Korean literature john frankl

Korean Literature:

A Lecture Presented at the Korean Studies
Workshop for American Educators 2008

John M. Frankl
Underwood International College
Yonsei University


The Beginnings of “Korea” and of
Literature on the Peninsula
The Three Kingdoms Period: Defining
“Korean,” Defining “Literature”
Samguk sagi (History of the Three
Kingdoms) 1145
Samguk yusa (Remnants of the Three
Kingdoms) 1285

Lag and Imbedded-ness


Unified Shilla and Koryo Dynasty
Literature
Time and Context Revisited
Samguk yusa
Koryosa (The History of Koryo)
Questions of Who Writes What—When
and Why?
Literature as Artifact

Choson Dynasty Literature: The
Beginnings of Stability
Overcoming Lag, Maintaining
Embedded-ness
The Question of Language
Hunmin chongum (hangul)
Song of the Dragons Flying to Heaven
The Tale of Hong Kiltong
Works in Literary Chinese


The Major Forms
Poetry
Sijo
Kasa
Hansi

Prose
Vernacular
Literary Chinese


Sijo: An Example of Context
Jade Green Stream, don’t boast so proud
of your easy passing through these blue hills.
Once you have reached the broad sea
to return again will be hard.
While the Bright Moon fills these empty hills,
why not pause? Then go on, if you will.

Hwang Chin-i


Early Modern Literature:
Between Transplantation and
Continuity
Transplantation
Continuity
Hybridity and “Problematic
Continuity”


The “Origins” of Modern Fiction
The “New” Novel
Origin of the Misnomer
Novelty versus Hybridity

The “Modern” Novel
The Milestone Approach
Overlap with the “New”
onmun ilch’i (genbun itchi)

Inverse Modernity


America and Japan in Early Modern
Korean Fiction
Tears of Blood
The Heartless
Three Generations

1935-1945: The “Dark” Years
The Lacuna in Korean Literary History
The Roaring 30s
Everyday Life in the Empire
Writings in Korean, Writing in Korean

Total Mobilization
Censorship
Writing in Japanese


1945-1960s: Liberation, Division,
and War
Kapitan Lee and Mister Pang
Questions of Loyalty
A Divided Country, Divided Families
Redefining “Korean-ness”

Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome
The Urge to Return (But to Where and What?)

Cranes
Redefining Right and Wrong
Possibilities for Reconciliation


Late-Twentieth Century Literature
Modernization and Its Discontents

Seoul, 1964, Winter
A Little Ball Launched by a Dwarf
Identical Apartments


Yoryu Chakga: The Changing Status
of Women Writers
A Genre unto Themselves:
Women Writers and Segregation

Turn of the Century:
Women Writers as the Dominant Force in
Korean Literature


Coming Full Circle: Rescuing
Literature From the Nation
Nationalism in Literary Production
Nationalism in Literary Criticism
Writers Unbound
Kim Yongha

Revisiting Questions of Language and
Ethnicity
Future Writers
Koreans in English
Others in Korean