The article presents a philological analysis of samples of Korean poetry of the first half of the XX century. The author pays special attention to the role and place of the lexeme " han " in it, which denotes feelings of discontent, annoyance, resentment, envy, regret, grief, and remorse in Korean.

Keywords: the concept of han, South Korean poetry, aesthetic and psychological categories in poetry.

On KBS in the Republic of Korea, in the short intervals between programs, two different shots often flashed: one of an old, sixty-year-old, destroyed post-war Seoul, a barefoot Korean boy in rags and an arrogant American general sitting in a chair, casually blowing smoke rings from a smoking pipe... Then another is modern 21st-century Seoul, with its sky-high buildings.1
Poet Kim Namjo, in an interview with Ariran TV, recalled:: "On a small peninsula - a desolate bare land: everywhere the stamp of poverty, hunger and death. In the works of writers and poets in the post-war period, the word hope was absent. So I thought about finding it, I wanted to raise up hope. We need to find a beautiful language to get away from the sad past" [Kim Nam-jo, 2006].

And the past is the humiliation and hopelessness of the colonial era, which was overlaid with disasters after liberation: the fratricidal civil war (1950-1953) and the dismemberment of the Korean Peninsula, economic decline, and political struggle within the Republic of Korea.

Works of Korean literature from the first half of the 20th century often leave the reader feeling burdened with sadness, which is also characteristic of the later period. The artistic world of the works of these periods was presented in a monotonous and dull tone, regardless of whether the author describes the world of ever-changing nature or the depth of human feelings.

Literary critics of the Republic of Korea in their research of national literature often use the lexeme han2 when they want to emphasize the dramatic hopelessness of the situation. In the publications of Russian scholars studying Korean literature of the new and modern periods, this term is also used in a similar context [see: Kim Ryoho, 2003].

"An important feature of the mentality of the Korean people is the concept of han, which is close to the Russian "suffering". Without understanding this, it is very difficult to know the soul and culture of Koreans. This concept implies not only "sadness, grief, patience, regret, resentment", but also catharsis. It is said that every Korean lives with his own han in his heart" [see: Kim Taeok, 2009]. But this suffering is quiet, hidden, like submission to a certain fate.-

1 The author was able to observe such screensavers during television broadcasts in the summer of 2008 during a research trip to the Republic of Kazakhstan.

2 -discontent, annoyance, resentment, envy, regret, grief, remorse.

page 131
be, it does not imply open resistance to circumstances. In the Confucian culture, a person obeyed first of all a sense of duty to his family, master and public service.

Many researchers believe that the concept of han is more typical for Koreans. The validity of this opinion is confirmed by the history of Korea in the XX century. Despondency and fear were present in literature during the difficult colonial period and in the first decades after the end of the civil war, which divided the country geographically and spiritually. Perhaps literary critics of the Republic of Korea use the concept of han to give the poetry of the colonial era a tragic coloring, which is also felt in the second half of the XX century. A simple Korean will simply say tap-tap hada, expressing so much heartache and sadness.

Suffering, sorrow, grief, and the struggle for freedom and honor at the cost of life, so characteristic of European culture, on the contrary, were not held in high esteem in classical Korean literature. In the Confucian tradition, it is not customary to expose feelings and, moreover, to engage in a struggle under the influence of emotions. Their obvious display was considered a sign of bad taste or ignorance. There was an unwritten taboo, because in the Confucian view, an outburst of negative emotions could attract misfortune.

The concept of khan was more related to the female share, its difficult fate. A woman in the Korean tradition has always been lower than a man on the social ladder, she obeyed a man: father, husband, eldest son. She was not even called by her own name, but only by the name of her father, by the name of her husband, and then by the name of her son. For example, Ms. Shin, the author of the famous sijo "White Heron don't go to the Valley of the Black Crows" is better known in history as the mother of Jeon Monju (1337-1392), a prominent state official of the Joseon era, despite the fact that she was a very outstanding and educated woman [Ni, 2007(2), p. 119].

