Oral Literature of Korea

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Oral Literature of Korea. Compiled by Seo Daeseok and edited by

Peter H. Lee. Seoul: Jimoondang, 2005. 385 pp.,35,000 (hardcover).

Jung Ha-young

Oral and written languages are necessary factors for the creation and transmis-

sion of literature. Literature had been created and transmitted through oral lan-

guage until the usage of letters became widespread. Oral language especially

played a very important role in the creation and transmission of traditional litera-ture of Korea. Though Korea had had its own language and culture from a long

time ago, it did not possess its own alphabet until the 16th century. Korea bor-

rowed Chinese characters to write down its thoughts and emotions as well as for

literature before its own alphabet, hangeul, was created. And even after the cre-

ation ofhangeul in the early Joseon dynasty, Chinese characters remained as

Joseons official written language for a long time after and hangeul did not

become widely popularized. Chinese characters were still used in various offi-

cial documents and the everyday lives of so-called intellectuals of the Joseon

dynasty. In other words, the gap between the oral and written languages contin-

ued for quite a while.

In ancient times when people did not use written characters, oral literature

was the only way of transmission. Even after the Three Kingdoms period when

people borrowed Chinese characters to write literature, oral transmission still

played a very significant role. And the commoners and women-actually the

majority of populationcould not have systemic education in written language

until hangeul was generalized in the late Joseon dynasty. This means that the

majority of the population could not participate in activities involving the cre-

ation of and pleasures gained from written literature. The literature they shared

and enjoyed was mostly oral literature. That is why oral literature takes a really

important role and meaning in Korean literature.

There are many cases where we do not know the real creators of works; we

have forgotten or lost such in oral literature because of the limits of oral trans-

mission. As Chinese characters have been used since the Three Kingdoms peri-od, oral literature has been created and transmitted by both oral and written

means. In this sense, oral literature and written literature has not been separated

from each other but complementary to each other. But early researchers of

Korean literature classified only written literature as literature and as such, only


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focused their interests on written literature. And they did not care much about

collecting and studying orally transmitted materials of literature. Consequently,there has been lack of understanding in the oral literature that has played a very

significant part of Korean literature. Accordingly, we cannot easily reveal the

whole and real aspect of Korean literature.

In this respect, we have to say it was relatively lucky that in the Japanese col-

onization era some Korean researchers focused on the national spirit comprised

in oral literature such as traditional tales, folk plays, andpansori, etc. They col-

lected and printed these materials and established the base of oral literature

study. But real and serious interest and research into oral literature did not beginuntil the1960s, about a half century later. In the 1960s, Korean researchers inter-

ested in oral literature introduced western theories into Korea on this issue and

tried to include oral literature into Korean literature. Most of the work was done

by graduate students. They performed regular research into oral literature mate-

rials. Thus oral literature study became the official curriculum in undergraduate

and graduate courses. At the present, oral literature is positioned as a major aca-

demic specialty in Korean literature studies along with traditional poems, nov-

els, and Chinese literature, and there are now many researchers actively studying

and presenting research related to these fields.

Oral Literature of Korea, an English version ofgubi munhak(oral literature)

compiled by Seo Daeseok, was published to introduce one aspect of Korean lit-

erature to foreigners. Prof. Seo Daeseok, the author of this book, is one of the

early researchers of Korean oral literature who participated and led the effort in

collecting and researching oral literature materials in the field. Prof. Peter H.

Lee, the editor of this book, is a well-known Korean-American scholar who has

taught Korean literature to foreigners and published many works on Korean lit-

erature, including Myths of Korea. Peter H. Lee translated the oral literature

works contained in this book with his colleagues and students who teach Korean

literature in various universities in the U.S.

