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.
1. Life
Pak Yongcheol was born in 1904 in Gwangsan, Jeonnam Province. His father was a prominent landowner and one of the top ten richest people in Gwangju at the time. He graduated from primary school in Gwangju and attended the Huimun Academy and the Bae Jae Higher School. After the disappointing conclusion of the March 1st Movement, he quit school and went to Tokyo in 1920, where he graduated from Aoyama Academy. There, he became friends with the poet Kim Yeongrang and started writing poetry himself. Though he entered the German Department in a foreign language school in Tokyo to officially study poetry, he quit school in 1922, the year of the Great Kanto Earthquake and returned home where he instead enrolled in the liberal arts department at Yeonhui College. He learned sijo, a traditional Korean verse form, from Jeong Inbo, his teacher at Yeonhui College. Though he had two older brothers, they died at an early age and Pak was forced to become the head of household, quitting college to take on the responsibility of managing the entire household’s livelihood. He tried his hand at rice speculation and other profitable ventures, but he lacked business acumen and failed at most of them, resulting in a depressing adolescence.
In March 1930, he made his debut with the publication of five poems, including “Tteonaganeun bae” (떠나가는 배 Departing Boat) in the journal Simunhak (시문학 Poetry and Literature). Though he subsequently published many works, beginning in the mid-1930s, he started focusing primarily on translation and criticism rather than poetry. He translated the poetry of Friedrich Schiller and Heinrich Heine, as well as the plays of William Shakespeare and Henrik Ibsen. His essay, “Sijeok byeonyonge daehaeseo” (시적 변용에 대해서 On Poetic Transformation) published in 1938 in Samcheolli munhak (삼천리문학 Literature of Three Thousand Lis) is a representative example of literary criticism during the 1930s. He presided over Simunhaksa, a publishing company that released poetry collections representative of the 1930s, such as Jeong Jiyong’s Jeong jiyong sijip (정지용시집 The Collected Poems of Jeong Jiyong) and Kim Yeongrang’s Yeongnang sijip (영랑시집The Collected Poems of Kim Yeongrang). However, he died in 1938 of laryngeal tuberculosis without ever releasing his own collection of works.
In 1985, a monument dedicated to him was built in the Songjeong Park in Gwangju, and the Gwangsan-gu Office supervised a restoration of his birthplace, which was designated as Monument #13 of Gwangju City. In 2001, he was posthumously awarded the Republic of Korea's Eungwan Order of Cultural Merit. 2)
2. Writing
Background and General Characteristics
Pak Yongcheol resisted the tendencies of Korean literary circles during the 1930s , which were divided over the issue of craft and technique in modernism and prejudiced towards proletarian literature based on Marxism or the literary trends of Western literature. Instead, he asserted the need to fully form the people’s language, and advocated for “pure literature” that sought to highlight the beauty of the Korean literature. 3)
Poetry
His most widely known poem is “Tteonaganeun bae” (1930), which follows a young narrator that is seized by the desire to leave upon seeing a departing boat and attempts to overcome his sorrow. Stanza one depicts the narrator’s desire to bid farewell to the current world, filled only with tears, and find a new one. However, stanzas two and three express his regret regarding the places and people that he will leave behind, depicting the dark atmosphere permeating the Japanese colonial period. 4) Pak Yongcheol confessed that the poem is directly drawn from a boat that he saw in his dreams. 5) Kim Yeongrang reviewed “Tteonaganeun bae” as a masterpiece that is deserving of utmost praise within Korean lyric poetry.6)
Many readers empathized with the young narrator’s desire to leave for a new world, as well as the yearning and despair regarding the world he leaves behind, from within the historical atmosphere of the Japanese colonial period during the 1930s. Decades later, during the oppressive military dictatorship regime during the 1980s, the poem was adapted into a pop song and was highly popular. “Nadoya ganda” (나도야 간다 I, too, am leaving), the theme song of the popular film, Gorae sanyang (고래사냥 Whale Hunting, 1984), sung by Kim Sucheol, uses a portion of this poem in its lyrics. The 1987 song, “Tteonaganeun bae” sung together by Pak Eunok and Jeong Taechun was also hugely popular and is based on Pak Yongcheol’s poem. 7)
Criticism
Pak Yongcheol’s representative work of criticism, “Sijeok byeonyonge daehaeseo” (1938) was written right before he passed away and is his final study of poetry. It was written after the dispute between Kim Kirim, the representative writer of Western modernism, and Im Hwa, the representative of proletarian literature in those days. Although Kim Kirim and Im Hwa asserted that poetry directly explains historical reality, Pak Yongcheol argued that poetry shows reality in an indirect way and that these two writers fundamentally misunderstood poetry. In this kind of stance on poetics, we can glimpse the influences of the 18th century German theorist Johann Gottfried Herder and Rainer Maria Rilke, one of the most prominent German poets during the 20th century. 8)
Translation of Foreign Literature
As a member of the Foreign Literature Group and the Research Association on Theatre Art, Pak Yongcheol translated plays such as Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House and William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, along with poetry by Friedrich Schiller, Heinrich Heine, and Rainer Maria Rilke. In particular, the motifs of love and separation in Pak Yongcheol’s poetry can be seen as influenced by Rilke’s poems. 9)
Reference
1) Naver Unabridged Dictionary of Modern Korean Literature: “Pak Yongcheol.”
https://terms.naver.com/entry.nhn?docId=333469&cid=41708&categoryId=41737
2) Naver Unabridged Dictionary of Modern Korean Literature: “Pak Yongcheol.”
https://terms.naver.com/entry.nhn?docId=333469&cid=41708&categoryId=41737
Kim Hakdong. Critical Biography of Pak Yongcheol. Saemunsa, 2017..
3) Sinmunhaksa (editors), Collected Works of Pak Yongcheol: Volume 2, Gipeunsaem, 2004, pg. 219.
4) Encyclopedia of Korean Culture: “Tteonaganeun bae.”
https://terms.naver.com/entry.nhn?docId=333469&cid=41708&categoryId=41737
5) Simunhaksa (editors), Collected Works of Pak Yongcheol: Volume 2, Gipeunsaem, 2004, pg. 328.
6) Kim Yunsik. “Epilogue to the Collected Works of Pak Yongcheol.” In Sinmunhaksa (editors), Collected Works of Pak Yongcheol: Volume 1, Gipeunsaem, 2004, pg. 747.
7) Yi Bongho. “The Year of Whale Hunting (Trend Column Unabridged Edition),” Night Flight for Culture Addicts. https://blog.naver.com/bobjames/221759272019
8) Kim Daejin. “The Double Bind of Colonial Modernity and Pak Yongcheol’s Poetics of Romanticism.” Master’s Thesis, Dongguk University, 2017, pg. 61-69.
9) Kim Jaehyeok. “Pak Yongcheol’s Translations and Incorporations of Rainer Maria Rilke’s Literature: Rilke’s Influence on Pak Yongcheol’s Writing.” Dogeo dongmunhak [Korean Journal of German Language and Literature] 93, Korean Research Society of German Language and Literature, pg. 24-45.
