• American Studies
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• v.44 no.2
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• pp.193-210
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• 2021

Theresa Hak Kyung Cha's Dictée proliferates with many pronouns. Whether the various subjects invoked in Dictée refer to a single common figure remains ambiguous. By paying close attention to the ambiguity of narrative voice, this essay examines how the creation of narrative ambiguity in Dictée is closely linked to the author's employment of the second person voice. This essay particularly attends to how Cha explores the narrative possibilities of the second person voice in the text's "Calliope/Epic Poetry" section in order to reflect upon experiences of exile and migration on a transnational scale. Through the intimacy and narrative ambiguity of the second person voice, Cha is able to create an epic on migration that is not only transnational in scope, but also invites the reader to engage with the self-alienating aspects of exilic and immigrant life in an unusually intimate yet powerful manner.

• English & American cultural studies
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.1-25
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• 2009

This paper attempts to illuminate the significance of the myth or mythical method used in The Waste Land, which Eliot adapted from Jessie L. Weston's From Rituals to Romance and Sir James Frazer's Golden Bough. While he was composing a modern epic, James Joyce's Ulysses and Igor Stravinsky's Le Sacre du Printemps made him sure that the mythical method would be the best way to make the non-relational and chaotic modern world into a work of art. Although he accepted F. H. Bradley's epistemology that one's actual experience is non-relational, he strongly put an emphasis on 'the unified sensibility' in John Donne's poetry with which a poet changes all the dissociated material into art. He also found another effective method to give the chaotic experiences an order, and to make them modern art: the mythical method in his contemporary anthropology. With the mythical method he incorporated the various barren, horrible and ugly aspects of modern world into a new unity in The Waste Land. In addition, he embraced his contemporary anthropological theory that a primitive life described in myths is a culture just different from modern culture, and heartily employed some aspects of primitive culture to make modern poetry as well as modern culture rich and exuberant.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.45
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• pp.7-32
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• 2016

This article considers the meaning of 'Zainichi (在日)' expressed in epic poem Niigata (1970) written by Korean-Japanese poet Kim Shi Jong. Kim sets two points in his creation of poetry. One is summer of liberation released from Japanese colonial domination in 1945. The other is Japan where he lives as a Korean-Japanese. These two points have made him think about the meaning of living in post-colonial era and the national division of Korea, his home country. His thought like this is well expressed in his epic Niigata. Niigata was written in 1959 when the ship returning to North Korea departed from Niigata of Japan. However, Kim couldn't return to his home country at that time. He stowed away from South Korea to Japan in 1949. He participated in antigovernment activities occurred in Jeju Island to block the national division between the south and the north after the liberation in 1945, the so-called 4.3 incident. Besides, he was having conflict with the organization of North Korea at that time because it required a doctrinaire belief and creation in Korean. Kim was writing poems in Japanese and pursued the life of existence as a Korean-Japanese. Therefore, he decided to remain in Japan instead of returning to North Korea. Of course, he could not return to South Korea because he was a refugee. Kim imagined in Niigata, the place located in an extension of the 38th parallel and the spot of national division. He could not cross the division line when he was in his home country, but he could do it in Niigata through imagination. The life as a Korean-Japanese makes it possible. 'Zainichi', which means living in Japan, has been recognized as a worse situation compared to living in Korea. However, Kim changed his way of thinking. Zainichi can embrace South Korea, North Korea, and Japan. This is the very reason why he lives there as a Korean-Japanese. His thought like this is well expressed by symbolic representations and metamorphose as well as the imagination of spatial extension.

• Journal of English Language & Literature
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• v.56 no.1
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• pp.135-156
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• 2010