The preface by the editor and the introduction by the author both help readers

to understand Korean oral literature. The editor leads readers to become familiar

with this relatively strange field of literature by introducing the composition and

contents of the book briefly and revealing the historical background of eachpiece of literature in his preface. The introduction of the book was originally

written by the author forLectures on Korean Literature and offers readers rela-

tively detailed introduction to Korean oral literature in general. The introduction

takes up 56 pages of a total of 380. In the introduction, the author provides a

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brief history and detailed genre characteristics of Korean oral literature and

introduces the background as to how and where he collected these works so thatreaders can understand the book more easily.

In this book, Korean oral literature is divided into nine chapters, and this

classification actually matches the authors classification system of Korean oral

literature. We can categorize these nine chapters into two broad sections: The

first four chapters cover foundation myths, legends, folktales, and classi-

cal archival records, and the latter five chapters cover folk songs, shamanist

narrative songs, pansori, mask dance plays, and puppet plays. The first

four chapters are mostly about oral narratives and the latter five chapters aretales expressed by actions and songs.

Foundation myths are based on the founding of ancient Korean kingdoms

such as Gojoseon, Goguryeo, Silla, and so on. They are mostly based on records

of historical documents like Samguk yusa (Memorabilia of the Three

Kingdoms), Samguk sagi (Historical Records of the Three Kingdoms), etc. The

last story of this chapter, Three Clans, is a foundation myth of Jeju Island and

a little different in character from other stories in the chapter.

And stories of legends and folktales following foundation myths were

collected and recorded through oral literature research from 1967 to 1991. We

can learn how deeply and closely oral literature was positioned in the everyday

lives of common people from these stories. Though it is not easy to classify leg-

ends and folktales clearly, in general, legends are related with origins, histories,

or strange stories of each specific region while folktales are not limited to specif-

ic areas but range widely over several regions. For example, Centipede

Market, one of the legends, is set in a specific area of Cheongju, whereas

The Fathers Gifts, one of the folktales, is not set in any specific area.

And the chapter on Classical Archival Records supplements fables men-

tioned in previous chapters. In this chapter there are fifteen different stories from

Prince Hodong of the Goguryeo era to The Storyteller Omurum of the

Joseon dynasty. Most of these fables are chosen from the Memorabilia of the

Three Kingdoms and Historical Records of the Three Kingdoms; the last three

fables, including Husband and Wife in Separate Rooms, The Storyteller

Omur

um, and Rain Shower Destiny are from Cheonggu yadam, a book cov-ering unofficial history in the late Joseon dynasty. Myths, legends, and folktales

are subordinate to fables and they take a very important place in Korean oral lit-

erature. They are very interesting stories by themselves and very worthwhile

sources for documentary literature like novels, poems, and plays.

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Folk songs are common peoples ballads from their work places and

embrace their joys and sorrows. Transplanting Songs and Wretched MarriedLife express respectively the hard working conditions of common people and

hard married lives of women. Song of Entertaining the Holy One and The

Abandoned Princess introduced as shamanist narrative songs were sung in

necromancers rituals and teach us the origins and power of Korean shamanism.

The chapter on Pansori documents the scripts ofpansori, a Korean traditional

musical. Pansori is a song and narrative mixed play that a sorikkun (a profes-

sional singer) sings to the audience. It is said there used to be twelve works of

pansori but now, only five works remain. The chapter only introduces a portionofThe Song of Sim Chong because this work is quite long in length.

The chapter entitled Mask Dance Plays contains scripts of Korean repre-

sentative madang-geuk(field plays) performed in the areas of Hahoe, Bongsan,

Yangju, Dongnae, and so on. Field plays were performed on traditional holidays

or after harvests and they expressed the actual conditions of common peoples

daily lives and their wishes or dissatisfactions. Khoktu Kaksi, a script of a

puppet play in the last chapter, is the only puppet play script we can find in

Korean oral literature history. A puppet play is not very familiar to Korean cul-

ture but it has a relatively long history for traveling?theaters that meandered all

around the country performing puppet plays.

