• Sijohaknonchong
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• v.24
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• pp.5-46
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• 2006

Korean verse has flexibly changed its form and contents according to the historical background of the times. This fact arouses reader sympathy because it has reflected ideas, historical aspects and realities of the times. However, korean verse has kept its own characteristics in some ways, allowing it to exist today. It holds its form as 3 verses of three by three or four meter and three letters of the last of three verses. It makes every different version which has specific aspects of each times in the same 'sijo' area. 'Sijo' in Korean poems, is the first form that has been changed from formal to private functionally. As a result of that common verses in the Goryeo to Joseon eras were going with the stream of the times. Verse was the plate for justice so that there was no double meaning, symbols, or technical sentences. It had to show the idea of Myungchundo Jwonginryun. The theme was commonly fitted within certain areas. such as blessings, fidelity, devotion, etc. Around the end of the Joseon era, there was activation of private verses - a form of sijo with no restrictions on the length of the first two verses. Some ideas had been changed because Sarimpa gained power, domestic conflict, and the introduction of practical science. These things had an effect on the form of Sijo. After all, it shows the ideas of collapsing feudalism, resistance of confucian ideas, equality of the sexes, and opposition to the group who rule the government. Thus Sasul Sijo seems to have the tendency of resistance to reality. It was a specialty of realism poetry It explained our life in detail and reflected real life by being an intermediary of realism. This met and represented the demand of a reader's expectations. After 1905, there was new form of sijo that is very different, in form and content, from the previous versions. It was even different in areas of what people accepted. They started to think sijo was not the form of lyrical verse that is once was. It became a 'record of reading'. The form changed to 'hung or huhung' that satirized the times and the ending of a word in the last verse. Although this form could deliver the tension in statement, it was too iu from the original form. Therefore, it didn't last long, and its position got smaller because of the free verse that had western influence and was emerging in the times. In the middle of 1920, there was a movement of Sijo revival. It was lead by Choinamsun. He wrote poems and Sijo which were effected by western ideas in his early works. Although he worked with that, he took the lead in the movement of Sijo revival. He published the collection of Sijo $\ulcorner$Baekpalbunnwoi$\lrcorner$ that has one major theme-patriotic sentiment. He thought an ancient poem was a part of racial characteristics so that he expressed the main theme which represented the times and situations of his era. Modern Sijo is difficult. Sijo has to have modern and Korean verse characteristics at the same time. If it considers a modern aspect too much, it could not be distinguished from sijo and free verse. If it overly leans toward Sijo. it would seem to be too conservative which it then could be said to have no real charm of a poem. In spite of these problems, it is written constantly, because it has its own specialty. It has been focused on some works because they reflect awareness of modern times, the democratic idea, and realism. Overall, the authors of Modern Sijo express various themes by using different forms. The more what we can guess in this work, Sijo will exist permanently because of its flexibility. Furthermore, one special characteristic-flexibility of the korean verse will make it last forever and it will be a genre in Korean poetry.