Korean Short Stories
Jang Seoknam Hanging Plum-Blossom 매화를 걸고 Translated by An Seonjae
Information This work was previously published in New Writing from Korea . Please contact the LTI Korea Library. library@klti.or.kr
About Jang Seoknam In the epilogue included in his first collection Defecting to a Flock of Birds (Sae ddedeul egero ui mangmyeong), he confesses that he dreams daily of fusing together his life with music. Literature, he suggests, is merely a code, a sign that cannot be understood by a blind man; while music can be understood by everyone. This certainly is a surprising claim for a poet. But Jang says “poetry is a beautiful raft I must take to get to music, to dance, to the blaze.” Most poets emphasize the absolute, transcendent qualities of language, but he does not mystify poetry or its medium, language, rather seeing it as a medium to reach something else that is absolute. Thus the poet boldly announces, “I lay down my head where the door to language is shut.” Jabbing at Descartes’ famous maxim “I think, therefore I am,” he says, “I exist completely as a poet only where language is absent.” Jang’s belief that ‘dance’ and ‘music’ are free from ‘language’ and ‘morality’ stems from his own individual ideas about language. Constantly absorbing worldly ideas and moral standards, language is impure and polluted. Yet language can never be abandoned because it serves as the basis for human thought and expression. Though it is impure, the poet tries attaining to expressions of ideal worlds such as ‘dance’ and ‘music.’ This worldview of the poet makes his poetry “musical,” not in the sense of rhythms and tones, but in the sense of aspiring to achieve the purity of music. He plays the instrument of silence called the world with language, and makes all things dance. This is the ideal aesthetic world that the poet seeks to create. LTI Korea eLibrary: http://library.klti.or.kr/node/327
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Hanging Plum-Blossom After examining the stump of the plum-tree outside the gate buried years ago, there being as yet no sign, back in my room after adjusting my icy shadow, I unrolled and hung up on the eastward wall a painting of pink plum-blossom by Master Ko-San. Plum-blossom painting was a favorite pastime of people long ago, so suppose I wash my face, at least, sit down and greet the old days? On branches extending hesitantly to the left, five fully blooming flowers, three buds; after bending it again, on the branches appearing on that part four buds now spread, uh uh, five, so on which of them do I wish I was now? The love in retrospect and the void in anticipation are crystal clear. After full consideration, going out with icy shoulders I once again squat before the plum-tree stump. As the sound of evening bells comes close at dusk, darkness comes, rocks come, and someone's eyes come too, come . . .
Copyright 2008 Literature Translation Institute of Korea
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