Perspectives of Korean Modernity from the 18th Century to the Present: Intellectual Struggles for Koreanity in the Age of Globalization

For the effective study of Korean modernization from the 18th century to the present, three areas have been investigated in my paper: the age of dawn in recognizing the necessity of modernism, the era of experimentation from recognition to practice, and the development of modernism in literature: from the 1930s to the present. Through whole process of discussing those matters, Koreanity- identifying itself to be Korean - has been emphasized. While the so-called traditional values confronted with the whole turmoil of socio-political demolitions in the name of modernization, westernization, and culturalization, Korean intellectuals tried to emphasize how important it was to keep Korean identities, namely the Koreanity. Such examples can be seen in the activities of Northern School and Moderate School. Though Koreans had to have a short hair cut in contradiction with their traditional morality to be modernized/westernized/cultivated, it was a turning point for them to take a step toward the international world. During the period of Korean modernization through the impact of Western world, Korean language-hangul- has been cultivated to the highest level in comparison with two foreign languages: Japanese and English. Those Korean linguists who were familiar with these two languages made Korean grammar systematic and they understood the importance of preserving Koreanity in the course of pursuing modem western society. In this sense, Korean modernism is related to the cultural glocalism(globalism+ localism), not to the cultural globalism. Through the help of socio-political modernization, Korean literature in modernism has been full bloomed in the early years of 1930s. One of the leading poets was Sang Lee whose poetic heritage is inherited by those groups of 1950s and I 960s. Among many others, Chunsu Kim and Sunghun Lee were the main figures in realizing the fact the poetry is written in Korean which they considered the body, the soul, and the mother land.