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Kichung Kim. An Introduction to Classical Korean Literature: From Hyangga to P'ansori. Armonk: M.E.Sharpe, 1996. Korean Research Monograph No. 26. ISBN 1-56324-785-2 cloth; ISBN 1-56324-786-0 paper. XI+232 pages.
Reviewed by Peter Schroepfer
Leiden University
An Introduction to Classical Korean Literature: From Hyangga to P'ansori by Kichung Kim is a personal work and will be best appreciated by those who empathize with its autobiographical character. "Not knowing classical Korean literature, I felt excluded from the soil in which I ought to have rooted my intellectual, emotional, moral, and spiritual being." (IX) Throughout the book, one meets with numerous first person intrusions ('I believe this' or 'I think that,') with moving subjective commentary ("How vivid the voice of this distressed little girlWe can feel her sorrow and distress"(109)), and even information about the author's experiences in teaching sijo. The subjective tone is not to be criticized, as the author never makes greater claims for his book: "From the beginningthis study has been a personal undertaking. More than anything else, it is a report on my reading of those works of classical Korean literature I came to love" (IX). As a record of a "personal undertaking," An Introduction to Classical Korean Literature: From Hyangga to P'ansori is readable and largely enjoyable. Nonetheless, readers hoping to find a coherent and comprehensive introduction to pre-modern Korean literature may be disappointed.
One of the book's attractive features is that it covers much of interest to the general Western reader, including several of the most outstanding pre-modern Korean literary works, women's writing during the Chosôn period, the authors Hô Kyun and Pak Chiwôn, and the genres known as Hyangga and P'ansori. This concentration creates a problem, however, in that while it makes the book more accessible, its scope means that most pre-modern Korean literature, or any serious discussion of it, is missing, as is an overall picture of literary history.
Just as the student of European classical music must adjust expectations in order to get the most out of a class in ethnomusicology, so too a student of Western literature will have to reframe his horizons if he is to truly understand Korean literature, instead of simply reading extracts from it. The author does briefly raise important methodological issues in the first chapter, What is Korean Literature?, and the tenth chapter, Notes on P'ansori, as well as in short comments throughout the book ("We must not think of Hong Kiltong chôn as a novel in the modern sense of the word"(141), "To fully appreciate p'ansori, one must attend a live performance by a master kwangdae accompanied by an accomplished drummer." (207)). Nonetheless, readers versed primarily in Western literature would be better prepared to approach Korean material if they have learned not only that most Korean scholars consider oral texts worthy of literary research, as the author tells us, but also something of the dynamic relationship between oral and written literature in Korea, or how the high degree of orality in many Korean literary genres affects the unfolding of the narrative. Some background about traditional Korean society, literary production and distribution during the Chosôn period, the relationship between elite and popular texts in Korea, and several other general topics would have made this book more valuable as a guide to pre-modern Korean literature.
Unfortunately, as well, many points in the book are misleading, if not altogether inaccurate. We are told that sijo "flourishes today as it has for nearly six hundred years, not only in Korea but wherever there is a Korean community." Nothing could be farther from the truth in Korea proper, where the 1920's saw the emergence of the so-called Sijo Revival Movement (Sijo puhûng undong). Today sijo enjoys little more than a geriatric cult following, and the vast majority of young people experience the poetic genre directly only as homework or never at all.
The author frequently enlivens episodes from Korean literature with a little storytelling of his own. Although this makes his prose more entertaining, his introduction to the Hônhwaga, a hyangga poem/song from the Samguk Yusa, goes too far in its imaginative fictions:
They have probably left Kyôngju, the Shilla capital, the day before or very early that morning and are now making a [sic] leisurely progress to the north. They stop for lunch at the foot of a cliff. The governor is on horseback, his beautiful young wife, Lady Suro, perhaps rides in a carriage, and before they alight they pause to admire the splendid scenery. For Lady Suro it might be her first journey out of Kyôngju. She is struck by the scenery before her, the sparkling East Sea and the rocky cliffs. And what is that she sees high up on the cliff, near the very top? A beautiful flower in full blooma red azalea perhaps? It almost takes her breath away. (13-14)
As should be apparent, the thin documentation about the Hônhwaga scarcely justifies such a romantic recreation. What makes this fictionalization even more problematic is that the author first suggests the event may have occurred on Lady Suro's first journey outside of Kyôngju, but later notes that "The Samguk Yusa account adds that because of Lady Suro's unparalleled beauty she had been abducted several times in the past, whenever she traveled through deep mountains and along lakes" (15). One might argue that these mountains and lakes existed in what was then considered to be part of Kyôngju, or that the Samguk Yusa text can be interpreted to mean this particular abduction was but the first of many such unfortunate experiences, but it is far more likely that this is not the case, making such a dramatic departure from the text a dangerous journey indeed.
