KOREAN LITERATURE
Few works by Korean writers have been translated into English or other languages and thus Korean literature and Korean writers are not very well known to people outside of Korea. In recent decades as Korea has become more well known so too has its literature. One of Korea's most famous classical writers is Kim Shisup (Maewolddang, 1435-93), a court official who left the imperial court to wander the countryside to draw inspiration for his writings. Among the well known Korean poets are Oaek Sik and Kim So-wol.
Chunghee Sarah Soh wrote in “Countries and Their Cultures”: “Korean classical literature was written in Chinese, and the late Koryo and early Choson sijo poems dealt mainly with the theme of loyalty. The kasa form of Choson poetry expressed individual sentiments and moral admonitions. After the creation of the Korean alphabet, many works of fiction were written in Han'gul and royal ladies wrote novels depicting their personal situations and private thoughts. Modern literature started in the mid-nineteenth century as a result of the new Western-style education and the Korean language and literature movement. The themes of twentieth-century literature reflect the national experiences colonization, postliberation division of the homeland, the Korean War, urbanization, and industrialization. Translations of literary works began to appear in foreign countries in the 1980s. The novelists whose works have been most widely translated are Hwang Sun-won and Kim Tong-ri. [Source: Chunghee Sarah Soh, “Countries and Their Cultures”, The Gale Group Inc., 2001]
A distinctive position in traditional Korean literature is occupied by a type of poem known as the sijo — a poetic form that began to develop in the twelfth century. It is composed of three couplets and characterized by great simplicity and expressiveness:
My body is mortal, commonly mortal.
My bones end in dust, soul or no soul.
My lord owns my heart, though, and that cannot change.
This poem is by Chong Mong-ju (1337-92), a Koryo Dynasty loyalist who was assassinated at the foundation of the Yi Dynasty. The poet refers to his political choice not to side with the new government. [Source: Andrea Matles Savada and William Shaw, Library of Congress, 1990 *]
Many of these poems reveal a sensitivity to the beauties of nature, delight in life's pleasures, and a tendency toward philosophical contemplation that together produce a sense of serenity and, sometimes, loneliness. Frequently the poems reveal a preoccupation with purity, symbolized by whiteness:
Do not enter, snowy heron,
in the valley where the crows are quarreling.
Such angry crows are envious of your whiteness,
And I fear that they will soil the body
you have washed in the pure stream.
Korean Folk Tales and Stories
Korea has a very rich folk culture. Folk stories from Korea both resemble folk stories from other countries and have a character all their own. Popular folk tales often describe conflicts between good and evil and right and wrong with animals, ghosts, demons and mountain spirits. According to Britannica.com: Korean narratives include myths, legends, and folktales found in the written records. Legends include all those folk stories handed down orally and not recorded in any of the written records. These legends were long the principal form of literary entertainment enjoyed by the common people. They deal with personified animals, elaborate tricks, the participation of the gods in human affairs, and the origin of the universe. The principal sources of these narratives are the two great historical records compiled during the Koryo dynasty: Samguk sagi (1146; “Historical Record of the Three Kingdoms”) and Samguk yusa (1285; “Memorabilia of the Three Kingdoms”). [Source: Du-Hwan Kwon, Byong-Wuk Chong, Peter H. Lee, Britannica.com]
Oral literature includes all texts that were orally transmitted from generation to generation until the invention of Hangul—ballads, legends, mask plays, puppet-show texts, and p’ansori (“story-singing”) texts. In spite of the highly developed literary activity from early in Korean history, song lyrics were not recorded until the invention of Hangul. These orally transmitted texts are categorized as ballads and are classified according to singer (male or female), subject matter (prayer, labour, leisure), and regional singing style (capital area, western, and southern). The songs of many living performers, some of whom have been designated as “intangible national treasures” by the South Korean government, are still being recorded.
Korean folk tales are closely tied to religious traditions and usually have shamanistic, Buddhist, or Confucian themes. While Confucian tales tend to be moralistic and didactic, Buddhist and shamanistic tales are highly imaginative and colorful, depicting the relationships among spirits, ghosts, gods, and men in many different and often humorous ways.
The development of a Korean alphabet (today known as han'gul), in the fifteenth century gave rise to a vernacular, or popular, literature. Although the native alphabet was looked down upon by the yangban elite, historical works, poetry, travelogues, biographies, and fiction written in a mixed script of Chinese characters and han'gul were widely circulated. Some vernacular literature had what could be interpreted as social protest themes.
