Baek Seok is a Korean poet who has been widely acclaimed by both academia and the general public, although his works were banned from publishing in South Korea until 1988 because he was one of those poets based in the communist North Korea. Despite his recent reinstatement, Baek Seok's poems are alr...
Baek Seok is a Korean poet who has been widely acclaimed by both academia and the general public, although his works were banned from publishing in South Korea until 1988 because he was one of those poets based in the communist North Korea. Despite his recent reinstatement, Baek Seok's poems are already available in more than 40 collections and in high school textbooks of Korean Language and Literature. His distinctive position in the history of Korean poetry is well manifested by the vast volume of literature on his various poems. Ever-rising interest in Baek Seok's poetry, however, is not duly supported by a definitive text that will provide a basis for the understanding and analysis of his works. It is inevitable that his poems have been published in contemporary Korean language to help today's readers. But the problem is that different collections adopt different language or even titles for the same poems. Such differences between the original and contemporary texts as well as among multiple contemporary texts may lead to critical errors in interpretation of particular words or even the entire poem. Misguided interpretation or understanding of the poems, resulting from the use of different contemporary equivalents of the original language, therefore, should be corrected. In correcting such errors, textual criticism can be a valuable solution. It is a series of efforts to study historical evidences relating to original texts, to check original texts against contemporary ones and to find appropriate contemporary language correctly representing the meaning of the original texts. When the textual criticism is well performed, it will be possible to develop a definitive text. A definitive text is a revised version of original texts that have corrected omissions and misprints, transformed the original language into contemporary usage without compromising the value of original texts, and added footnotes explaining the meaning of abstruse words and phrases. A definitive edition, a collection of these definitive texts, will enable those who study Baek Seok's poetry to have an identical source to quote from, to minimize errors in interpretation and to undertake in-depth study of his works. The reason this paper focuses on textual criticism of Baek Seok's poetry is that there is no full-fledged study on this subject, although his poetry is an important milestone in the Korean literary history. Particularly in terms of accuracy, it is hard to find a satisfactory text among the collections that have been published so far in South Korea. For example, there are some evident errors in the translation of the original language of the poems first published in newspapers and magazines ("initial copies") as well as in the collection entitled "Deer". It is also found that misprints, omissions, additions and corruption in the versions published in contemporary language often distort the meaning of the original texts. From this perspective, this study carefully reviews differences in the use of words and phrases between the initial copies and the collections published during his lifetime. Then, this paper aims to identify the errors in the printed copies of his poetry, which were published before the poet's death, checking them against his manuscripts. To this end, thorough review of historical evidences, interpretation of hard-to-understand words and phrases, and meticulous comparative studies of original vs. contemporary texts have been undertaken. To begin with, this paper infers the poet's literary intentions from the works revised by Baek Seok himself. And then errors in the printed texts published in the early years are found and corrected. In this process, the priority is given to finding errors, which may have a decisive impact on the interpretation of the poems. These errors ought to be corrected as they can affect the understanding or interpretation of the poetry. Next, collections of Baek Seok's poems that have been released by various publishers since the 1980s are examined to see if there are any differences among them and if so, why. Errors found in this process, either by mistake of editors or the poet himself or by intention of editors, are pointed out for correction if they distort or depart from what the poet originally intended to describe. Evaluating the success and failure of contemporary texts, this paper finds that latest versions have even further departed from the original due to the prevalent practice of copying the previously printed texts. Baek Seok's Complete Works consisting of six volumes are considered as the yardstick by which this paper assesses differences or distortions compared to the original texts. Moreover, dialect and hard-to-understand words are analyzed in consideration of the context of his particular works as well as external factors. This paper also touches upon the subject of which poems should be included in the definitive edition of Baek Seok's complete works. A definitive edition of poetry will require accumulative research on the special lexicon used by the poet or poetess and on the interpretation of the poetic meanings. As a first step towards the textual criticism of Baek Seok's poetry, this paper introduces the methods of textual criticism and sets the stage for developing a definitive edition of his complete works. Finding his undiscovered poems and undertaking studies on the poems released in North Korea after the 1945 national liberation from the Japanese colonial rule will be the next critical step to publishing a definitive edition of Baek Seok's poetry.
