A Research On Korea Modern Symbolism Poetry Literature

This paper focuses on the Symbolistic Poetry in the history of Modern Korean Literature. The trend of French Symbolistic Literary Thought, accepted by Japan in the late 1800s, was introduced through Japan to Korean in the early 1900s. Playing an important role in the history of Japanese literature, the French Symbolistic Literary Thought was accepted in Korean through the vital media Japan.There are the following reasons why French Symbolism was introduced to and accepted by Korean. Firstly, various Western Literary Thoughts were introduced to the Korean Peninsular. Following Enlightenment, Critical Realism and Aestheticism, French Symbolism entered the Korean Peninsular. Therefore, accepting French Symbolism reflects the needs of transition to the Modern style in the history of Korean literature. Secondly, Korean poetry needs to develop towards modern poetry. The main style in pre-modernity included Song and New Style Poetry. Although those styles played a certain role in the development of modern free style, they weren’t adopted to the basic needs in the transition to the Modern style of Korean poetry. Here the basic needs of transition means exploring the form and prosody of free poem style while broking the routine poem style. Symbolism undertook this mission. Thirdly, intellectuals of the Korean Peninsular studying in Japan were about 20 years old, who were rich in emotions. They showed active interest in foreign literary thoughts, and meanwhile introduced the foreign literary thoughts to the Korean Peninsular. Fourthly, the Korean poetry was embodied the Eastern poetry tradition such as Image, Artistic Conception. There exist fitting point between Eastern Poetry Theory and Symbolism; therefore, Symbolism could be easily accepted and became localization by Korean.Introduction and development of Symbolism in Korean can be divided into three stages. The first stage was the one of accepting and establishing. Poets including Jin Yi, Huang Yuxi, Zhu Yaohan, Piao Yingxi, Li Xianghe were the representatives. Their poems were full of grief-sentimentalism, and played an important role in exploring prosodic features of free style poem. Jin Yi, accepting Symbolistic and having made a certain change, published the book Theory of Style in which he explored form and prosody of Korean free style poem. Jin Suyue, one of the students of Jin Yi, reflected the acceptation, changing as well as misreading towards Western Symbolistic Thoughts in his poetry creation with the influence of Jin Yi’s Symbolism. Different from other poets who accepted Symbolism in the early time, Jin Suyue, using the skill of Symbolism on the basement of ballads, explored emotions and prosody in Korean poetry through mixing Eastern poetry tradition into Symbolistic poetry rather than blind imitation. Also the poetries by Han Longyue were embodied the influence of Symbolism. He emphasized the integral image of poems, with compromising the imagination of Buddhism. The second stage was the development of pure poetry. The school of Poetry Literature was the representative of this stage. The school of Poetry Literature showed a great interest in Symbolism, poems of this school introduced and translated Symbolistic poetry continuously. They accepted the skills of Symbolism in order to pursuit Pureness in poetry. At the same time, poems explored languages in poetry with hint as the main skills in poetry creation. The school of Poetry Literature was a major achievement in the process of accepting and developing Symbolism. The third stage was a diversity stage. Various schools and trends of thought emerged during that stage, such as Modernists, Lifeists, National Poetry. What they shared was emphasizing symbolic and hint in poetry. Also the influence of Symbolism couldn’t be ignored.Symbolism was introduced to China in 1900s, which was in the same time with Korean. There are similarities and differences in symbolist between China and Korea.The introduction of Symbolism in China has dualization feature, which means double medium of France and Japan. While Symbolism in Korean has unitary feature with Japan the only medium. As for the subject of acceptance, there were several poems introducing Symbolism in the early 1900s and the late 1910s; it was until the middle 1900s that poems such as Li Jinfa, Mu Mutian, Wang Duqing, etc. began to write Symbolistic poetry and explored how to develop Symbolism in China. The Korean poems created Symbolistic poetry at the same time of introducing French Symbolism; however, they didn’t introduced Symbolistic through the translation and introduction of Japan rather than directly from France. Therefore, there exist a little gap in the understand depth of poetry, level of poetry creation and localization between Korean and China. Poetry in South Korean gradually showed the Symbolistic features from Jin Suyue’s poetry under the influence of Jin Yi. In terms of the connection of Symbolism with the local poetry, Mu Mutian was the representative in China while Jin Suyue in Korean. Mu Mutian explored Chinese Symbolistic poetry while Jin Suye tried to create local poetry on the basement of skills of the traditional Korean poetry. It was not until 1930s that Pure Poem began to develop by Liang Zongdai, while pure poem began to develop in Korean in the middle of 1920s. At the same time, hint of inner consciousness in human mind and realism of the national were reflected in poetry of Korean.What they shared by China and Korean in the poetry feature lied in the process of accepting Symbolism, from Sentimentalism to Pure Poems, continuous to converge with modern poetry.Symbolism plays a vital role in the history of Korean poetry. Korean explored actively the form and prosody of modern free poem through accepting and localizing Symbolism. Theory and skill of Symbolism contribute to the diversity and unique of Korean poetry. In general, the introduction and establishment of Symbolism in Korean opened a new horizon for Korean, contributing greatly to the development of the poetry structure, rhythmic exploration and poetry image.