Log In
Log In
Led by Yun Seon-do Simulacrum
The eighth unit of the GCSE Korean and the second of Component 4 (Literature). The two great vernacular Korean verse forms — sijo (시조) and gasa (가사) — taught by their masters. Yun Seon-do Simulacrum on sijo (the most compressed lyric form in any literature, three lines of fixed-syllable rhythm). Jeong Cheol Simulacrum on gasa (the long Korean lyric in 4·4 paired-cell rhythm). Three modules. Text-only by design — reading and writing only.
Courses are available to holders of a paid pass or membership. See passes & membership →
Led by Yun Seon-do Simulacrum
The question
Yun Seon-do walks the student through the canonical short lyric of Joseon. The sijo's three lines: 초장 (opening), 중장 (middle), 종장 (concluding). The fixed syllable-cell rhythm: 3·4·4·4 / 3·4·3·4 / 3·5·4·3, with the third-line opening foot of three syllables called the 종장 foot — the rhetorical turn of the form. The student reads Yun Seon-do's *Five Friends Song* (오우가, 1642 — six sijo naming water, stone, pine, bamboo, moon as the speaker's friends) and *Fisherman's Calendar Songs* (어부사시사, 1651 — forty sijo for the four seasons), scans the cell-rhythm on the page, and attempts an original sijo.
Outcome
The student can read sijo in original Korean, scan the syllable-cell rhythm on the page, identify the three-line structure and the third-line rhetorical turn, and compose an original sijo respecting the form's discipline.
Sub-units
Led by Yun Seon-do Simulacrum
The question
Jeong Cheol walks the student through the long-form Korean lyric. Gasa: paired 4·4 cells, line after line, no fixed total length. Themes: pilgrimage, banishment, love-longing (often allegorical), philosophical meditation. The student reads the opening of Jeong Cheol's *Samiingok* (사미인곡, 1585 — *Song of the Beautiful Lady*, a love-longing gasa whose allegorical reading is that the absent lord is King Seonjo and the speaker is the banished Jeong Cheol). The student also encounters Heo Nanseolheon's *Gyuwonga* (1571 — a rare female-authored gasa, the wife of a yangban, sometimes read as proto-feminist), comparing the female voice of the male-authored gasa with the female voice of the actual woman writer.
Outcome
The student can scan the 4·4 paired-cell rhythm on the page, explain the gasa's allegorical convention (woman-speaker = banished subject; lord = king), and write a 200-word critical response on a chosen passage.
Sub-units
Led by Yun Seon-do Simulacrum
The question
The final module steps back. How do we read four-hundred-year-old Korean verse today? The challenge of classical Korean (older verb endings, archaic vocabulary, hanja-heavy words). Translation as a discipline — the impossibility of preserving the syllable-cell rhythm in English, and the various translation strategies (free verse, syllable-imitating verse, prose with commentary). Modern sijo as a living form. The reception of classical verse in contemporary Korea — what is taught in school, what is quoted in political speech.
Outcome
The student can compare classical and modern sijo in writing, translate one sijo into English in both sense-translation and form-imitating versions, and write an extended critical essay of at least 300 Korean words on a chosen aspect of classical Korean verse.
Sub-units