Baek Seok is a Korean poet who has been widely acclaimed by both academia and the general public, although his works were banned from publishing in South Korea until 1988 because he was one of those poets based in the communist North Korea. Despite his recent reinstatement, Baek Seok's poems are already available in more than 40 collections and in high school textbooks of Korean Language and Literature. His distinctive position in the history of Korean poetry is well manifested by the vast volume of literature on his various poems. Ever-rising interest in Baek Seok's poetry, however, is not duly supported by a definitive text that will provide a basis for the understanding and analysis of his works. It is inevitable that his poems have been published in contemporary Korean language to help today's readers. But the problem is that different collections adopt different language or even titles for the same poems. Such differences between the original and contemporary texts as well as among multiple contemporary texts may lead to critical errors in interpretation of particular words or even the entire poem. Misguided interpretation or understanding of the poems, resulting from the use of different contemporary equivalents of the original language, therefore, should be corrected. In correcting such errors, textual criticism can be a valuable solution. It is a series of efforts to study historical evidences relating to original texts, to check original texts against contemporary ones and to find appropriate contemporary language correctly representing the meaning of the original texts. When the textual criticism is well performed, it will be possible to develop a definitive text. A definitive text is a revised version of original texts that have corrected omissions and misprints, transformed the original language into contemporary usage without compromising the value of original texts, and added footnotes explaining the meaning of abstruse words and phrases. A definitive edition, a collection of these definitive texts, will enable those who study Baek Seok's poetry to have an identical source to quote from, to minimize errors in interpretation and to undertake in-depth study of his works. The reason this paper focuses on textual criticism of Baek Seok's poetry is that there is no full-fledged study on this subject, although his poetry is an important milestone in the Korean literary history. Particularly in terms of accuracy, it is hard to find a satisfactory text among the collections that have been published so far in South Korea. For example, there are some evident errors in the translation of the original language of the poems first published in newspapers and magazines ("initial copies") as well as in the collection entitled "Deer". It is also found that misprints, omissions, additions and corruption in the versions published in contemporary language often distort the meaning of the original texts. From this perspective, this study carefully reviews differences in the use of words and phrases between the initial copies and the collections published during his lifetime. Then, this paper aims to identify the errors in the printed copies of his poetry, which were published before the poet's death, checking them against his manuscripts. To this end, thorough review of historical evidences, interpretation of hard-to-understand words and phrases, and meticulous comparative studies of original vs. contemporary texts have been undertaken. To begin with, this paper infers the poet's literary intentions from the works revised by Baek Seok himself. And then errors in the printed texts published in the early years are found and corrected. In this process, the priority is given to finding errors, which may have a decisive impact on the interpretation of the poems. These errors ought to be corrected as they can affect the understanding or interpretation of the poetry. Next, collections of Baek Seok's poems that have been released by various publishers since the 1980s are examined to see if there are any differences among them and if so, why. Errors found in this process, either by mistake of editors or the poet himself or by intention of editors, are pointed out for correction if they distort or depart from what the poet originally intended to describe. Evaluating the success and failure of contemporary texts, this paper finds that latest versions have even further departed from the original due to the prevalent practice of copying the previously printed texts. Baek Seok's Complete Works consisting of six volumes are considered as the yardstick by which this paper assesses differences or distortions compared to the original texts. Moreover, dialect and hard-to-understand words are analyzed in consideration of the context of his particular works as well as external factors. This paper also touches upon the subject of which poems should be included in the definitive edition of Baek Seok's complete works. A definitive edition of poetry will require accumulative research on the special lexicon used by the poet or poetess and on the interpretation of the poetic meanings. As a first step towards the textual criticism of Baek Seok's poetry, this paper introduces the methods of textual criticism and sets the stage for developing a definitive edition of his complete works. Finding his undiscovered poems and undertaking studies on the poems released in North Korea after the 1945 national liberation from the Japanese colonial rule will be the next critical step to publishing a definitive edition of Baek Seok's poetry.
주제어
#한국시 백석 원전비평
※ AI-Helper는 부적절한 답변을 할 수 있습니다.