Abstract

This paper investigates the translation of Joseon folk songs into Japanese and the representation of traditional Korean culture in the second half of the 1920s. Shinjinshya, the biggest tanka association on the Korean peninsula, created published Study of Joseon Folk Songs(1927) and The Nature of Joseon(1929). The association recognized that the local Korean network of tanka poets needed to study Korean folk songs and Korean classical literature, and they set forth to accomplish such a study. However, despite the publications, traditional Korean literature still faced a negative image. Most writers viewed Korean culture from a relativistic point of view as something belonging to a land other than Japan. The Nature of Joseon caused a transformation from the auditory translation of the rhythm or melody of Korean folk songs to a visual translation of the unique landscape. As a result of this transformation, in the 1930s, Shinjinsya issued a large-scale anthology on Joseon. This association practiced a master trade in which the idiosyncratic meaning of life in Korea was embodied and expressed through the tanka.

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