Download or read book Premodern Korean Literary Prose written by Michael J. Pettid and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2018-01-23 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This anthology presents new translations of Korean prose works from the tenth to the nineteenth century. It offers insight into past Korean societies by highlighting genres that have largely not been translated, such as diaries, short fictional biographies, erotic tales, oral narratives, and novellas, all of which illustrate the depth and variety of premodern Korean writings. The selections are intended to show what literate people of the premodern period enjoyed reading and demonstrate the cultural diversity of the creation of literature, including a range of writings by women and nonelites such as commoners. The volume also includes critical essays and short introductions to contextualize the materials and explain the ideological backdrop behind the creation of the works.
Download or read book An Anthology of Traditional Korean Literature written by Peter H. Lee and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2017-03-31 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This revised, expanded anthology, compiled and edited by pioneering scholar and translator Peter H. Lee, offers a representative selection of traditional Korean literature. Its rich and diverse selections, covering all genres and forms written in classical (literary) Chinese and the vernacular Korean language, were chosen for both their literary merit and socio-historical engagement with their times. Divided into four parts—verse, prose, fiction, and oral literature—representing the four major branches of traditional Korean literature, it includes previously undervalued or suppressed texts such as Koryǒ love lyrics, shamanist narrative songs, and p’ansori—creations composed in the mind, retained in memory, sung to audiences, and heard, not read. Every effort has been made to render Korea’s literary past credibly and meaningfully. With its fresh translations and new examples of oral literature and fiction, this comprehensive, one-volume anthology will provide students and general readers with the means to gain a deep appreciation of Korean literature and its interconnections with other East Asian literatures.
Download or read book The Korean Vernacular Story written by Si Nae Park and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2020-08-04 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the political, economic, and cultural center of Chosŏn Korea, eighteenth-century Seoul epitomized a society in flux: It was a bustling, worldly metropolis into which things and people from all over the country flowed. In this book, Si Nae Park examines how the culture of Chosŏn Seoul gave rise to a new vernacular narrative form that was evocative of the spoken and written Korean language of the time. The vernacular story (yadam) flourished in the nineteenth century as anonymously and unofficially circulating tales by and for Chosŏn people. The Korean Vernacular Story focuses on the formative role that the collection Repeatedly Recited Stories of the East (Tongp’ae naksong) played in shaping yadam, analyzing the collection’s language and composition and tracing its reception and circulation. Park situates its compiler, No Myŏnghŭm, in Seoul’s cultural scene, examining how he developed a sense of belonging in the course of transforming from a poor provincial scholar to an urbane literary figure. No wrote his tales to serve as stories of contemporary Chosŏn society and chose to write not in cosmopolitan Literary Sinitic but instead in a new medium in which Literary Sinitic is hybridized with the vernacular realities of Chosŏn society. Park contends that this linguistic innovation to represent tales of contemporary Chosŏn inspired readers not only to circulate No’s works but also to emulate and cannibalize his stylistic experimentation within Chosŏn’s manuscript-heavy culture of texts. The first book in English on the origins of yadam, The Korean Vernacular Story combines historical insight, textual studies, and the history of the book. By highlighting the role of negotiation with Literary Sinitic and sinographic writing, it challenges the script (han’gŭl)-focused understanding of Korean language and literature.
Download or read book Early Korean Literature written by David McCann and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2000-09-14 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Preeminent scholar and translator David R. McCann presents an anthology of his own translations of works ranging across the major genres and authors of Korean writing—stories, legends, poems, historical vignettes, and other works—and a set of critical essays on major themes. A brief history of traditional Korean literature orients the reader to the historical context of the writings, thus bringing into focus this rich literary tradition. The anthology of translations begins with the Samguk sagi, or History of the Three Kingdoms, written in 1145, and ends with "The Story of Master Hô," written in the late 1700s. Three exploratory essays of particular subtlety and lucidity raise interpretive and comparative issues that provide a creative, sophisticated framework for approaching the selections.
Download or read book Tales of the Strange by a Korean Confucian Monk written by Dennis Wuerthner and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2020-04-30 with total page 403 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the most important and celebrated works of premodern Korean prose fiction, Kŭmo sinhwa (New Tales of the Golden Turtle) is a collection of five tales of the strange artfully written in literary Chinese by Kim Sisŭp (1435–1493). Kim was a major intellectual and poet of the early Chosŏn dynasty (1392–1897), and this book is widely recognized as marking the beginning of classical fiction in Korea. The present volume features an extensive study of Kim and the Kŭmo sinhwa, followed by a copiously annotated, complete English translation of the tales from the oldest extant edition. The translation captures the vivaciousness of the original, while the annotations reveal the work’s complexity, unraveling the deep and diverse intertextual connections between the Kŭmo sinhwa and preceding works of Chinese and Korean literature and philosophy. The Kŭmo sinhwa can thus be read and appreciated as a hybrid work that is both distinctly Korean and Sino-centric East Asian. A translator’s introduction discusses this hybridity in detail, as well as the unusual life and tumultuous times of Kim Sisŭp; the Kŭmo sinhwa’s creation and its translation and transformation in early modern Japan and twentieth-century (especially North) Korea and beyond; and its characteristics as a work of dissent. Tales of the Strange by a Korean Confucian Monk will be welcomed by Korean and East Asian studies scholars and students, yet the body of the work—stories of strange affairs, fantastic realms, seductive ghosts, and majestic but eerie beings from the netherworld—will be enjoyed by academics and non-specialist readers alike.
