Sad Contradiction

Name: Sad Contradiction
Rating: 4.5 (8 reviews)

Yang Geon-sik

2014년 11월 · 20th Century Korean Literature 35권 · Literature Translation Institute of Korea

4.5

리뷰 8개

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Yang Geon-sik’s first-person short story “Sad Contradiction,” published in 1918, tells the story of an unnamed protagonist who represents the frustrated Korean intellectuals of the times. At odds with himself and others, he sets off wandering through the streets of Seoul, at times on foot, at times by tram, at times in rickshaw, but ever aimlessly. He remarks on shameless women, drunken day laborers, brutal police, and equally aimless friends. Very little actually happens in this story, which is part of the writer’s point, for very little happened in the lives of such superfluous intellectuals as here depicted. Except that they do sometimes reach a dead end in a society that sees no need for intellectuals. And something does finally happen at the dead end of this story.

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4.5

리뷰 8개

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One of the pioneers of modern Korean literature, Yang Geon-sik (1889 – 1944) was born in Tap-dong, Gyeong-seong in 1889 and studied at Hanseong National Foreign Language School. He went on to study for ten years at Peking University in China, matriculating in 1910. Working as the chief scribe of the Society for Promoting Buddhism and as journalist and editor of its journal, Monthly News of the Society for Promoting Buddhism, he engaged in a cultural enlightenment movement based on Buddhism.

He started his literary career in 1915 when he published a story titled “Image of a Stone Lion,” which had a strongly Buddhist undertone, in the Monthly News of the Society for Promoting Buddhism. He afterwards revealed his self-reflection on literature and his critical consciousness on reality through works such as “Homecoming” and “Sad Contradiction,” among others. Like many writers of his time, he also worked as a literary critic, and his criticism shows some hints of early thought on l’art pour l’art, requiring the recognition of art’s aesthetic quality.

Besides being a writer and critic, Yang was also a translator from Chinese to Korean, translating Chinese poems, novels, and plays into Korean.