’osang” (Portrait of a stone), 174 “Tomabaem” (Lizard), 228 T’omak (The hut), 200–201 “Ton” (Little sow), 160 “Tongbaek kkot” (Camellias), 161 Tongch’ŏn (Winter sky), 124 “Tongdong” (Calendar Song), 9, 11 Tongguk kŏ’gŏl Ch’oe Tot’ong chŏn (Tale of Ch’oe Tot’ong, great hero of Korea), 146 Tongguk yŏji sŭngnam (Survey of Korean geography), 88 “Tonggyong” (The Bronze Mirror), 178–179 “Tonghae” (Young and vestigial), 161 “T’ongjorim kongjang” (The Canning Factory), 230

323 Tongmunsŏn (Anthology of Korean literature), 68 Tongsŭng (The child monk), 201 Tongya hwijip (Yadam from Korea), 75, 88 Toraji (Bellflower), 241 “Tosan shib’i kok” (Twelve songs of Tosan), 13 Toshi ŭi hyungnyŏn (A lean year for the city), 178 “Toshi wa yuryŏng” (City and Specter), 160 “Tosol ka” (Song of Tsita Heaven), 7 “Ttaengbyŏt” (Blazing heat), 161 Ttal tŭl ŭi yŏnin (The daughters’ suitors), 204 “Ttang sok ŭro” (Into the earth), 155 “Ttŏdonŭn mal tŭl” (Drifting words), 172 “Tŭl” (In the fields), 160 “Tŭlso” (Cattle), 176 “Tŭngshin pul” (Image of the standing Buddha), 168 “T’ŭrŏnk’ŭ” (In the Trunk), 230 “Twaeji kkum” (A Dream of Good Fortune), 179 “U Sang chŏn” (Tale of U Sang), 74–75 “Uhwal ka” (Song of heedlessness), 16 “Ujŏk ka” (Meeting with Bandits), 7–8 Ŭlchi Mundŏk, 146 Ŭlhwa, 169 “Umjigimyŏn umjigilsurok isanghan il i pŏrŏjinŭn onŭl ŭn ch’am ŭro shingihan nal ida” (It’s One of Those the-More-I’m-in-Motion-the-WeirderIt-Gets Days, and It’s Really Blowing My Mind), 234 Umjiginŭn sŏng (The Moving Fortress), 168 Ŭnsegye (Silver world) 147, 243 “Unsu choŭn nal” (A Lucky Day), 152 Unyŏng chŏn (Tale of Unyŏng), 75 “Uri oppa wa hwaro” (Big brother and the charcoal brazier), 116

324 “Uri shidae ŭi sosŏlga” (A fiction writer for our age), 235 “Uri shingŭk undong ŭi ch’ŏtkil” (Beginnings of the Korean New Theater Movement), 197 Uri tongne (Our neighborhood), 174 “Uri tŭl ŭi ilgŭrŏjin yŏng’ung” (Our Twisted Hero), 176 “Urŭm i t’anŭn kaŭl kang” (Autumn river in burning tears), 128 “Uulhan Sŏul” (Melancholy Seoul), 237 Wait for Me, 246 “Wan’gujŏm yŏin” (The Toyshop Woman), 178, 236 Wanwŏl hoemaeng yŏn (Banquet celebrating a pact made while admiring the moon), 31 Widaehan shilchong (The great disappearance), 205 “Wihŏmhan toksŏ” (Dangerous reading), 235 Wŏlbuk munin yŏngu (Studies of “wentnorth” writers), 244 “Wŏn ka” (Song of a Bitter Heart), 8 “Wŏn saeng mongyurok” (Wŏn’s dream journey), 73 “Wŏn wangsaeng ka” (Song in Search of Eternal Life), 7–8 Wŏngoji (Manuscript paper), 205 Wŏnhyo taesa (Great master Wŏnhyo), 159 Wŏnmi-dong saram tŭl (A Distant and Beautiful Place), 179 Wŏnsul lang (Young Wŏnsul), 203 “Yakhanja ŭi sŭlp’ŭm” (The sorrows of the weak), 151–152 “Yangban chŏn” (The Yangban’s Tale), 74 Year of Impossible Goodbyes, 246 “Yedŏk sŏnsaeng chŏn” (Tale of Master Yedŏk), 74–75 “Yejŏn en mich’ŏ mollassŏyo” (Long Ago I Didn’t Know), 113 Yi Ch’adon ŭi sa (The death of Yi Ch’adon), 159

