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Transmission Aspects of Folk ballads in Yeongnam District

  • The Studies in Korean Poetry and Culture
  • Abbr : Korean Poetry and Culture
  • 2010, (26), pp.203-239
  • Publisher : The Society of Korean Poetry and Culture
  • Research Area : Humanities > Korean Language and Literature

Young-Sook Suh 1

1한남대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

This paper investigated the transmission aspects of folk ballads in Yeongnam district. This was performed as the former step to study the comparison of folk ballads between Yeongnam district and Honam district. I surveyed 635 versions of folk ballads and the database of them in Yeongnam district. Yeongnam district have the most versions of folk ballads in Korea. Folk ballads could be classified into 64 types according to the relation of the protagonist and antagonist of works. The most versions was the Ba type (A weaving woman waiting for her husband). The second was the Ea type (A maiden suspected of the unfaithfulness by her brother) the third was the Ia type (A maiden who lost her pigtail ribbon). These are related with love between bachelor and maiden. In the contrast of that, the Sijipsarinore (Folk ballads about the woman's sufferings from her husband's family) including the type Aa which was handed down the most briskly in the Honam district. The reason of these phenomena was that Yeongnam district have been the authentic confucian society. The married women could not sing freely. Yeongnam district could be divided into 3 cultural regions, the north-west region, the north-east region and the south region. Folk ballads were handed down the most briskly in the south regions. On the contrary, the least folk ballads were handed down in the north-east region. This shows that folk ballads in Yeongnam district were created and transmitted in the regions which was exchanged briskly with Honam district. I could find that the folk ballads about the woman's sufferings from her husband's family in the north-west region, the one about the household affairs of women in the north-east regions, the one about the love affairs of maiden in the south, were handed down mostly. Moreover, the mixed types between Yeongnam and Honam were found in the south regions. Those were results of the cultural exchange between Yeongnam and Honam districts. The transmission aspects of folk ballads in Yeongnam districts found by this paper could be confirmed through the comparison of folk ballads between Yeongnam districts and Honam districts. Therefore, the more expended surveys to the whole districts as well as Honam districts should be continued.

Citation status

* References for papers published after 2023 are currently being built.

This paper was written with support from the National Research Foundation of Korea.