The classical version of the concept of han is represented in the image of Chunhyang from the medieval classic story "The Legend of Chunhyang". To prove her right to happiness, a woman goes through many trials. And in this work, the concept of khan is the lot of a woman's fate with its humility and submission to life. For the poet Pak Jyosam (1933), the image of Chunhyang became the main one in his poetry collection "The Soul of Chunhyang" [The 100 years..., 2000]. The poet uses a traditional image. The collection was published in 1962 by Singumunhwasa Publishing house, it consists of three parts, it includes 30 poems.

In this early period, the poet's work is dominated by the han system of views, which conveys a sense of hopeless sadness and longing in its classical version - in the female incarnation, in the image of Chunghyang.

Khan

I'll become a persimmon,
The fruits will ripen and turn the sad
color of dawn.
And they will be the fruits of love that will hang on the tree of my soul.
It seems to me that the branches of the tree of that will grow to the other world.
And that person will lean against it, which is in my thoughts.
The branches of the tree will embrace him and spread out over his head,
But that man,
Does he know about the tree I wanted to plant
near his house?
No, he doesn't know about those ripe fruits
Purple persimmons that are the color of dawn.
The sadness of my past, my old desires.
Who knows about them?
Or maybe that person in this life
Have you lived with secret sadness?
Who will know about it now!?

page 132
The poem "Khan". From the folk story "Faithful Chunghyang", we know the suffering of Chunghyang from the separation from her beloved (nobleman Lee Mong-yong), with whom she was secretly engaged, and the claims of a rich nobleman. She, having passed through the trials, proved her right to love, being the daughter of kisen 3. Being at the lowest rung of hierarchical society, Chunhyang had to be established as a faithful wife and only then connect with her beloved. A ruthless attitude towards people outside their own circle, although worthy, was typical of Korean yangban society (nobles).

The poet is closer to quiet suffering, non-resistance to evil. He prefers poetic "crying" to emotional aggression - discontent and hatred. Thus, before us in verse form - the suffering of an unfortunate offended woman. An example is the following poems by Park Jyosam: "Crystal Song", "Shadow of the wind", "Listening to the cry of the cicada", "Nature", "Grapes" from the above collection.

Chunhyang, as a classic example of the implementation of Han's style, suffered quietly, without cursing or scolding life.

Gradually, the boundaries of the term khan expanded and in the XX century ceased to refer only to the suffering of women. The Chinese token han on Korean soil is gradually transforming and acquiring a new meaning. It becomes the attitude of the era for several generations of Koreans. This was facilitated by the hopelessness of the current situation on the Korean Peninsula.

During the period of colonial rule (1910-1945), when the Korean people lived in a state of servile submission, a galaxy of young poets appeared who conveyed their perception of the world around them in their poems. The feeling of hopelessness and brokenness, which was previously absent in national poetry, reaches a tragic intensity in their works. Fear prevails in the feelings of poets, it can be said that it controls them.

In the 1920s, Jeon Ji-yong (1903-1950), who is rightly considered the founder of Korean modernism, also began his creative activity. He, like many educated Koreans of the period, was educated in Japan. Jung Jiyong's poem "Cafe France", written under the influence of modernist trends, is particularly notable for its subjective assessment of events taking place in the poet's homeland [Ni, 2007(1), p.317].

Cafe "France"

A palm tree was brought and planted,
Under it is a crooked lamppost,
Let's go to the cafe "France".

This scoundrel is wearing a shirt,
The other was wearing a bohemian tie.
A drunken figure defiles in front of everyone.

The night rain drizzles like a snake's eyes.
Lights flicker discontentedly on the paved road.
Let's go to the cafe "France".

