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A Study of Poems Translated by a School Journal Before Korea’s 1945 Liberation

Chung, Kyeong Eun 1

1UCLA Center for Korean Studies

Accredited

ABSTRACT

Before the liberation from the Japanese, most of the modernized High Schools and Colleges encouraged students to establish diverse student-governed activities. One of such activity included the publication of school journals in which students were able to publish translated poetry. The following are the quality and significance of translated poetry publication. Firstly, students were publishing these contents under school authority which predetermined the influence of their instructors. Such influence is present even in a school where translated literature are not being published. However, in schools where translated literature are being published students are not only influenced by the instructors personality but by the traits of the instructor’s home country and vast amount of the translated poetry were found in England and America. Secondly, though student’s interest in practice of translation was heavily influenced by school instructors, the self-chosen literature content mirrors the level of culture and quality amongst the students. Their choice of literature materials were those that have not yet been recognized by those in the literary circles at the time. The youth of late tens and early twenties showed traits of romanticism: yearning for sad love story. Moreover, their selection of poetry indicates student effort to discover ones true character and identity in a period of colonialization through enlightenment ideas and by studying the literature written by great names of history. Lastly, because students were the ones publishing the school journals they were both author and audience. It was the practice of translation that allowed these students to come in contract with foreign culture. Futhermore, it was the practice of translation which influenced students to constitute the phase and concept of both modern literature and foreign literature.

Citation status

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