Literary genre and philosophical discourse in the Buddhist poetics of Han Yongun (1879-1944)

Abstract

The Buddhist Han Yongun (1879-1944) is an important figure within the history of modern Korean literature, and his literary fame rests primarily upon his 1926 collection of vernacular free verse poetry, Your Silence (Nirnw ch'irnrnuk). Despite the quality of the poems contained in this collection, a crucial element in securing Han's literary reputation has been his participation in the March First Independence Movement of 1919. The poetry of Your Silence has thus largely been interpreted through this political activity against Japanese colonial rule. In spite of - or perhaps because of - Han's other Buddhist activities and writings, little attention has been given to the larger historical, philosophical, or literary contexts of his thought or literature, or the way in which Your Silence might be seen from this larger context. As a consequence, this thesis represents an attempt to expand the points of view applicable to Han, both as a Buddhist poet and as a Buddhist thinker. Th~ form which this thesis takes reflects those areas which I believe have been neglected: his Zen Buddhist views on the written word and his actual use of words. In particular, I will examine in detail those genres of classical Chinese poetry in which he wrote and thereby provide a detailed discussion of the importance of his enlightenment verse within the larger context of East Asian Buddhism and poetry. I will also give a representative selection of his classical Chinese poems in translation, and these poems too will be placed within the larger context of classical Chinese poetry. This thesis will finally turn to a discussion of the main interpretive frameworks which have been applied to Your Silence. l will attempt to demonstrate that this collection stands as a unified body of work whose unity is to be found in Han's Buddhist perspective on desire. Further, I will attempt to show that this perspective is coherent within his own life and Buddhist thought and that the structure and meaning of those poems were most conducive to verncular free verse Korean. Show more