Famous Korean Folk Tales and Stories
Folk heros that everyone knows include Kim Il Dong, a sort of teenage Korean Robin Hood; Shimchong, a loving daughter who helps her blind father regain his sight; Hungbu and Nolbu, a pair of brothers, one rich and greedy, the other poor and generous; and a clever rabbit and his adventures in the King of the Sea. Many folk tales feature “tokkaebi”, frightening but humorous demons that sometimes have only one eye and hop around on one leg. Tokkaebi are usually depicted with a magical spiked club and a heron growing out of the top of their head. These mischievous creatures enjoy playing nasty tricks on bad people and rewarding good people with wealth and good fortune.
Chollima is a mythological winged horse that flew great distances during the day and performed heroic feats for Koreans in their time of need. North Korea uses the legendary creature to motivate its people to strive for excellence. Koreans also know the story of a Buddhist monk that dreamed he was a half-brown, half-white ox, symbolizing yin and yang, good and evil.
According to Britannica.com: The most important myths are those concerning the Sun and the Moon, the founding of Korea by Tangun, and the lives of the ancient kings. The legends touch on place and personal names and natural phenomena. The folktales include stories about animals; ogres, goblins, and other supernatural beings; kindness rewarded and evil punished; and cleverness and stupidity. Because the compiler of the Samguk yusa was a Zen master, his collection includes the lives of Buddhist saints; the origin of monasteries, stupas, and bells; accounts of miracles performed by Buddhas and bodhisattvas; and other tales rich in shamanist and Buddhist elements. The compilations made in the Koryo period preserved the stories of prehistoric times, of the Three Kingdoms, and of the Silla dynasty and have remained the basic sources for such material. Later compilations made during the Choson dynasty served as a major source of materials for later Choson dynasty fiction. [Source: Du-Hwan Kwon, Byong-Wuk Chong, Peter H. Lee,Britannica.com]
One of the earliest vernacular stories was The Tale of Hong Kil-tong by Ho Kyun. The protagonist, Hong Kil-tong, was the son of a nobleman and his concubine; his ambition to become a great official was frustrated because of his mother's lowly background. He became a Robin Hood figure, stole from the rich to give to the poor, and eventually left Korea in order to establish a small kingdom in the south.
Other vernacular writers included Kim Man-jung, who wrote The Nine Cloud Dream, which dealt with Buddhist themes of karma and destiny, and The Story of Lady Sa. Pak Chi-won's Tale of a Yangban gave a realistic account of social life in eighteenth-century Korea. In 1980 Korean scholars discovered a nineteenth-century vernacular novel that told of the complicated relationships among members of four yangban and commoner clans over five generations in a very detailed and realistic manner. At 235 volumes, this work is one of the longest novels ever written.
Korean Creation Myth
According to legend, Korean civilization began on Mt. Paektu (a volcano with a crater lake on the present-day China-North Korea border) on the third day of the 10th moon in 2333 B.C. with a meeting between Hwanung (the son of the creator God), a bear and a tiger at a magic aldewood tree. The animals said that they wanted to be human so Hwanung told them that their wish would be granted if they passed a test: stay in a cave for 100 days and eat nothing but mugwort and garlic. The impatient tiger failed the test but the bear passed and was transformed into a woman named Ungnyo ("bear woman"), who mated with Hwanung and produced Tan'gun, the progenitor and first king of the Korean people.
The first Koreans purportedly lived in the legendary first Korean city of Asadal. It was originally thought that if Asadal indeed existed in some form it was in Manchuria somewhere, but recently North Korean scholars said that found "evidence" that it was located on a site of present-day Pyongyang.
When Tan'gun returned to heaven at the end of his life, his descendants were ruled by a new king named Han. A state known as Han Chosun was purportedly established and prospered in the Taedong valley of northern Korea by 1000 B.C. A recent interpretation of the bear woman is that she came from a bear totem tribe. Tan'gun established the kingdom of Choson ("Morning Freshness," often translated as the "Land of Morning Calm") around today's Pyongyang. To distinguish it from the later Choson Dynasty, it is now referred to as Ko ("Old") Choson.
According to Columbia University’s Asia for Educators: “The Tangun legend tells of the birth of Korea’s first king and the foundation of the first Korean state, (Old) Choson, in a date often calculated as 2333 B.C. The Korean calendar enumerates the years from this date. Though based upon earlier sources, this oldest surviving account of Tangun was recorded by the Koryoperiod Buddhist monk Iryon (1206-1289) in his Memorabilia of the Three Kingdoms (Samguk yusa).”
