• Lingua Humanitatis
• /
• v.1 no.2
• /
• pp.47-63
• /
• 2001

"A Variation of Love" is a characteristic Kim Soo-Young poem, in that it embodies the poet′s innovative use of language and proceeds speedily, like many of his other poems. Above all, the poem reveals the core of Kim′s poetical spirit, his speculation about love. The poem is difficult to understand because it broadly uses run-on lines and even run-on stanzas, a technique that many readers are unfamiliar with. The semiological approach of this paper will bring new light on the poem by restructuring the relationship between signs, that is, by taking apart the sign system of the original text and reconstructing its sentence structure. If we rearrange the poem from its original six stanzas and fifty-one lines to four stanzas and twenty-three lines, we will discover a close connection between stanzas 1 and 2, and between stanzas 3 and 4. Of the many keywords of the poem, we may establish the dominant word as "love," into which every poetic word converges and from which each word emanates. Another important keyword is "fatigue of the city" in stanza 4. Similarly negative aspects of the city may be found in the line "the same may be said of Bombay, of New York, of Seoul" in stanza 3, as well as in the words "desire" in combination with "the lamplights of Seoul like leftovers in the pig sty" in stanza 1. The persona of the poem tries to overcome the "fatigue of the city" by "love," but the way he realizes love is, somewhat peculiarly, through stillness and silence. The persona aligns "the stones of the peach and the apricot and the dried persimmon" with the his faith in love. He calls the stones "beautiful hardness" presumably because that hardness (the stillness and silence) may blossom into beauty. In the earlier stanzas, the persona′s quest for love results in an awareness that love is omnipresent, but the persona determines "not to shout it out loud." The reason for this determination is found in stanza 4. Those who experience the "fatigue of the city" will be able to realize it by themselves. This seemingly defeatist conclusion by no means suggest pessimism, for the persona holds the conviction that "there will come a day when [one] will rave for love." This conviction rescues the poem from the dismal mood suggested by the "fatigue of the city." At all events, it is important to note that the "fatigue of the city" should not be considered apart from "love." Yet, strangely enough, the poem embodies a severe critique of the city, and further investigation is necessary in order to clarify why this critique appears in the form of "love." But this will be the treated in another paper.