Korean love poem

Is it a Korean (hanguk, 한국어), or is it the translation of a mirror? Is she a real woman, or an apparition?

Where does she live? To the north or south?

In any case: 사랑해! You love your beautiful country, and you would that your dreams of romanticism become reality. Your eyes often turn to France who knows so well how to dress, to perfume and to decorate you, with such pretty jewels. My little Korean, this Korean love poem (사랑의시) is that of your two slanting eyes. They are unique, among so many women with pleated eyes! You, you are one of them, you will recognize yourself in this love poem (사랑의시).

The Korean language is an agglutinating language whose classification is contested, and which is spoken in both Koreas by 85 million individuals. It is written with the alphabet hangül since 1446. There are 6 regional groups that are still vigorous. The Korean standard was set around 1930 on the talk of Seoul.

The genetic affinities of Korean remain controversial, like Japanese, it's not known to be related to any other language, even if its structure is quite similar to Japanese and more of half of its words come from Chinese. Before hangul Korean used Chinese characters and a long time during, after the invention of hangul, used both together.

In the ancient Korean literature, poetry is always set to music and sung. The 1st Korean poems are called "hyangga" (local songs): 25 have come until us, noted in "idu", they are short poems. The hyangga were written mostly between the 6-10th century, at the Silla epoch.

Under Koryo the dominant genre will be the "changga" (long song). These are poems with 10 to 50 verses. The "kyonggi" poems are a variety of changga written by Confucian literary poets. Let us quote the poem "Sogyong pyolgok". Two types of poems dominate the Li (Yi) dynasty, the "sijo" and the "kasa". The sijo spreads in all classes of society, it can be compared to the Japanese kaiku. The poet Li Sunshin and the poetess Hwang Chin-i make up the most prized.

The expression of poetic feeling, which can not be confined to the sijo's conscision, on the basis of the koryong style of koryo, one elaborated the kasa, songs and dances lyrics. Some kasa count several thousand verses and gave rise to the "ch'anggok", a kind of opera. In the old days, the novel (sosol) refers, to a collection of stories about poetry in Chinese, and poets, that is known as the "p'aegwan" genre, which will remain in vogue until 17th century.

In 1705 borns the first Korean novel: the "Hong Kiltong Chon". It will most often followed by themes concerning love. Often the author remains unknown because for the elite fervent of Chinese poetry, to write a novel in vulgar language is a shameful undertaking. Among the masterpieces we can retain "Ch'unhyang" considered the greatest Korean novel.

In the 20th century., the new poetry borns with the poet Ch'oe Namson and his poem "Hae-egeso sonyon-ege", followed by a pleiad of young talents such as Kim So-wol and Yong-un. South Korea is bordered by the Yellow Sea and the Sea of Japan. Its economic boom was over a period of 30 years It is currently the 15th world power. For North Korea, it remains difficult to obtain reliable information.