Cho Jihoon (December 3, 1920 – May 17, 1968) was a Korean poet, critic, and activist.
1. Life
Cho Jihoon was born Cho Dong-tak on December 3, 1920 in Yeongyang, North Gyeongsang Province, during the period of Japanese rule. He made his literary debut in 1939, when his poems "Gopunguisang" (고풍의상 Traditional Dress) and "Seungmu" (승무 The Nun's Dance) were published in the magazine Munjang.
Cho graduated from Hyehwa College in 1941 with a degree in liberal arts. He taught at Odaesan Buddhist College and in 1946, after Korea's liberation, and founded the Association of Young Writers. Cho also served as president of the Society of Korean Poets and from 1947 served as a professor at Korea University. Cho was also the first head of the Korea University National Culture Research Institute. He died on May 17, 1968.
Cho's birthplace is preserved in Irwol-myeon, Yeongyang. A memorial to him stands on Namsan in Seoul.
2. Writing
Cho Jihoon's love of classical Korean beauty is well expressed in his work, evoking within the reader a feeling of peace and tranquility, as typified in his poem "Seungmu." Another of his early poems, "Bonghwangsu" (봉황수 The Grief of the Phoenix), written in 1940 at the height of the Japanese occupation of Korea, while keenly describing several secrets of the architectural beauty of the palace, contrasts those who held sovereign power in the Joseon era with the intellectuals of the colonial period, exposing the pain and tragic feelings of the oppressed classes. Cho's first poems, capturing the lyrical expressio of Korea's traditional and national consciousness, are contained in Cheongnokjip (청록집 Blue Deer Anthology), a joint collection published with fellow poets Park Dujin and Park Mok-wol.
Directly after Korea's liberation, Cho asserted that only those who guarded a purely poetic aesthetic could be considered poets, and emphasized that the protection of individual freedom and the quest for the liberation of human nature was the essence of poetry. This literary purity and nationalistic fervor are proclaimed in the poet’s patriotic voice in his collection, Yeoksa Apeseo (역사 앞에서 Standing Before History). The work criticizes, with a lucid historical consciousness, the political corruption and social irrationality engendered by the national division and internal strife of the day. In particular, "Dabuwoneseo" (다부원에서 At Dabuwon) is one of the finest examples of war poetry that keenly depicts the tragic state of internal strife based on personal experience.