Oral Literature of Korea introduces Korean oral literature as a useful first

step for foreigners to understand Korean literature and culture. From the ancient

era to recent times, oral literature has been a very familiar style of literature to

Koreans and it has played a highly significant role. Therefore, understanding

oral literature is an important prerequisite to understanding the nature of not only

Korean literature but also Korean culture deeply.

In this book, the author introduces various documents so that readers can see

different aspects of Korean oral literature. These documents range from ancient

myths to recently collected fables from verse and prose, to drama such as folk

plays, pansori, and puppet plays in various genres. The author carefully chose

works that represent each genre and show the characteristic essence of Korea. So,

these works all have much more meaning than simply being good stories or

songs and embrace the Korean view of life and sense of value. I believe it willhelp readers to understand not only the past but also the present Korean mentality.

It is not easy to translate one countrys literature into another language.

Besides, in the case of the translation of oral literature that contains so many

dialects and specific expressions originating from its own cultural and historical



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background, not many people dare to try. But the editor of the book, Peter H.

Lee, devoted all efforts, capability, and long experience of teaching in English inthe U.S. to the translation so that foreigners can easily get close to Korean oral

literature. This book provides brief explanations for each work in the beginning,

and provides footnotes when needed for readers to understand more easily.

This book is the first trial to introduce Korean oral literature in general in

English so it has a few defects and problems in spite of all its significance. First

of all, it failed to suggest a clear definition of oral literature, which has resulted

in the uncertainty in selection of various works. Oral literature, in principle,

means orally transmitted literature, but there are not many works in this bookthat are really collected from oral transmission records. Most of the works in this

book are extracted from ancient history books or more recent unofficial history

documents. Therefore, it is not clear what to define as oral literature and how to

distinguish oral literature from written literature.

Besides this, the validation and universality of document selection is some-

what questionable. I can see how much consideration and caution the author put

in to introduce a great amount of Korean oral literature within the limited num-

ber of pages and also to keep the balance of different periods, areas, and genres

in this book. However, there are some works that I cannot agree with in his

selection and it seems that he has a leaning toward specific periods in some doc-

uments. For example, the book introduces only foundation myths but it would

be much better if it had a few myths of different themes. Also, it is not clear why

this book made a separate section for Classical Archival Records when oral

literature is usually subclassified into myth, legend, and folktales. I suggest

the works in this section be classified and comprised in the following three sec-

tions: The Turtle and the Hare, Kim Hyon and the Tigress Maiden, and

Rain Shower Destiny, could be included in folktales or legends. Also, while

twelve works in this section are set in the Three Kingdoms period, the last three

works are from the late Joseon dynasty. It gives the impression that the author

did not consider balancing the different periods because there is quite a lot of

oral literature of the Goryeo or the early Joseon dynasty eras.

Oral literature is that of the common people, and at the same time, that of

intellectuals. In practice, much of the Korean oral literature tradition was theco?work of intellectual writers and readers. However, this book describes oral

literature as that of the common people only and selects and introduces mostly

works of common society. If documents of fables written by the intellectual

class such as Taepyeong hanhwa, Yongjae chonghwa (Collected Essays of

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Yongjae), Eou yadam (Master Eous Unofficial Histories) and so on were

included, readers could get a wider understanding of Korean oral literature.Information on sources and scribes are included in the original documents of

more recently recorded legends and folktales, but such was not translated in this

book. It would have been better if information on the backgrounds of legends

and folktales and information of sources, prerequisites for full understanding,

provided.

In Korea we have an old saying, No one can be full with the first spoon of

food, the equivalent of which is that Rome was not built in a day. Translating

and printing the English version of this book was a really meaningful and diffi-cult work. I suggest that more of this kind of work should continue from now on

and be expanded and specialized. Such is required to systemically translate

myths, legends, and folktales-subdivisions of oral literature-and to publish recent

outcomes of oral literature research in order to introduce Korean oral literature

fully. I expect this book to be the foundation and motivation for such future

works.

(Jung Ha-young, Professor, Dept. of Korean Language

& Literature, Ewha Womans University)


Documents

Oral Literature of Korea