The Life and Works of Korean Poet Kim Myŏng-sun
The Life and Works of Korean Poet Kim Myŏng-sun

Author: Jung Ja Choi

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2022-11-30

Total Pages: 219

ISBN-13: 1000775186

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The Life and Works of Korean Poet Kim Myŏng-sun offers an introduction to Korea’s first modern woman writer to publish a collection of creative works, Kim Myŏng-sun (1896–ca. 1954). Despite attempts by male contemporaries to assassinate her character, Kim was an outspoken writer and an early feminist, confronting patriarchal Korean society in essays, plays, poems, and short stories. This volume is the first to offer a detailed analysis in English of Kim’s poetry. The poems examined in this volume can be considered early twentieth-century versions of #MeToo literature, mirroring the harrowing account of her sexual assault, and also subversive challenges to traditional institutions, dealing with themes such as romantic free love, same-sex love, single womanhood, and explicit female desire and passion. The Life and Works of Korean Poet Kim Myŏng-sun restores a long-neglected woman writer to her rightful place in the history of Korean literature, shedding light on the complexity of women’s lives in Korea and contributing to the growing interest in modern Korean women’s literature in the West.

Questioning Minds
Questioning Minds

Author:

Publisher: University of Hawaii Press

Published: 2009-10-15

Total Pages: 250

ISBN-13: 0824837584

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Available for the first time in English, the ten short stories by modern Korean women collected here touch in one way or another on issues related to gender and kinship politics. All of the protagonists are women who face personal crises or defining moments in their lives as gender-marked beings in a Confucian, patriarchal Korean society. Their personal dreams and values have been compromised by gender expectations or their own illusions about female existence. They are compelled to ask themselves "Who am I?" "Where am I going?" "What are my choices?" Each story bears colorful and compelling testimony to the life of the heroine. Some of the stories celebrate the central character’s breakaway from the patriarchal order; others expose sexual inequality and highlight the struggle for personal autonomy and dignity. Still others reveal the abrupt awakening to mid-life crises and the seasoned wisdom that comes with accepting the limits of old age. The stories are arranged in chronological order, from the earliest work by Korea’s first modern woman writer in 1917 to stories that appeared in 1995—approximately one from each decade. Most of the writers presented are recognized literary figures, but some are lesser-known voices. The introduction presents a historical overview of traditions of modern Korean women’s fiction, situating the selected writers and their stories in the larger context of Korean literature. Each story is accompanied by a biographical note on the author and a brief critical analysis. A selected bibliography is provided for further reading and research. Questioning Minds marks a departure from existing translations of Korean literature in terms of its objectives, content, and format. As such it will contribute to the growth of Korean studies, increasing the availability of material for teaching Korean literature in English, and stimulate readership of its writers beyond the confines of the peninsula.

Writing Women in Korea
Writing Women in Korea

Author: Theresa Hyun

Publisher: University of Hawaii Press

Published: 2003-09-30

Total Pages: 200

ISBN-13: 9780824826772

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Writing Women in Korea explores the connections among translation, new forms of writing, and new representations of women in Korea from the early 1900s to the late 1930s. It examines shifts in the way translators handled material pertaining to women, the work of women translators of the time, and the relationship between translation and the original works of early twentieth-century Korean women writers. The book opens with an outline of the Chosôn period (1392-1910), when a vernacular writing system was invented, making it possible to translate texts into Korean--in particular, Chinese writings reinforcing official ideals of feminine behavior aimed at women. The legends of European heroines and foreign literary works (such as those by Ibsen) translated at the beginning of the twentieth century helped spur the creation of the New Woman (Sin Yôsông) ideal for educated women of the 1920s and 1930s. The role of women translators is explored, as well as the scope of their work and the constraints they faced as translators. Finally, the author relates the writing of Kim Myông-Sun, Pak Hwa-Sông, and Mo Yun-Suk to new trends imported into Korea through translation. She argues that these women deserve recognition for not only their creation of new forms of writing, but also their contributions to Korea’s emerging sense of herself as a modern and independent nation.

