Reading Yeats and New Canon in Modern Korea

Abstract

This essay explores the significance of W. B. Yeats’s earlier, romantic poems to the creation of a canon of new literature in the early twentieth century among young Korean writers and intellectuals living under Japanese colonial rule. When these writers and intellectuals first encountered Yeats through Kim Eok and other poets in the wake of the March 1st Movement, they were impressed by his use of natural scenery, familiar emotions, and folklore-based national themes to comfort and unite his people, finding in his work a point of inspiration. They also noticed how they shared similar historical and political experiences to Ireland, and thus found a prototype of a new national literature, in both content and form, in Yeats’s work. In the early stages, as seen in examples from Kim Eok and Sowol, these writers introduce Yeats’s earlier poems into their local context by translating them into Korean. Later, they adopt his stories and style to create their own literary works. Breaking with the traditionally dominant influence of Chinese literary forms and content, modern Korean writers aimed to create a canon of national literature that inspires pride, a new feeling of collective identity, and emotional awakening. This study examines the characteristics of Yeats’s poems that exercised such an important influence on these writers, and analyzes the similarities and differences produced in Korean literature by this important source of inspiration.