Korean literature

Korean literature is the body of literature produced by Koreans, mostly in the Korean language and sometimes in Classical Chinese. For much of Korea's 1,500 years of literary history, it was written in Hanja. It is commonly divided into classical and modern periods, although this distinction is sometimes unclear.

There are four major traditional poetic forms: hyangga ("native songs"); byeolgok ("special songs"), or changga ("long poems"); sijo ("current melodies"); and gasa ("verses"). Other poetic forms that flourished briefly include the kyonggi-style, in the 14th and 15th centuries, and the akchang ("words for songs") in the 15th century. The most representative akchang is Yongbi och'on ka (1445–47; Songs of Flying Dragons), a cycle compiled in praise of the founding of the Yi dynasty. Korean poetry originally was meant to be sung, and its forms and styles reflect its melodic origins. The basis of its prosody is a line of alternating groups of three or four syllables, which is probably the most natural rhythm to the language.

One famous earliest poetry or lyric song was the Gonghuin (Konghu-in) by Yeo-ok during Gojoseon.

Hyangga (Korean: 향가; Hanja: 鄕歌) was written in Korean using modified hanja in a system that is called idu (이두; 吏讀; lit. 'clerk's writings'). Specifically, the variety of idu used to write hyangga was sometimes called "hyangchal". Idu was a system using hanja characters to express Korean. The key to the system was to use some hanja characters for their intended purpose, their meaning, and others for their pronunciation, ignoring their pictographic meaning. On the surface, it appears to be a complicated, even incomprehensible system, but after using the system one becomes comfortable with certain characters consistently standing for Korean words.

Hyangga was the first uniquely Korean form of poetry. It originally indicated songs that were sung in the Silla period. Only twenty five survive. The Samguk yusa contains 14 poems and the "Gyunyeojeon", a set of biographies of prominent monks, contains eleven poems. Both these classic works were written much after the Unified Silla, in the subsequent Goryeo dynasty, yet the poems in the Samguk yusa appear to be based on no-longer-extant records actually from the Silla period.

Hyangga are characterized by a number of formal rules. The poems may consist of four, eight or ten lines. The ten-line poems are the most developed, structured into three sections with four, four, and two lines respectively. Many of the ten-line poems were written by Buddhist monks, and Buddhist themes predominate the poems. Another dominant theme was "death". Many of the poems are eulogies to monks, to warriors, and to family members.

The Goryeo period was marked by a growing use of hanja characters. Hyangga largely disappeared as a form of Korean literature, and "Goryeo gayo" (고려가요; lit. 'Goryeo songs') became more popular. Most of the Goryeo songs were transmitted orally and many survived into the Joseon period, when some of them were written down using hangul.

The poetic form of the Goryeo songs is known as byeolgok (별곡) or changga. It flourished during the middle and late Koryo dynasty. It is characterized by a refrain either in the middle or at the end of each stanza. The refrain establishes a mood or tone that carries the melody and spirit of the poem or links a poem composed of discrete parts with differing contents. The theme of most of these anonymous poems is love, the joys and torments of which are expressed in frank and powerful language. The poems were sung to musical accompaniments chiefly by women entertainers, known as kisaeng. There are two distinct forms: dallyeonche (단련체)and yeonjanche (연잔체). The former is a shorter form in which the entire poem was put into a single stanza, whereas the latter is a more extended form in which the poem is put into several stanzas. The Goryeo songs are characterized by their lack of clear form, and by their increased length. Most are direct in their nature, and cover aspects of common life.