3 The purpose of kisen was to entertain society at social gatherings. They had many talents: they could sing, dance, compose poetry. Many of them were proficient in the hanmun Chinese hieroglyphic script. They were also concubines. This combination of high and low made the fate of such women sometimes dramatic. And this is the similarity and difference with the fate of Japanese geishas, who shone only with the ability to charm at social receptions. A Japanese geisha, after getting married, left her profession, and occupied an appropriate position in society. At the same time, because of their profession, the Kisen remained disenfranchised: when they married, they did not have the right to the status of a legitimate wife, but remained concubines. Therefore, they were partly despised by society. Their children did not have the right to inherit, and their daughters also became kisen.

page 133


This rascal's head is a rotten apple,
The other's heart is an aphid-eaten rose.
Another wet figure flutters like a swallow.

< ..... >

I am the son of a noble, meaningless.
I stand out with my white hands, which makes me sad.
I have no country, no home.
She touched her cheek to the marble table in sadness.

Oh, the overseas puppy,
Lick my feet,
Lick my feet!

"Cafe France" was published in June 1926 on the pages of the Hakjo newspaper. In the poem there is no enthusiasm for new images of an unfamiliar civilization, the author's distrust of foreign culture, fear of losing his national identity is felt. Such a state of mind was experienced by many Korean poets and writers. The word "cafe" is exotic in the Korean language and culture. Korea was characterized by small teahouses and eateries with low tables and mats for sitting on the floor, but European-style establishments remained rare.

In a poem that begins with a landscape sketch, the author describes an entertainment institution for "golden" youth. She is dressed in the European style: one in a "shirt", the other in a "bohemian tie". There are many words of foreign origin in Jung Jiyong's poem, for example: cafe "kafe" - from French, "shirt" - from Russian, tie "nectie" - from English; they are rendered in Korean transcription. Visitors 'images are described in a surreal manner:" the head of this rascal is a rotten apple, the heart of another is a rose eaten by aphids", i.e. people with bad thoughts and a spoiled soul.

All objects of the material world and nature perform a certain function: a lantern on a long pole hangs crookedly, disturbing harmony, an overseas palm tree that is alien to the climate of North and Central Korea looks pathetic. In these images, there is a second hidden plan, characteristic of traditional Korean poetry. From the very first lines, the author ridicules and denounces the "bohemians" who perceive someone else's culture without proper understanding. Even the night rain, like snake eyes, the glare of the lights flicker discontentedly - the images of nature are parallel to the world of people (bohemian youth).

As you know, the main slogan of modernism is "art for art's sake". But in the poem "Cafe France" there are the first signs of globalization, noticed by a civil-minded author who understood that external changes would be followed by the destruction of national traditions.

The poem is constructed according to the traditional model in terms of semantic composition: theme, development of the theme, climax, conclusion. It is called "Cafe France", i.e. after the name of the country where the poet has never been. Jung Jiyong studied at the Faculty of English Language and Literature at the University of Tokyo. The first years of the 20th century in Japan were marked by an increased interest of the creative intelligentsia in European literature and fin du siecle art. In poetry, the French Parnassians and symbolists dictated fashion, in painting - Impressionists and post-Impressionists. Japanese poets idolized bourgeois civilization, and associated the brightest hopes with its arrival. "...The dramatic figures of Baudelaire, Verlaine, and Rimbaud were for them only "symbols" of the creators of beautiful poetry "[Dolin, 1990, p. 37].

But Jung Jiyong is a stranger to this artificial world. The colonial present gave rise to a drama of tragic loneliness, where there is no future, there is only the stigma of "second-classness" of a person deprived of the right to be a citizen of their country.

page 134
In the 1930s of the last century, poems in the spirit of modernism continued to be published in various periodicals and collections. Among the young poets of that time, Kim Gwangyun (1914 - 1993) stands out. In his poems, artistic images seem to be slightly outlined, in which we feel the influence of symbolism.

Gas lamp

The void is a lone lantern in the black sky...
Where should I go alone? I see the signpost of longing.

The long-summer sun goes down by sunset.
At dusk-a large high-rise building,
like a grave stele,
The beautiful night landscape is silently
entangled in the weeds.
When he became intelligent, he became like a mute.

