Kyeongeun Chung (2021). A study of student translations of foreign poetrypublished in university journals in the 1970s and 1980s. In college students’ journalsin Korea during the latter part of the 20th century, the translations of foreignliterature into Korean were steadily published, even though they were small innumbers and were not creative literature. In my previous three studies, I examinedtranslated foreign poems published in the college student journals during the Japaneseoccupation and in the 1950s and 60s. In this study, I survey and examine thetranslated literature of college journals in the 1970s and 80s. The first characteristicof translated poems published in the student journals in the 1970s and 80s was thatthey were mainly realistic and resistant poetry. It was because young students at thetime showed interest in the reality of the people and liked reading the poetry ofresiststant poets. This also affected their choice of translating foreign poems. That is,when selecting foreign poems to translate, student translators preferred poems thatcriticized social injustice and that had a focus on the life and suffering of the people.
The second characteristic is that student translation of foreign poetry, which hadbeen steadily continued since the Japanese occupation, decreased rapidly since 1985.
The main cause of this is the influence of the heated student movement since themid-1980s. Students in those days were more interested in society than literature. Andit was a chaotic time when students couldn't enjoy romantic and sentimental literature. For that reason, the proportion of literature in student journals at that time wassignificantly reduced, the translated literature. The study concludes that thetranslation of foreign poetry of student journals reflected the students' views on historyand the society of their time (Presbyterian University and Theological Seminary)