Korean Creation Myth Story
The Wei shu tells us that two thousand years ago, at the time of Emperor Yao, Tangun Wanggom chose Asadal as his capital and founded the state of Choson. 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 the most suitable place for his son to settle and help human beings. Therefore he 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 life spans, illness, punishment, and good and evil, and brought culture to his people. [Source: Sourcebook of Korean Civilization, edited by Peter H. Lee, vol. 1 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), 6-7, : Asia for Educators Columbia University, Primary Sources with DBQs, afe.easia.columbia.edu ^^^ ]
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 ate the spices and avoided the sun. After twentyone 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 Tangun Wanggom....In the fiftieth year of the reign of Emperor Yao, Tangun made the walled city of Pyongyang the capital and called his country Choson. He then moved his capital to Asadal on Mount Paegak, also names Mount Kunghol, or Kŭmmidal, whence he ruled for fifteen hundred years. When, in the year kimyo [1122 B.C.], King Wu of Chou enfeoffed Chi Tzu (Kija) to Choson, Tangun moved to Changdanggyong, but later he returned and hid in Asadal as a mountain god at the age of one thousand nine hundred and eight.
Korean Poetry
According to Britannica.com: “There are four major traditional poetic forms: hyangga (“native songs”); pyolgok (“special songs”), or changga (“long poems”); sijo (“current melodies”); and kasa (“verses”). Other poetic forms that flourished briefly include the kyonggi style in the 14th and 15th centuries and the akchang (“words for songs”) in the 15th century. The most representative akchang is Yongbi och’on ka (1445–47; “Songs of Flying Dragons”), a cycle compiled in praise of the founding of the Choson (Yi) dynasty. Korean poetry originally was meant to be sung, and its forms and styles reflect its melodic origins. The basis of its prosody is a line of alternating groups of three or four syllables, probably the most natural rhythm to the language. [Source: Du-Hwan Kwon, Byong-Wuk Chong, Peter H. Lee, Britannica.com]
“The oldest poetic form is the hyangga, poems transcribed in the hyangch’al system, dating from the middle period of the Unified Silla dynasty to the early period of the Koryo dynasty (935–1392). The poems were written in four, eight, or 10 lines; the 10-line form—comprising two four-line stanzas and a concluding two-line stanza—was the most popular. The poets were either Buddhist monks or members of the Hwarangdo, a school in which chivalrous youth were trained in civil and military virtues in preparation for state service. Seventeen of the 25 extant hyangga are Buddhist in inspiration and content.
The pyolgok, or changga, flourished during the middle and late Koryo period. It is characterized by a refrain either in the middle or at the end of each stanza. The refrain establishes a mood or tone that carries the melody and spirit of the poem or links a poem composed of discrete parts with differing contents. The theme of most of these anonymous poems is love, the joys and torments of which are expressed in frank and powerful language. The poems were sung to musical accompaniments chiefly by women entertainers known as kisaeng.
The sijo is the longest-enduring and most popular form of Korean poetry. Although some poems are attributed to writers of the late Koryo dynasty, the sijo is primarily a poetic form of the Choson dynasty (1392–1910). Sijo are three-line poems in which each line has 14 to 16 syllables and the total number of syllables seldom exceeds 45. Each line consists of groups of four syllables. Sijo may deal with Confucian ethical values, but there are also many poems about nature and love. The principal writers of sijo in the first half of the Choson dynasty were members of the Confucian upper class (yangban) and the kisaeng. In the latter part of the Choson dynasty, a longer form called sasol sijo (“narrative sijo”) evolved. The writers of this form were mainly common people; hence, the subject matter included more down-to-earth topics such as trade and corruption as well as the traditional topic of love. In addition, sasol sijo frequently employed slang, vulgar language, and onomatopoeia.
The kasa developed at about the same time as the sijo. In its formative stage, kasa borrowed the form of the Chinese tz’u (lyric poetry) or fu (rhymed prose). The kasa tends to be much longer than other forms of Korean poetry and is usually written in balanced couplets. Either line of a couplet is divided into two groups, the first having three or four syllables and the second having four syllables. The history of the kasa is divided into two periods, the division being marked by the Japanese invasion of 1592–97. During the earlier period the poem was generally about 100 lines long and dealt with such subjects as female beauty, war, and seclusion. The writers were usually yangban. During the later period the poem tended to be longer and to concern itself with moral instruction, travel accounts, banishment, and the writer’s personal misfortunes. The later writers were usually commoners.
Immediately after the founding of the Choson dynasty at the end of the 14th century and the establishment of the new capital in Seoul, a small group of poetic songs called akchang was written to celebrate the beginning of the new dynasty. In its earliest examples the form of akchang was comparatively free, borrowing its style from early Chinese classical poetry. Whereas the early akchang are generally short, the later Yongbi och’on ka consists of 125 cantos.