I can smell the breath of darkness on my skin.
On unfamiliar streets, I hear the roar of the crowd.
My eyes are watering for no reason.

Lost in the confused crowd.
Suddenly a heavy sadness came over me.
A long, wide shadow - darkness.

Where and how should I go? I see the signpost of longing.
The void is a lone lantern in the black sky...

The poem" Gas Lantern " by Kim Gwangyun was first published in 1939 in the Joseon Ilbo newspaper; it was included in the collection of the same name "Gas Lantern" ("Wasadeung"), published in the same year. It contains 27 poems, including "Night Snow", "Village of Foreigners" and others. A single fire in the desert sky is a sign that symbolizes the road to the unknown. Fear in society. Fear took shape-a long, wide shadow or a large, huge beast, whose name is DARKNESS, it sits in a person and suffocates him from the inside. Darkness in the souls and minds of people, it kills the hope of freedom. "Where should I go?" - the poet asks and does not find an answer.

Thus, the khan is melancholy, sadness, annoyance at the inability to change the situation, hence the state of hopelessness, and the refusal to fight for one's human dignity. The lexical unit " han " can be considered one of the key concepts in Korean poetry of the 1930s - 1940s, as it serves as a key to understanding the mentality of the people and their culture during this difficult period for the country.

In South Korean poetry, the concept of han can be traced back to the poetry of the 1950s and 1970s, when it was being formed. The chaos in people's minds led some poets to seek spiritual guidance in the past.

The poetry of Park Jaesam and Cheon Sang-byeong (1930s -?) is more typical of the writing style created by Kim Sowol in the first half of the 20th century. Most of his poems are imbued with an unaccountable melancholy in their sound and rhythm. "His sadness is in tune with the poetry of "world sorrow". Gnawing melancholy, indignation at the human fate, the painful consciousness of the invincibility of evil are increasingly heard in the works of Sovol. The poetry of world sorrow found in Sovol, perhaps, one of the significant and profound exponents who gave her their poetic gift "[Kim Ryoho, 2003, p. 157]. His poetry was devoid of open protest against the outside world.

Buddhist contemplation of the world is characteristic of the work of Chon Sang-byung, who was born in Japan on January 29, 1930, and in 1945 came to Korea and stayed there for the rest of his life. He attended Masan High School and briefly attended a course of lectures at the Department of Business at Seoul National University. Apparently elected-

page 135
his specialty was not to his liking, and soon he left school to take up poetry. During his student years, together with other young authors, he published the literary magazine Fantasia (1949).

The literary debut took place in 1950, the publishing house "Mine" published the poems "River Water". In 1951, he wrote the literary and journalistic article "I will resist and reject", during that period he created and published poems "Afternoon in the Doksu Palace", "Dark Night", "Bird"," Monsoon Season","Spring Gone".

Jung Sangbyeong's poetry expressed a longing for the dream world, with an inexplicable sadness in it. His emotions are simple and pure. The poet is more concerned with questions of the origin of the world (cosmos), death as a journey to another world, reincarnation or life as a chain of rebirths.

In the poem "Return to Heaven", where the poet writes:

I'll go back to Heaven,
On the day I complete my journey through this
wonderful world,
I'll get up and say, " How wonderful it was..."

We see an escape from reality, a hope for another life, more perfect than on earth. This mood is more typical of Cheon Sangbyon's poetry. Just as for Kim Sowol, "Taoist contempt for external manifestations of glory and power, for false significance, is also close to him" (Kim Ryoho, 2003, p. 154). The reality did not touch the heart of the poet Chon Sangbyon. He could not get into the rhythm of his time, he remained alien to the complex poetic technique that many poets were fond of at that time, being under the influence of European poetry. He is a poet who lived apart from others in his own world, and as if remained in the poetic space of the previous era.

