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The Border of a ‘Novel’: On the Concept of the ‘Jangpyun Novel’ and the Problem of Style Regulation

  • Journal of Humanities, Seoul National University
  • 2018, 75(1), pp.297-326
  • DOI : 10.17326/jhsnu.75.1.201802.297
  • Publisher : Institute of Humanities, Seoul National University
  • Research Area : Humanities > Other Humanities
  • Received : December 14, 2017
  • Accepted : January 31, 2018
  • Published : February 28, 2018

Song Minho 1

1홍익대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

This article addresses the issue of when the ‘jangpyun novel’(掌篇小說, very short stories) or ‘conte’ was first introduced in Joseon during the Japanese Colonial Period. This was not the first time that short narratives of about one page had been produced; their origins can be found in the era that literate culture was first established. There are also many types of short narratives that appeared in newspapers around the 1900s. However, the origins to be discussed in this article refer to the way in which these short narratives were transferred into the tradition and history of novels through the naming of the ‘jangpyun novel’ or ‘yuppyun novel (葉篇小說)’. This point is relevant to the issue of what should be regarded as the border of a ‘novel’. In Joseon during the Japanese Colonial Period, the first example of a ‘jangpyun novel’ is represented by a series of short stories written by 17 novel writers of various political positions in the literary circles of the time, and published from March 1 to March 31, 1929 in the Newspaper Chosunilbo (朝鮮日報). This project was associated with the first literary conference that had been hosted by Chosunilbo at the end of February of that year. The then notion of jangpyun novel that emerged during this period came from the literary people who were interested in styles such as that of Kawabata Yasunari (川端康成) of Japan. Kawabata defined the jangpyun novel as the most Japanese narrative style, just as haiku was the most Japanese poem. The problem is that the writers who participated in the jangpyun novel serialization of the time had included the leftists and the rightists of the literary circle. The popular literary group represented by Choi Dokgyun and the KAPF group by Park Younghee (朴英熙), Kim Kijin (金基鎭), and Lee Kiyoung (李箕永) arrived at a dedicate arrangement through the specific genre, jangpyun novel. There were several members of KAPF who sympathized with the usefulness of the jangpyun novel. Especially, Han Sulyah, who was associated with KAPF, tried to appropriate the concept of the jangpyun novel for Proletarian use. In other words, the project relating to the jangpyun novel developed into a more mass and popular relay novel project in popular literary groups and the newspaper media. Thus, the unfamiliar notion of the ‘jangpyun novel’ was not just a monthlong happening, but a phenomenon containing important meanings concerning the establishment of boundaries for the notion of the novel.

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