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Led by Kim Sowol Simulacrum
The ninth unit of the GCSE Korean and the third of Component 4 (Literature). The two most-loved poets of the colonial period taught by themselves. Kim Sowol (1902–1934) on han and the folk substrate. Yun Dong-ju (1917–1945) on colonial witness and moral self-examination. Three modules. Text-only by design — reading and writing only.
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Led by Kim Sowol Simulacrum
The question
Sowol opens with the folk-song substrate of his lyric — the 7·5 cell rhythm, the refrain, the female voice, the rural register. *Azaleas* (진달래꽃, 1925) — the canonical Sowol poem, four stanzas, the speaker a woman addressing a man who is leaving, refusing to weep. *Mountain Flowers* (산유화) — the philosophical lyric on cyclical bloom and fall. *Calling the Dead Soul* (초혼) — the ritual lyric incanting the name of a dead beloved. Han operates as substrate (not theme) — restraint while suffering, loyalty to a departed beloved, long-held longing without resolution.
Outcome
The student can scan the 7·5 cell rhythm of Sowol's lyric on the page, identify the refrain and rhetorical structures, define han in their own words and identify it as substrate in the poems, and write a 200+ word critical response on one chosen Sowol poem.
Sub-units
Led by Kim Sowol Simulacrum
The question
Yun Dong-ju (1917–1945) writes in the most extreme colonial moment. Korean is banned in schools (1938), Korean names replaced (1940), Yun himself arrested in 1943 for "thought crime" (Korean nationalist activity), imprisoned in Fukuoka, dies February 1945. His poems survive because his cousin keeps them safe through the war and publishes them in 1948. *Foreword* (서시) — eight lines, the manifesto of moral self-examination. *Self-Portrait* (자화상) — the speaker hates himself in the well, walks away, comes back, hates himself again. *Counting Stars at Night* (별 헤는 밤) — the autumn-sky meditation that ranges from rural memory to the foreign poets the speaker loved.
Outcome
The student can trace the rhetorical structure of Yun's poems, explain the historical situation in which they were written, identify the Christian moral self-examination that shapes the voice, and write a 200+ word critical response on one Yun Dong-ju poem.
Sub-units
Led by Kim Sowol Simulacrum
The question
The third module steps back to the wider canon. Han Yong-un (Buddhist nationalist; *The Silence of My Beloved*, 1926). Yi Sang (modernist surrealist; died at twenty-six). Seo Jeongju (postwar lyricist of the long career). Kim Su-young (engaged 1960s poet). Kim Chi-ha (dissident under Park Chung-hee). Ko Un (Buddhist epic poet, repeatedly mentioned for the Nobel). Kim Hyesoon (contemporary feminist surrealist). The question is whether modern Korean lyric inherits the classical sijo/gasa tradition or breaks from it. The unit closes with translation work and an extended critical essay (300+ words).
Outcome
The student can name at least four major figures in twentieth-century Korean lyric beyond Sowol and Yun Dong-ju with signature works, translate one short modern Korean poem into English in two versions, and write an extended critical essay (300+ words) on a chosen aspect of modern Korean lyric.
Sub-units