In the 1640's and 1650's, Milton wrote many prose works on a variety of topics such as education, church polity, divorce, censorship, regicide, tithing, civil liberty, and blindness. Much of his prose shows us turbulent decades of English history. In this period, he also published his first collection of poems and wrote sonnets. He wrote 23 sonnets in his life, and many sonnets Milton wrote after he had become Latin secretary are occasional poems in historical time. Milton's sonnets, as Annabel Patterson says, are a marker in his personal development, in his life, in his career as a writer, and in the history of his time. Four sonnets (15, 16, 17, 23), written between 1648 and 1655, were not published in the collected edition of Milton's poem in 1673. These sonnets, addressed to leaders of the Parliamentary party during the English revolution, Thomas Fairfax, Oliver Cromwell, and Henry Vane, and to his friend Cyriack Skinner, have been known as "commonwealth" sonnets. They are also called as "heroic sonnets" because they have the common style and theme with his later heroic epic poems. These sonnets were finally published in 1694 by Milton's nephew John Phillips. Milton was interested in religious, domestic, and political liberty for his lifetime, and his heroic sonnets also deal with these ideas of liberty. Milton asks civil liberty from Fairfax, freedom in religion from Cromwell, and from Vane for the reconciliation of both. The aim of this article is to examine how the rhetorical strategies of his "left-handed" prose interact with those of his "right-handed" poetry. This paper explores the relationship between Milton's heroic sonnets and his prose works, such as The Second Defense of the People of England, A Treatise of Civil Power, and The Likeliest Means to Remove Hirelings. Milton deals with the critical issues of religious tolerance, the separation of church and state, liberty of conscience and defense of his blindness, and attempts to define the statesman's role in peacetime England in these heroic sonnets and prose works.

• The Journal of Art Theory & Practice
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• no.9
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• pp.93-121
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• 2010

This study is about Yoo Young-kuk's early works which show constructivism, especially focus on his debut painting, for the 7th Dokuritsu Bijutsu Kyokai(獨立美術協會, the Independent Fine Arts Association) in Tokyo in 1937. The work was painted 2 years after he had started his study in Japan in 1935. It was the first painting that applied Constructivism. played an important role for Constructivism to be a leading art in his abstraction. After this picture, Yoo was soon devoted to the principles of Constructivism-- Faktura(material), Tektonika (tectonics), Tekhnika(technique), space, construction-- in his painterly reliefs. This article examined why Yoo concentrated on Constructivism for , what the characteristics were, and what influences were on other works from 1935 to 1949. In addition, I investigated in which period was painted and how Constructivism was spread in 1930s and early 1940s in chapter 2. I scrutinized Rhapsody in chapter 3. When Yoo created Japan was under the Fifteen Years War(1931-1945), and a major discourse was the Japanese Spirit at that time. It was connected with construction of an ideal nation which the Japanese ultra-national fascism pursued. This ideological pursuit was intended to unite the Japanese people for total war system and to restore a national dignity which had been fallen down due to Manchurian Incident(1931). Thus, on the hand, Kokusai Bunka Shinkokai(國際文化振興, The Society for International Cultural Relations) and the Nippon Kosaku Bunka Renmei(日本工作文化連盟, Japanese Werkbund) were supported financially by the Japanese government. On the other hand, the government enacted regulations to opposing parties which would distract Japanese people's unification. As for the Japanese art world, the merge of art groups was carried out through remodeling of Teikoku Bijutsuin(帝國美術院, The Imperial Fine Arts Academy) in 1935. This brought out continuous dispute and disorder. Young artists who felt difficulty of entering an entry of Imperial Fine Arts Exhibition repeatedly grouped and disbanded for small art groups to build their standing, which they pursued Surrealism and Abstract art. Among them Constructivism was considered as the latest trend and was popular in craft, design, architecture as well as fine arts. In the year before he painted , Avant-garde theatres including Constructivism theatre were introduced in a feature article of September, 1936 in Atelier, which was dealing with mainly avant-garde arts. Books related with Constructivism were translated into Japanese, and Gestaltung Education had become active since the publication of A Compendium of Gestaltung Education("構成敎育大系"(1934)), Salvador Dali(1904-1989) was also introduced, so Surrealism was drawn more attention by young artists. reflected popular trends. Yoo analyzed the Japanese avant-gardists' archaic taste in the Independent Art Association that he submitted his painting to. And then he entitled 'Rhapsody' which derives from Ancient Greek's epic poetry and deliberately set up images in a scene. In chapter 3, I examined a theme which was planned carefully by sorting favorite images from the Japanese Surrealism. was a result that Yoo Young-kuk observed objectively the phenomenon that young artists dreamt of Utopia or longed for Nostalgia passively and lethargically under wars. And then he otherized himself from that circumstance. First of all, for he used the typical icons of Japanese Surrealism such as the horizon, flowing clouds, and vast plain that were considered stereotypes of Arcadia. He, however distinguished himself form those Japanese Surrealists. He made his own vision about Utopia by referring Lyubov Popova(1889-1924)'s stage design. His objective point of view was expressed by positive and dynamic images of structure and human's actions. Constructivism which was attempted in had an effect on other early constructive works, and the principles of Constructivism were sought hard in reliefs, paintings, and photos.