Index of Titles of Literary Works “Yi saeng kyujang chŏn” (Student Yi Peers Over the Wall), 72 Yi Sunshin, 159 “Yi Taebong chŏn” (Tale of Yi Taebong), 29 Yi Yŏngnyŏ, 197 Yŏg’ong p’aesŏl (Tales of old man Yŏk), 88 “Yohan shijip” (Poems of John the Baptist), 167, 231 “Yŏin myŏngnyŏng” (A woman’s bidding), 165 “Yŏindo” (Metropolis of women), 165 Yŏksa ap esŏ (In the presence of history), 126 Yongdam yusa (Posthumous songs from Dragon Lake), 17 “Yŏnggukshik chŏngwŏn” (The English Garden, 2016), 231 “Yonggung puyŏn nok” (A banquet at the dragon palace), 72 “Yonggwangno” (The Blast Furnace), 155–156 Yongjae ch’onghwa (Compendium of Yongjae), 88 “Yŏngma” (The Post-Horse Curse), 168 Yŏngnang shijip (Poems of Yŏngnang), 118 Yŏng’ung shidae (Age of heroes), 176, 228 “Yŏngwŏl yŏnggam” (The old gentleman from Yŏngwŏl), 161 Yŏngwŏnhan cheguk (The Everlasting Empire), 231 “Yŏnhaeng ka” (Song of a journey to Beijing), 17 “Yŏnji” (Rouge), 165 Yŏn-sshi pyŏlgok (Song of a man named Yŏn), 233 “Yŏnsŭp” (A Practice), 237 Yŏrha ilgi (Jehol diary; by Pak Chiwŏn), 74 “Yŏrha ilgi” (Jehol diary; poem series by Hwang Tonggyu), 136 Yŏsŏng i kŭl ŭl ssŭndanŭn kŏs ŭn (To write as a woman), 238 Yŏsu shi ch’o (Poems of Yŏsu), 116

Index of Titles of Literary Works “Yŏu nan koltchok” (The people of Fox Hollow), 120 “Yu Ch’ungnyŏl chŏn” (Tale of Yu Ch’ungnyŏl), 29 Yuda yŏ, tak i ulgijŏne (O Judas, before the cock crows), 207 “Yugu kok” (Song of the Cuckoo), 10 “Yuhyŏng ŭi ttang” (Land of Exile), 175 Yujŏng (Heart), 151 “Yukpŏp chŏnsŏ wa hyŏngmyŏng” (Statute books and revolution), 130 “Yukshimnyŏn-dae shik” (1960s style), 172

325 “Yungmidang chŏn” (Tale of Yungmidang), 75 “Yunjŏn’gi” (The Rotary Press), 153 “Yunyŏn ŭi ttŭl” (The garden of my childhood), 178 Yunyŏn ŭi ttŭl (The garden of my childhood), 178 “Yuri pangp’ae” (Glass Shield), 235 “Yurich’ang” (Window), 118 “Yushilmong” (A Washed-Out Dream), 169 “Yuye” (A Moment’s Grace), 167

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY INSTITUTE OF EAST ASIAN STUDIES The Institute of East Asian Studies was established at the University of California, Berkeley, in the fall of 1978 to promote research and teaching on the cultures and societies of China, Japan, and Korea. The institute currently unites several research centers and programs, including the Center for Buddhist Studies, the Center for Chinese Studies, the Center for Japanese Studies, the Center for Korean Studies, the Center for Southeast Asia Studies, the Tang Center for Silk Road Studies, and the Berkeley APEC Study Center. Director: Associate Director:

Kevin O’Brien Dylan Davis

CENTER FOR BUDDHIST STUDIES Chair: Robert Sharf CENTER FOR CHINESE STUDIES Chair: Sophie Volpp CENTER FOR JAPANESE STUDIES Chair: Dana Buntrock CENTER FOR KOREAN STUDIES Chair: Laura C. Nelson CENTER FOR SOUTHEAST ASIA STUDIES Chair: Aihwa Ong P.Y. AND KINMAY W. TANG CENTER FOR SILK ROAD STUDIES Chair: Sanjyot Mehendale BERKELEY ASIA-PACIFIC ECONOMIC COOPERATION STUDY CENTER Director: Vinod Aggarwal

INSTITUTE OF EAST ASIAN STUDIES UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA ● BERKELEY CENTER FOR KOREAN STUDIES