| Characterized as an era of purpose literature (mokcho˘k munhak), the 1920s became a time during which the imperative of building a national subjectivity privileged vernacular prose as the language of choice. As the decade progressed, the pressure to perform in a narrative, as well as a didactic, mode, was met by the lyrical powers of poetry through the reappropriation of older forms such as folk songs and the sijo. The lyric also came to aesthetic life through the appropriation of Western trends such as romanticism and symbolism, which entered the Korean literary forum as a confluence and opened up the possibilities of the speaking interior self. The subjective freedom expressed in the latter, however, was often made to become aligned with the subjectivity of the collective by both critics and the poets themselves.; The three types of poems located in the 1920s, the "romantic," the "folk," and the "proletarian," can be read as part and parcel of the project of nation building. By doing close readings of the works of individual poets placed under such categories posited by twentieth century Korean literary history, my work attempts to reveal the tension between the actual poems and the prescriptions imposed upon them, as well as the literary cost incurred when narrative practice followed didactic prescription, as occurred with "proletarian" poetry. I also give space to the prose poetry of Han Yongun which challenged such purity of the nationalist project while at the same time fulfilling its purpose through polyphony. |
