Oral Literature of Korea. Compiled by Seo Daeseok and edited by Peter H. Lee. Seoul: Jimoondang, 2005. 385 pp.

, 35,000 (hardcover).
Jung Ha-young
Oral and written languages are necessary factors for the creation and transmission of literature. Literature had been created and transmitted through oral language until the usage of letters became widespread. Oral language especially played a very important role in the creation and transmission of traditional literature of Korea. Though Korea had had its own language and culture from a long time ago, it did not possess its own alphabet until the 16th century. Korea borrowed Chinese characters to write down its thoughts and emotions as well as for literature before its own alphabet, hangeul, was created. And even after the creation of hangeul in the early Joseon dynasty, Chinese characters remained as Joseons official written language for a long time after and hangeul did not become widely popularized. Chinese characters were still used in various official documents and the everyday lives of so-called intellectuals of the Joseon dynasty. In other words, the gap between the oral and written languages continued for quite a while. In ancient times when people did not use written characters, oral literature was the only way of transmission. Even after the Three Kingdoms period when people borrowed Chinese characters to write literature, oral transmission still played a very significant role. And the commoners and women-actually the majority of populationcould not have systemic education in written language until hangeul was generalized in the late Joseon dynasty. This means that the majority of the population could not participate in activities involving the creation of and pleasures gained from written literature. The literature they shared and enjoyed was mostly oral literature. That is why oral literature takes a really important role and meaning in Korean literature. There are many cases where we do not know the real creators of works; we have forgotten or lost such in oral literature because of the limits of oral transmission. As Chinese characters have been used since the Three Kingdoms period, oral literature has been created and transmitted by both oral and written means. In this sense, oral literature and written literature has not been separated from each other but complementary to each other. But early researchers of Korean literature classified only written literature as literature and as such, only

200

The Review of Korean Studies

focused their interests on written literature. And they did not care much about collecting and studying orally transmitted materials of literature. Consequently, there has been lack of understanding in the oral literature that has played a very significant part of Korean literature. Accordingly, we cannot easily reveal the whole and real aspect of Korean literature. In this respect, we have to say it was relatively lucky that in the Japanese colonization era some Korean researchers focused on the national spirit comprised in oral literature such as traditional tales, folk plays, and pansori, etc. They collected and printed these materials and established the base of oral literature study. But real and serious interest and research into oral literature did not begin until the1960s, about a half century later. In the 1960s, Korean researchers interested in oral literature introduced western theories into Korea on this issue and tried to include oral literature into Korean literature. Most of the work was done by graduate students. They performed regular research into oral literature materials. Thus oral literature study became the official curriculum in undergraduate and graduate courses. At the present, oral literature is positioned as a major academic specialty in Korean literature studies along with traditional poems, novels, and Chinese literature, and there are now many researchers actively studying and presenting research related to these fields. Oral Literature of Korea, an English version of gubi munhak (oral literature) compiled by Seo Daeseok, was published to introduce one aspect of Korean literature to foreigners. Prof. Seo Daeseok, the author of this book, is one of the early researchers of Korean oral literature who participated and led the effort in collecting and researching oral literature materials in the field. Prof. Peter H. Lee, the editor of this book, is a well-known Korean-American scholar who has taught Korean literature to foreigners and published many works on Korean literature, including Myths of Korea. Peter H. Lee translated the oral literature works contained in this book with his colleagues and students who teach Korean literature in various universities in the U.S. The preface by the editor and the introduction by the author both help readers to understand Korean oral literature. The editor leads readers to become familiar with this relatively strange field of literature by introducing the composition and contents of the book briefly and revealing the historical background of each piece of literature in his preface. The introduction of the book was originally written by the author for Lectures on Korean Literature and offers readers relatively detailed introduction to Korean oral literature in general. The introduction takes up 56 pages of a total of 380. In the introduction, the author provides a

Book Reviews

201

brief history and detailed genre characteristics of Korean oral literature and introduces the background as to how and where he collected these works so that readers can understand the book more easily. In this book, Korean oral literature is divided into nine chapters, and this classification actually matches the authors classification system of Korean oral literature. We can categorize these nine chapters into two broad sections: The first four chapters cover foundation myths, legends, folktales, and classical archival records, and the latter five chapters cover folk songs, shamanist narrative songs, pansori, mask dance plays, and puppet plays. The first four chapters are mostly about oral narratives and the latter five chapters are tales expressed by actions and songs. Foundation myths are based on the founding of ancient Korean kingdoms such as Gojoseon, Goguryeo, Silla, and so on. They are mostly based on records of historical documents like Samguk yusa (Memorabilia of the Three Kingdoms), Samguk sagi (Historical Records of the Three Kingdoms), etc. The last story of this chapter, Three Clans, is a foundation myth of Jeju Island and a little different in character from other stories in the chapter. And stories of legends and folktales following foundation myths were collected and recorded through oral literature research from 1967 to 1991. We can learn how deeply and closely oral literature was positioned in the everyday lives of common people from these stories. Though it is not easy to classify legends and folktales clearly, in general, legends are related with origins, histories, or strange stories of each specific region while folktales are not limited to specific areas but range widely over several regions. For example, Centipede Market, one of the legends, is set in a specific area of Cheongju, whereas The Fathers Gifts, one of the folktales, is not set in any specific area. And the chapter on Classical Archival Records supplements fables mentioned in previous chapters. In this chapter there are fifteen different stories from Prince Hodong of the Goguryeo era to The Storyteller Omur um of the Joseon dynasty. Most of these fables are chosen from the Memorabilia of the Three Kingdoms and Historical Records of the Three Kingdoms; the last three fables, including Husband and Wife in Separate Rooms, The Storyteller Omur um, and Rain Shower Destiny are from Cheonggu yadam, a book covering unofficial history in the late Joseon dynasty. Myths, legends, and folktales are subordinate to fables and they take a very important place in Korean oral literature. They are very interesting stories by themselves and very worthwhile sources for documentary literature like novels, poems, and plays.

