Pak Yongchul
박용철
Pak Yongcheol (1904-1938) was a Korean poet, critic, and translator. An opponent of the proletarian literature’s ideology and modernism’s focus on technical craft, Pak Yongcheol led the Simunhakpa (시문학파 Poetic Literature Faction) that pursued the purity of literature. Amid the dispute on technical craft between figures such as Im Hwa and Kim Kirim, Pak Yongcheol proposed the “theory on pure poetry” that was later carried on by writers like Jo Jihun and became the theoretical foundation of the Korean Writers Association.