Yi Sang-hwa (1901–1943) was a Korean nationalist poet active in the resistance to Japanese rule.
1. Life
Yi Sang-hwa, who sometimes published under the names Muryang, Sanghwa, and Baega, was born on May 22, 1901, in Daegu. Yi participated in the March 1st Independence Movement of 1919 in Daegu, which sought to restore Korean sovereignty. In 1921, wishing to study in France, Yi went to Japan to study French language and literature, but ended up returning to Korea in 1923 after the Great Kanto earthquake. In the early 1920s Yi founded the Baekjo literary circle along with Hong Sayong, Park Chong-hwa, Park Yeonghui, Kim Ki-jin, and others. He published his first poems, Malseui huitan (말세의 희탄 Joy of the Corrupt Age), Danjo (단조 Monotony), and Gaeurui punggyeong (가을의 풍경 Autumn Sketches) in the inaugural issue of Baekjo, in 1922, followed by Ijungui samang (이중의 사망 Double Death), an elegy to his friend, the composer Park Tae-won, and Naui chimsillo (나의 침실로 Toward My Bedchamber), one of his most famous poems, in the 1923 issue. The poet went on to form the literature study group PASKYULA with Kim Ki-jin and others, and in August 1925 he was one of the founders of the Korea Artists Proletariat Federation (KAPF). The next year he became managing editor of the KAPF journal Literary Arts Movement. In 1937 he went to Mangyeong to see his elder brother, General Yi Sang-jeong, but was arrested by the Japanese upon his return to Korea and jailed for four months. After his release, he taught at the Kyonam School (now Daeryun High School) in Daegu for a time before devoting himself to reading and study in order to produce an English translation of Chunhyangjeon (춘향전 The Tale of Chunhyang). Yi died of cancer on April 25, 1943.
2. Writing
Yi Sang-hwa's poetic verse may well be an example of one of the most distinct departures in style in all of Korean literature. As a member of the Baekjo literary circle, made up of a school of romanticists, Yi's early poems involved heavy elements of prose and depicted a world of decadent sensibilities and narcissism. In his early poem Naui chimsillo, for example, the poet contemplates committing suicide in order to attain true love, and in another, a life of reverie, completely cut off from reality, is presented as the most desirable goal possible. In 1925, however, prompted by the growing concern that was the reality of Japanese imperialism in Korea, Yi made a sudden and decisive break with this poetic world. Assuming the identity of a nationalist poet, Yi began to write poems of defiance and resistance against colonial rule. Because the restrictions of the times were such that he felt himself unable to express his political frustrations directly, his views tend to manifest themselves in nature symbols such as expressions of the homeland's natural beauty and depiction of the plight of individuals, such as Korean immigrants to Manchuria, deprived of everything by their oppressors. The series of poems from this late period that include Ppaeatgin deuredo bomeun oneunga (빼앗긴 들에도 봄은 오는가 Does Spring Come to These Stolen Fields?) for example, reveal Yi's spirit of resistance in just this way.