202

The Review of Korean Studies

Folk songs are common peoples ballads from their work places and embrace their joys and sorrows. Transplanting Songs and Wretched Married Life express respectively the hard working conditions of common people and hard married lives of women. Song of Entertaining the Holy One and The Abandoned Princess introduced as shamanist narrative songs were sung in necromancers rituals and teach us the origins and power of Korean shamanism. The chapter on Pansori documents the scripts of pansori, a Korean traditional musical. Pansori is a song and narrative mixed play that a sorikkun (a professional singer) sings to the audience. It is said there used to be twelve works of pansori but now, only five works remain. The chapter only introduces a portion of The Song of Sim Ch ong because this work is quite long in length. The chapter entitled Mask Dance Plays contains scripts of Korean representative madang-geuk (field plays) performed in the areas of Hahoe, Bongsan, Yangju, Dongnae, and so on. Field plays were performed on traditional holidays or after harvests and they expressed the actual conditions of common peoples daily lives and their wishes or dissatisfactions. Khoktu Kaksi, a script of a puppet play in the last chapter, is the only puppet play script we can find in Korean oral literature history. A puppet play is not very familiar to Korean culture but it has a relatively long history for traveling?theaters that meandered all around the country performing puppet plays. Oral Literature of Korea introduces Korean oral literature as a useful first step for foreigners to understand Korean literature and culture. From the ancient era to recent times, oral literature has been a very familiar style of literature to Koreans and it has played a highly significant role. Therefore, understanding oral literature is an important prerequisite to understanding the nature of not only Korean literature but also Korean culture deeply. In this book, the author introduces various documents so that readers can see different aspects of Korean oral literature. These documents range from ancient myths to recently collected fables from verse and prose, to drama such as folk plays, pansori, and puppet plays in various genres. The author carefully chose works that represent each genre and show the characteristic essence of Korea. So, these works all have much more meaning than simply being good stories or songs and embrace the Korean view of life and sense of value. I believe it will help readers to understand not only the past but also the present Korean mentality. It is not easy to translate one countrys literature into another language. Besides, in the case of the translation of oral literature that contains so many dialects and specific expressions originating from its own cultural and historical

Book Reviews

203

background, not many people dare to try. But the editor of the book, Peter H. Lee, devoted all efforts, capability, and long experience of teaching in English in the U.S. to the translation so that foreigners can easily get close to Korean oral literature. This book provides brief explanations for each work in the beginning, and provides footnotes when needed for readers to understand more easily. This book is the first trial to introduce Korean oral literature in general in English so it has a few defects and problems in spite of all its significance. First of all, it failed to suggest a clear definition of oral literature, which has resulted in the uncertainty in selection of various works. Oral literature, in principle, means orally transmitted literature, but there are not many works in this book that are really collected from oral transmission records. Most of the works in this book are extracted from ancient history books or more recent unofficial history documents. Therefore, it is not clear what to define as oral literature and how to distinguish oral literature from written literature. Besides this, the validation and universality of document selection is somewhat questionable. I can see how much consideration and caution the author put in to introduce a great amount of Korean oral literature within the limited number of pages and also to keep the balance of different periods, areas, and genres in this book. However, there are some works that I cannot agree with in his selection and it seems that he has a leaning toward specific periods in some documents. For example, the book introduces only foundation myths but it would be much better if it had a few myths of different themes. Also, it is not clear why this book made a separate section for Classical Archival Records when oral literature is usually subclassified into myth, legend, and folktales. I suggest the works in this section be classified and comprised in the following three sections: The Turtle and the Hare, Kim Hy on and the Tigress Maiden, and Rain Shower Destiny, could be included in folktales or legends. Also, while twelve works in this section are set in the Three Kingdoms period, the last three works are from the late Joseon dynasty. It gives the impression that the author did not consider balancing the different periods because there is quite a lot of oral literature of the Goryeo or the early Joseon dynasty eras. Oral literature is that of the common people, and at the same time, that of intellectuals. In practice, much of the Korean oral literature tradition was the co?work of intellectual writers and readers. However, this book describes oral literature as that of the common people only and selects and introduces mostly works of common society. If documents of fables written by the intellectual class such as Taepyeong hanhwa, Yongjae chonghwa (Collected Essays of

204

The Review of Korean Studies

Yongjae), Eou yadam (Master Eous Unofficial Histories) and so on were included, readers could get a wider understanding of Korean oral literature. Information on sources and scribes are included in the original documents of more recently recorded legends and folktales, but such was not translated in this book. It would have been better if information on the backgrounds of legends and folktales and information of sources, prerequisites for full understanding, provided. In Korea we have an old saying, No one can be full with the first spoon of food, the equivalent of which is that Rome was not built in a day. Translating and printing the English version of this book was a really meaningful and difficult work. I suggest that more of this kind of work should continue from now on and be expanded and specialized. Such is required to systemically translate myths, legends, and folktales-subdivisions of oral literature-and to publish recent outcomes of oral literature research in order to introduce Korean oral literature fully. I expect this book to be the foundation and motivation for such future works. (Jung Ha-young, Professor, Dept. of Korean Language & Literature, Ewha Womans University)