KJCKorea
Journal Central

This study aims to critically examine the educational potential of Park Mok-wol’s poetry by analyzing how his works are included and utilized in high school Korean literature textbooks under the 2022 revised national curriculum. Park Mok-wol, a representative figure of Korean lyric poetry, is known for his nature-oriented worldview and introspective exploration of existence. Despite his significance, his literary presence has been relatively marginalized in contemporary literary discourse, and even in educational contexts, the inclusion of his works tends to focus narrowly on his early nature-themed poems. This paper investigates the curricular context and pedagogical implications of texts such as “Cheongnoru,” “Hagwan,” and “Nageune,” with particular focus on the pairing of “The Mountain Surrounds Me” and Jeong Hee-seung’s parody poem “That Mountain Tells Me.” The analysis reveals that such comparative reading activities may lead to a reductive interpretation of Park’s poetic voice, overlooking the ontological and emotional depth of his work. The study concludes by emphasizing the need to reframe Park Mok-wol’s poetry as a resource that fosters emotional empathy and imaginative thinking in literature education

Yu Chong-ho’s What is Poetry (1995) is widely recognized as a representative work that comprehensively yet subjectively examines various aspects of modern Korean poetry, offering a profound exploration of its meaning and value. This article approaches Yu’s reflections on poetry in What is Poetry from a comparative literature perspective. The author argues that the fundamental question, “What is poetry?” extends beyond the specificity of modern Korean poetry and resonates as a universal literary topic, examining the criteria for determining “what is a good poem?” The paper critically reviews Yu’s positions on issues such as the grounds for comparison and the question of untranslatability. Through this examination, it demonstrates that Yu’s approach to poetry transcends the category of national literature-specifically, Korean literature-and moves toward universal significance. By analyzing Yu’s methods of perceiving and engaging with poetry, the paper suggests that this introductory work possesses substantial merit, as it implicitly incorporates a comparative literary perspective beyond an exclusive focus on the particularities of modern Korean poetry. Ultimately, this work not only explains poetry but also delves into the essence of literature itself, revealing the author’s fundamentally comparative viewpoint on poetry and literature. Yu’s comparative literary approach is particularly evident in his writing, characterized by an intentional layering and cross-reading of Korean and foreign literatures

This paper explores the possibility of reconstructing communities in the aftermath of patriarchy’s collapse, using the framework of family narratives, with a focus on Yu Ju-hyeon's Lovers Beyond the River. Drawing on Lynn Hunt’s concept of the “family romance” and the political imagination of fraternity as theoretical tools, it analyzes the intersections of post-familial narratives, horizontal solidarity, and the autonomous agency of female characters. Lovers Beyond the Riverdelicately captures not only the internal conflicts within the family but also the cracks in modern patriarchy and authoritarian order. The fall of Kang Jung-cheol symbolizes more than the dismantling of paternal authority; it signifies the collapse of state power itself. The alliance between Kang Tae-jin and Kang Yong-jin presents an alternative vision of community, free from vertical hierarchies. In particular, the female characters deviate from traditional gender norms and actively choose their own desires and forms of love, thereby revealing an ethical potential that emerges through the fissures of patriarchy. Unlike the exclusion of women in the revolutionary period of the West, as pointed out by Lynn Hunt, this can be interpreted as an attempt to reconstruct family ethics within the East Asian context. In this work, Yu Ju-hyeon revisits the ethics of lost relationships through a return to emotion, conducting a literary experiment that imagines new relational orders amid hesitation and narrative blank spaces.