Download or read book A History of Korean Literature written by Peter H. Lee and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2003-12-18 with total page 658 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book The Story of Traditional Korean Literature written by Peter H. Lee and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 427 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, renowned Korean studies scholar Peter H. Lee casts light on important works previously undervalued or suppressed in Korean literary history. He illuminates oral-derived texts as Koryo love songs, p'ansori, and shamanist narrative songs which were composed in the mind, retained in the memory, sung to audiences, and heard but not read, as well as other texts which were written in literary Chinese, the language of the learned ruling class, a challenge even to the reader who has been raised on the Confucian and literary canons of China and Korea. To understand fully the nature of these works, one needs to understand the distinction between what were considered the primary and secondary genres in the traditional canon, the relations between literature written in literary Chinese and that penned in the vernacular, and the generic hierarchy in the official and unofficial canons. The major texts the Koreans studied after the formation of the Korean states were those of the Confucian canon (first five, then eleven, and finally thirteen texts). These texts formed the basic curriculum of education for almost nine hundred years. * The literati who constituted the dominant social class in Korea wrote almost entirely in literary Chinese, the father language, which dominated the world of letters. This class, which controlled the canon of traditional Korean literature and critical discourse, adopted as official the genres of Chinese poetry and prose. Among the works in literary Chinese examined, this book explores the foundation myths of Koguryo and Choson, which center on the hero's deeds retold and sung to music composed for the purpose. Works in the vernacular discussed in this book include Kory? love songs, which reveal oral traditional features but have survived only in written form. Lyrics were often censored by officials as dealing with "love between the sexes." They intensely affect today's listener and reader, who try to reimagine the role of a general audience assumed to have the same background and concomitant expectations as the composers. The book also illuminates the works of the shaman, who occupied the lowest social strata. Shamans had to endure suffering imposed by authority, but their faith and rites brought solace to many, powerful and powerless, rich and poor. Some extant written texts are riddled with learned diction-Sino-Korean words and technical vocabulary from Buddhist, Daoist, and Confucian traditions. This study explores how the unlettered shamans of the past managed to understand these texts and commit them to memory, especially given the fact that shamans depended more on aural intake and oral output than on the eye. The Story of Traditional Korean Literature opens the window to the fusion--as opposed to the conflict--of horizons, a dialogue between past and present, which will enable readers to understand and appreciate the text's unity of meaning. The aim of crosscultural comparison and contrast is to discover differences at points of maximum resemblance. Lee's comparative style is metacritical, transnational, and intertextual, involving also social and cultural issues, and also paying careful attention to be non-Eurocentric, nonpatriarchal, and nonelitist. This book will provide critical insights into both the works and the challenges of the topics discussed. It will be an important resource for those in Asian studies and literary criticism.
Download or read book The Tale of Cho Ung written by and published by Translations from the Asian Classics. This book was released on 2018 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Tale of Cho Ung is one of the most widely read and beloved stories of Chosŏn Korea. The anonymously written tale recounts the adventures of protagonist Cho Ung as he overcomes obstacles and grows into a heroic young man. This first translation into English offers a glimpse into early modern Korean vernacular and popular literature.
Download or read book The Bamboo Grove written by Richard Rutt and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 1998 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of short, introspective poems known as sijo--a form unique to Korea. They are skillfully translated by Korean scholar, Richard Rutt
Download or read book Uny ng j n written by Michael J. Pettid and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Review: The story is about a girl who is chosen to receive a literary education in the Korean palace. She among the other 9 girls excell at poetry and live truely blessed lives compared to the average life of someone of their birth and sex. The main heartbreak of all the girls, but more so for Unyoung is that she will never be allowed to marry or have a romantic relationship. One day a poet prodigy comes to the palace to meet with the prince, who is the girl's patron. He writes such sublim poetry that Unyong falls in love with him, and writes to him, at which point he falls in love with her. The book is about their love affair, and the hardships they must endure due to confucious society that disallows them their natural disposition. -- from http://www.amazon.com (Dec. 17, 2014)
Download or read book The History of Korean Literature written by Ko Mi Sook & Jung Min & Jung Byung Sul and published by Literature Translation Institute of Korea. This book was released on 2016-12-30 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An easy to read, extensive exploration of premodern Korean literature. The work covers the beginning of Korean literature until the end of the nineteenth century and would be ideal for students in Korean or Asian literature classes.