Azaleas
Azaleas

Author: So-wŏl Kim

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 218

ISBN-13: 0231139721

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Available for the first time in English, Azaleas is a captivating collection of poems by a master of the early Korean modernist style. Published in 1925, Azaleas is the only collection Kim Sowol (1902-1934) produced during his brief life, yet he remains one of Korea's most beloved and well-known poets. His work is a delightful and sophisticated blend of the images, tonalities, and rhythms of traditional Korean folk songs with surprisingly modern forms and themes. Sowol is also known for his unique and sometimes unsettling perspective, expressed through loneliness, longing, and a creative use of dream imagery-a reflection of Sowol's engagement with French Symbolist poetry. Azaleas recounts the journey of a young Korean as he travels from the northern P'yongyang area near to the cosmopolitan capital of Seoul. Told through an array of voices, the poems describe the young man's actions as he leaves home, his experiences as a student and writer in Seoul, and his return north. Although considered a landmark of Korean literature, Azaleas speaks to readers from all cultures. An essay by Sowol's mentor, the poet Kim Ok, concludes the collection and provides vital insight into Sowol's work and life. This elegant translation by David R. McCann, an expert on modern Korean poetry, maintains the immediacy and richness of Sowol's work and shares with English-language readers the quiet beauty of a poet who continues to cast a powerful spell on generations of Korean readers.

Sky, Wind, and Stars
Sky, Wind, and Stars

Author: Dongju Yun

Publisher: Jain Publishing Company

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 120

ISBN-13: 0895818264

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Born and raised in northern Manchuria during the colonial period of Korea, Yun Dong-ju was a poet of the utmost purity, beauty, and sincerity. His posthumously published collection of poems under the title Sky, wind, stars, and poems is one of the all-time favorites of Korean readers. Wishing not to have so much as a speck of shame toward heaven until the day I die, I suffered, even when the wind stirred the leaves. (From Foreword) In simple diction and straightforward expressions, his poems sing of his love for his people, his compassion for the poor and destitute, and his hopes for freedom and independence. These themes still resonate deep within the hearts of the Korean people. His imprisonment and eventual death in 1945 in a Japanese prison lend great poignancy to his work.

The Colors of Dawn
The Colors of Dawn

Author: Frank Stewart

Publisher:

Published: 2015

Total Pages: 170

ISBN-13:

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"Throughout the twentieth century, few countries in Asia suffered more from foreign occupation, civil war, and international military conflict than Korea. The Colors of Dawn brings together the moving and powerful voices of over forty Korean poets from these turbulent years. From 1903 to 1945, the Japanese Empire occupied the Korean peninsula and instituted measures to annihilate the nation and its culture. After Japan's defeat in WWII, Korea became a killing ground during the Korean War (1950 to 1953). During this period and into the 1980s, South Korea was controlled by a military dictatorship, and today it remains on war footing. In the midst of internal and external conflicts, Korea's poets--threatened by the authorities with torture, imprisonment, and death--found ways to express their fierce desire for freedom and self-governance. The result is a century of outstanding poetry, from Sim Hun (1901) to more familiar modern and contemporary poets, such as Kim Chi-ha and Ko Ŭn."--Amazon.

A Drink of Red Mirror
A Drink of Red Mirror

Author: Hyesoon Kim

Publisher:

Published: 2019-03-20

Total Pages: 96

ISBN-13: 9780900575808

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Poetry. Asian & Asian American Studies. Translated from the Korean by Jiwon Shin, Lauren Albin, and Sue Hyon Bae. A landmark feminist poet and critic in her native South Korea, Kim Hyesoon's surreal, dagger-sharp poetry has spread from hemisphere to hemisphere in the past ten years, her works translated to Chinese, Swedish, English, French, German, Dutch, and beyond. In A DRINK OF RED MIRROR, Kim Hyesoon raises a glass to the reader in the form of a series of riddles, poems conjuring the you inside the me, the night inside the day, the outside inside the inside, the ocean inside the tear. Kim's radical, paradoxical intimacies entail sites of pain as well as wonder, opening onto impossible--which is to say, visionary--vistas. Again and again, in these poems as across her career, Kim unlocks a horizon inside the vanishing point.

Dictee
Dictee

Author: Theresa Hak Kyung Cha

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 196

ISBN-13: 9780520231122

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This autobiographical work is the story of several women. Deploying a variety of texts, documents and imagery, these women are united by suffering and the transcendance of suffering.

A History of Korean Literature
A History of Korean Literature

Author: Peter H. Lee

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2003-12-18

Total Pages: 658

ISBN-13: 1139440861

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This is a comprehensive narrative history of Korean literature. It provides a wealth of information for scholars, students and lovers of literature. Combining both history and criticism the study reflects the latest scholarship and offers a systematic account of the development of all genres. Consisting of twenty-five chapters, it covers twentieth-century poetry, fiction by women and the literature of North Korea. This is a major contribution to the field and a study that will stand for many years as the primary resource for studying Korean literature.