Even more troubling, however, is a tendency that emerges in a footnote to Kim's chapter The Mystery and Loveliness of the Hyangga. "My English translation of this passage is based on the revised edition of Yi Pyông-do's Korean translation of the Samguk Yusa (Seoul: Kwangjo sa, 1979), 256-57." (23) In other words, the story of what happens when Chôyong finds four legs in his bed has been translated twice: first from Chinese to Korean by Yi Pyôngdo, then from Korean to English by Kim. The Chôyongga itself is written in idu, and thus difficult even for specialists to decipher confidently, but the accompanying text is not especially difficult as hanmun texts go, so the reader must wonder if the author of An Introduction to Classical Korean Literature is actually unable to read the language in which the bulk of classical Korean literature is written. Elsewhere as well, the author appears to translate from Korean translations instead of from hanmun texts.
Many statements are merely confusing. In the chapter The Incomparable Lyricism of Koryô Songs, the author notifies the reader that "there was no indigenous writing system during the Koryô period and it was therefore necessary to rely on oral transmission of [Koyrô] vernacular verses"(25). Many languages lack indigenous writing systems, yet do not need to rely on oral transmission to preserve and disseminate vernacular poetry; hyangga were recorded in the vernacular during the Koryô period using a "hybrid writing system" known as hyangch'al (23). Other instances follow: Kim notes that the Samguk Yusa has a Buddhist "slant," (63) as if this 'bias' were anything less than the very reason the Samguk Yusa is more valuable as literature than the Samguk Sagi; Hwanung of the Tan'gun foundation myth descends to earth at "T'aebaek Mountain"(63), the problem here being that without further explanation, readers not already familiar with the myth might easily take T'aebaek Mountain to be a mountain with that name that forms part of the border between Kyôngbuk and Kangwôn provinces.
The greatest contribution made by An Introduction to Classical Korean Literature is in the chapter Notes on Shijo, in which Kim conveys his experience teaching a course in classical Korean literature in translation at San Jose State University, where, the reader is informed, the author has taught English literature since the 1960's. During the course students were given the opportunity to write sijo in English, and this was "one of our most fruitful activities" (87). One of the author's students, a certain Katrina Gee, "lived some years in Japan" and "had become interested in the haiku and in haiku writing" (87). The reader is given several of Gee's English language sijo, as well as two from "Mrs. L's son's eighth-grade English honors class" (92), though it is not clear just who Mrs L is, beyond that she wanted to give her eighth-graders "a basic background and history of shijo poetry, and enough understanding of the subject to enable them to write their own shijo poetry" (89). In the US, many elementary and secondary English classes are taught to write haiku, so it is only natural that Korea's most accessible variety of set-form poetry be given a chance as well, for it may be a helpful tool in literature appreciation. As the author notes, "experience has taught me that having students try their hand at writing shijo, adhering to its most basic rules, not only helped them better appreciate the classical shijo but also gave them an opportunity to turn the experience of their daily lives into poetry." (90) It will only be a matter of time before the occasional English class in large Californian cities, perhaps those having large Korean-American populations, begins experimenting with sijo. The author's discussion of English language sijo, particularly the guidelines and a suggested four "basic rules" for composition (90), would be a fine guide for anyone wishing to engage in such a literary endeavor.
Despite its drawbacks, readers will find An Introduction to Classical Korean Literature: From Hyangga to P'ansori an affectionate, and at times moving, tribute to the treasures of Korean literature. Such a tribute is what Kichung Kim sought above all to accomplish, and in this he has certainly succeeded. His personal commentary, which offers a new perspective on some of the most popular works of Korean literature, honors the tradition.
Citation:
Schroepfer, Peter 2001
Review of An Introduction to Classical Korean Literature: From Hyangga to P'ansori, by Kichung Kim (1996)
Korean Studies Review 2001, no. 16
Electronic file: http://koreanstudies.com/ks/ksr/ksr01-16.htm
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