Download or read book The Diary of 1636 written by Na Man’gap and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2020-08-04 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Early in the seventeenth century, Northeast Asian politics hung in a delicate balance among the Chosŏn dynasty in Korea, the Ming in China, and the Manchu. When a Chosŏn faction realigned Korea with the Ming, the Manchu attacked in 1627 and again a decade later, shattering the Chosŏn-Ming alliance and forcing Korea to support the newly founded Qing dynasty. The Korean scholar-official Na Man’gap (1592–1642) recorded the second Manchu invasion in his Diary of 1636, the only first-person account chronicling the dramatic Korean resistance to the attack. Partly composed as a narrative of quotidian events during the siege of Namhan Mountain Fortress, where Na sought refuge with the king and other officials, the diary recounts Korean opposition to Manchu and Mongol forces and the eventual surrender. Na describes military campaigns along the northern and western regions of the country, the capture of the royal family, and the Manchu treatment of prisoners, offering insights into debates about Confucian loyalty and the conduct of women that took place in the war’s aftermath. His work sheds light on such issues as Confucian statecraft, military decision making, and ethnic interpretations of identity in the seventeenth century. Translated from literary Chinese into English for the first time, the diary illuminates a traumatic moment for early modern Korean politics and society. George Kallander’s critical introduction and extensive annotations place The Diary of 1636 in its historical, political, and military context, highlighting the importance of this text for students and scholars of Chinese and East Asian as well as Korean history.
Download or read book Traditional Japanese Literature written by Haruo Shirane and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 601 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Traditional Japanese Literature features a rich array of works dating from the very beginnings of the Japanese written language through the evolution of Japan's noted aristocratic court and warrior cultures. It contains stunning new translations of such canonical texts as The Tales of the Heike as well as works and genres previously ignored by scholars and unknown to general readers.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Classical Chinese Literature 1000 BCE 900 CE written by Wiebke Denecke and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 625 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume introduces readers to classical Chinese literature from its beginnings (ca. 10th century BCE) to the tenth century BCE through a conceptual framework centered on textual production and transmission. It focuses on recuperating historical perspectives for the period it surveys, and attempts to draw connections between the past and present.
Download or read book Dust and Other Stories written by T'aejun Yi and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2018-04-24 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Yi T’aejun was one of twentieth-century Korea’s true masters of the short story—and a man who in 1946 stunned his contemporaries by moving to the Soviet-occupied northern zone of his country. In South Korea, where he is known today as “one who went north,” Yi’s work was banned until 1988. His momentous decision did not lead him to a safe haven, however: though initially welcomed into the literary establishment, North Korea sent him into internal exile in the 1950s, and little is known of his fate. Dust and Other Stories offers a selection of Yi’s stories across time and place, showcasing a superb stylist caught up in the midst of his era’s most urgent ideological and aesthetic divides. This collection unites his earlier modernist masterpieces from the colonial era with his little-known work penned during North Korea’s founding years, offering a rare glimpse into the making—and crossing—of the border between south and north. During the turbulent final years of Japanese rule, Yi’s elegant yet subdued stories championed both his native tongue and the belief in the capacity of art. In the heavily politicized environment of the North, his later works maintain a faith in the art of storytelling and a concern for the disappearance of customs in the throes of modernization. Throughout both eras, Yi focused on ordinary people: old men struggling to understand a changing world, lovers meeting up among ancient ruins, a lively widow targeted by a literacy campaign, a bourgeois couple trying to sustain themselves during the war by breeding rabbits, and more. Magnificently translated by Janet Poole, Yi’s work bears witness to global turmoil with a melancholic sense of enduring beauty.
Download or read book The Story of Hong Gildong written by Kyun Hŏ and published by Penguin Classics. This book was released on 2016-03-15 with total page 130 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hong Gildong, a brilliant but illegitimate son of a noble government minister, cannot advance in society and embarks on a series of adventures, joining a band of outlaws, vanquishing assassins and monsters, and founding his own kingdom.
Download or read book The Memoirs of Lady Hyegyong written by JaHyun Kim Haboush and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2013-09-14 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lady Hyegyong's memoirs, which recount the chilling murder of her husband by his father, form one of the best known and most popular classics of Korean literature. From 1795 until 1805 Lady Hyegyong composed this masterpiece, depicting a court life Shakespearean in its pathos, drama, and grandeur. Presented in its social, cultural, and historical contexts, this first complete English translation opens a door into a world teeming with conflicting passions, political intrigue, and the daily preoccupations of a deeply intelligent and articulate woman. JaHyun Kim Haboush's accurate, fluid translation captures the intimate and expressive voice of this consummate storyteller. Reissued nearly twenty years after its initial publication with a new foreword by Dorothy Ko, The Memoirs of Lady Hyegyong is a unique exploration of Korean selfhood and an extraordinary example of autobiography in the premodern era.