Sijo Poetry
The sijo is the longest-enduring and most popular form of Korean poetry. Developed in the twelfth century, it is composed of three couplets and characterized by great simplicity and expressiveness. Although some poems are attributed to writers of the late Koryo dynasty, the sijo is primarily a poetic form of the Choson dynasty (1392–1910). Sijo are three-line poems in which each line has 14 to 16 syllables and the total number of syllables seldom exceeds 45. Each line consists of groups of four syllables. Sijo may deal with Confucian ethical values, but there are also many poems about nature and love. The principal writers of sijo in the first half of the Choson dynasty were members of the Confucian upper class (yangban) and the kisaeng. In the latter part of the Choson dynasty, a longer form called sasol sijo (“narrative sijo”) evolved. The writers of this form were mainly common people; hence, the subject matter included more down-to-earth topics such as trade and corruption as well as the traditional topic of love. In addition, sasol sijo frequently employed slang, vulgar language, and onomatopoeia.
A sijo poem by Chong Mong-ju (1337-92), a Koryo Dynasty loyalist who was assassinated at the foundation of the Chosun Dynasty, refers to his political choice not to side with the new government. It goes:
My body is mortal, commonly mortal.
My bones end in dust, soul or no soul.
My lord owns my heart, though, and that cannot change.
[Source: Andrea Matles Savada and William Shaw, Library of Congress, 1990]
Many of these poems reveal a sensitivity to the beauties of nature, delight in life's pleasures, and a tendency toward philosophical contemplation that together produce a sense of serenity and, sometimes, loneliness. Frequently the poems reveal a preoccupation with purity, symbolized by whiteness:
Do not enter, snowy heron, in the valley where the crows are quarreling.
Such angry crows are envious of your whiteness,
And I fear that they will soil the body you have washed in the pure stream.
Early Korean Novels
Donald N. Clark wrote in “Culture and Customs of Korea”: “The first Korean vernacular novel was The Story of Hong Kiltong by Ho Kyun (1569-1618). Like the story of Ch'unhyang it is a satire in which commoners outdo the upper class. The hero, named Hong Kiltong, is the leader of a band of thieves who set up a classless community on an isolated island and succeed in getting along without the yangban and their laws and privileges. Nearly a century later, the novelist Kim Manjung (1637-92) wrote The Cloud Dream of the Nine (Ku'unmong), based on the Buddhist idea of dreams and clouds that hide reality. It too concerned the conflict between pretense and reality in the lives of the ruling class. [Source: “Culture and Customs of Korea” by Donald N. Clark, Greenwood Press, 2000]
“Women wrote fictional works, including historical novels, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries using the loan gul script that most educated male writers tried to avoid. The authors were court ladies; that is, wives and mothers of powerful men who had to keep their silence while observing the cruelties and injustices of court politics. Since they were not writing for publication at the time and were in effect keeping secret diaries for their own use, they were not bound by the rigid forms and conventions that stripped so much of the men's writing of emotion and color. As a result, in modern times their ban'gulwritings have reappeared as popular novels about court life, full of characters and judgments about right and wrong. Like the Ch'unhyang story these have made good screenplays, and television series based on them have been wildly popular.
The Tale of Queen Inhyon (Inhyon wanghujon) is one that concerns a manipulative royal concubine who tries to remove the reigning queen in order to get her own son in line for the throne and has to commit multiple murders in the process. Eventually the king realizes the evil of the concubine and has the queen restored to her rightful place. The most famous court novel by a woman is The Memoirs of Lady Hyegyong (the Hanjung-nok). The writer, Princess Hyegyong (1735-1815), tells the story of the court of King Yongjo (r. 1724-76) and the tragic fate of her husband, Crown Prince Sado. Written in diary form, the Hanjung-nok tells about the plots against Princess Hyegyong's husband, Prince Sado, how the plotters convinced King Yongjo that the prince was a criminal and deserved to die, and how the king had him locked in a box to starve to death. Like many other Korean classics the theme of the novel is one of miscarried justice—of unfair and arbitrary treatment and the abuse of power. King Yongjo was a great ruler but his blindness in the affair of his own son and heir was a great national tragedy. Princess Hyegyong's written record not only kept the historical event in the minds of the Korean people but also contributed a work of literature that is a Korean equivalent of a Shakespearean epic in the West.
Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons.
Text Sources: South Korean government websites, Korea Tourism Organization, Cultural Heritage Administration, Republic of Korea, UNESCO, Wikipedia, Library of Congress, CIA World Factbook, World Bank, Lonely Planet guides, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, The New Yorker, “Culture and Customs of Korea” by Donald N. Clark, Chunghee Sarah Soh in “Countries and Their Cultures”, “Columbia Encyclopedia”, Korea Times, Korea Herald, The Hankyoreh, JoongAng Daily, Radio Free Asia, Bloomberg, Reuters, Associated Press, BBC, AFP, The Atlantic, The Guardian, Yomiuri Shimbun and various books and other publications.
Updated in July 2021