KJCKorea
Journal Central

This writing was started from the study about textbooks of early period when drama genre was firstly introduced in the government-designated, Korean language textbook. The role that drama genre should take charge of was evaluated by investigation of characteristics and meanings of drama genre in the textbook of so-called national foundation era or syllabus period. First, the textbooks at that time not only focused on plays, but also covered diverse subjects including scenarios or radio scripts such as <wisdom of the blind man> by Choi yo an, <ocean> by Oh young jin, <under the roof of Seoul> by An suk young and <song of boy> by Choi tae ho. Actually, <Wonsulrang> by Yu chi jin and <the merchant of Venice> by Shakespeare were only plays on the textbooks. It might be related with the situation in the 1950s when movie and radio were so popular. Next, we can find the trait of nationalism to meet the demands of the times to encourage the unity of our people in subjects of plays. This trait can be recognized in <Wonsulrang> by Yu chi jin and <the merchant of Venice> by Shakespeare. Finally, works covered on the textbook tend to be repeatedly listed. Probably, the writers seem to be more important than the works themselves in this trend. In this aspect, I tried to find out the backgrounds of Yu chi jin and Oh young jin through the pedigree of intellectuals and writers at that time.

syllabus period, drama text, Yu chi jin, Oh young jin, anti-communism and nationalism