The poetry anthology "Birds" was published in 1971, when the poet was experiencing a serious mental disorder. Song Joonbok, Kim Yonghae, Jung Inyoung, Kim Sisol, Park Jyosam, Lee Hyungi, Min Young, and Kim Guyoung published the book for a colleague and friend who was reported missing at the time. The collection-cycle "Birds" consists of 60 poems, including: "My poverty", "Letter", "In Gwanghwamun", "Manchuria", "Field Chrysanthemum", "Smile", "Birds", "Dark night", "Seagull", "Sea fish", etc. [The 100 years..., 2000].

Bird

I live alone, and I will die...
Instead of me
A new day and a bird will occupy the void,
Who will cry on a blooming branch
In the morning of the next day.

About life,
About wonderful moments,
About love -
A song will be played.
And I will become a bird that
On a branch sings by the water.

In the season of intense feelings
Sadness and joy will merge together.
In between songs -
What I knew, didn't know, forgot -
Rip it out and update it, bird,
Sore throat ligaments.

page 136


About the past life,
About the bad stuff,
About the good stuff -
That bird will cry.

Understanding the world in its simplicity and simplicity, Jung Sangbyeong seems to want to rise above the worldly hustle and bustle. His favorite image is a bird, which symbolizes the human soul. The bird is the poet's soul that transcends life and death. "I don't feel modern. It seems to me that I can no longer write poems about the same thing. It is sad. But I'm not desperate. I will recover by all means, and I will write other poems that correspond to real time, " the poet said [Chon Sangben, 2006].

He is known for his articles such as "Borders of Reality", "Great Masters of Korea", "Identity and Individuality", "Redemption of Literature before April 19", "The Fate of young poets of the East". Written in the spirit of the bygone colonial era, Cheon Sang-byun's poetry has been the last echo of it, and these motifs have been gradually becoming obsolete since the 1970s.

Each epoch of national history has its own symbols, which are immaterial and intangible. Han is a single style of a bygone time, as a holistic psychological emotion that permeates many works of the colonial and post-colonial eras and the post-war period in the Republic of Korea. Han can be called an aesthetic-psychological category, which was subordinated to all literary styles in Korean literature (realism, naturalism, neorealism, modernism, traditionalism). All attempts to identify some basic literary styles are reduced to this concept, they are permeated with han.

Thus, in Korean culture, han can be traced in the works of the colonial period. Han as a stylistic category was transformed in the first half of the XX century, and to be more precise, when Korea was a colony of Japan. The works that appeared during this period became a reflection of sad moods. It is then that we see a disorderly chaos in the expression of feelings, the Confucian clarity in the presentation of thoughts disappeared. Traditions were destroyed when it came to the impossibility of changing anything, when a person in his homeland did not feel like a citizen, felt like a slave. This period left a heavy mark on the culture of Korea, destroyed the aesthetic code of the people, in their view of the beautiful and ugly. But gradually, Korean poetry finds the strength to overcome this ailment - a sense of the catastrophe of life, left over from the painful past.

list of literature

Dolin A. New Japanese Poetry, Moscow: Nauka Publ., 1990.

Kim Ryoho. The poetic heritage of Kim Sowol / / Kim Sowol. Lyrica / Translated from Korean by Kim Ryoho and Ed. by Balashova, Moscow: Pervoe Marta Publ., 2003.

Ким Тэок // http://referat.mpgu.edu.ru/fil/253/referat.html, 2009.

Koreya: Vzglyad iz Rossii [Korea: A View from Russia]. Reports presented at the XI Scientific Conference of Korean studies in Russia and CIS countries. (Moscow, March 29 - 30, 2007). Moscow: Institute of Remote Sciences. Vostoka RAS Publ., 2007 (1).

Ni N. Sijo in the system of genres of world lyrics, Moscow: Institute of Oriental Studies, 2007 (2).

Cheon Sangbyon. Korean Literature Translation Institute and Arirang, 2006.

Kim Nam-jo. Korean Literature Translation Institute and Arirang DVD Production DGMORE, 2006.

The 100 years of Modern Korean Literature. Seoul National University, Institute for Research on information System in the Humanities, 2000. (CD-Rom).

Permanent link to this publication: