Reinventing 'Koreanness': 'The Tale of Spring Fragrance' and the Gendered Culture of Colonial Korea

This dissertation examines the rebirth of a popular Korean folktale, The Tale of Spring Fragrance, by way of new printing technology and mass media from 1912 to 1941. It treats selected folktale adaptations as independent yet inter-textual products of the past and the present, each conditioned by its own social and historical context. By bringing together textual, social, and cultural histories of colonial Korea into a richly integrated narrative, the study seeks to offer a new perspective to the field of modern Korean studies within the larger issues of cultural studies and gender politics.;The first part of this dissertation examines literary and visual adaptations of The Tale of Spring Fragrance. It argues that the rapid development of industrial technology and mass media in Korea affected and reshaped mimetic expression of modernity as reflected in the adaptations of the folktale. Chapter one provides historical background of the folktale that circulated in late Chosoˇn Korea as oral and written narratives. Chapter two shows how the folktale was recreated into a literary form that catered to the emerging audiences at the onset of the age of mass media which was concurrent with Japan's colonization of Korea. Chapter three analyzes the folktale's visual reincarnations -- art, film, and an early form of cartoons -- and the process by which the folktale's heroine became the palimpsest on which a true womanhood as well as a true national identity was inscribed.;The second part of "Reinventing 'Koreanness'" moves the focus to the cultural and social implications of the folktale. It sheds light on the gendered culture of Colonial Korea whose alternating visions of modernity, constricted by a colonial legacy quickly manifested themselves into the sentimental modes of expression. Chapter four pays particular attention to modern kisaeng who, like the folktale's female protagonist, became a vehicle to critique Korea's modernity while promoting the nationalist agenda. Chapter five traces the life of one particular woman who was at the opposite end of the social spectrum yet suffered the same fate as her kisaeng counterparts -- caught in a paradox of Korea's modernity that demanded women to be traditional yet modern.