Kim Soo-Young and the Critical Reception of Modernism in Korea

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The concept of "modernism" has always posed problems in definition from the beginnings of "early-modernism" to our age of post-modernism and multi-culturalism. And yet, the concept has been consistently aligned with the search for new paradigms of thinking about "modernity" as the age experiences it. In this sense, this study tries to explain the meaning of the term "modern," why it still matters in the study of literature, and how to apply it to the examination of Kim Soo-Young′s poems. Kim is one of the leading poets who understood the importance of modernism in the development of Korean modern poetry. But, despite his dedication to the western literary style and modernism, Kim also attempted the renewal of traditional Confucian thought in his poems. The result of such efforts can be seen in poems such as "Difficulties of Confucius ′Everyday Life," in which Kim tries to juxtapose the ancient life of Confucius with life in a much-westernized modern Korea. Another poem "Grass" shows his eagerness to transform traditional eastern aesthetics into a new mode of thinking that encompasses both the influence of the west and changes in 20th-century Korea. Through the study of Kim′s poems in relation to the critical reception of modernism in Korea, we can conclude the following: that Kim led the modernist movement in Korea; that modernism still matters in post-modern Korean literature; and that, because Kin tried to bring together the ideas of western modernism and traditional Confucianism, his poetry not only spoke to his own time but speaks also to our multi-cultural age.