I. V. Choi
(St.-PetersburgStateUniversity)
«LOVE”AND “BEAUTY”
INTHEWORKSOFKIMTONG-IN
23
The literary activity of theKoreanwriter KimTong-in
ₖ☯㧎
(1900–
1951) isoneof themost interestingphenomenon in theKorean literatureof the
1920sand1930s.Theauthorworked in thegenresof the short story, novella,
andnovel anddidcritical researchandwroteessays. In theearly20
th
century
hewonfameasoneof themaestrosofKoreanprose.Moreover, theshortstory
holds aprominent position among the artisticheritageof this author.
Whenspeakingabout thewritingsofKimTong-in,Korean researchers
usually tend to ascribe to him different “isms”: firstly, he is considered to
be a realist, naturalist, romanticist, etc., secondly, an aesthetic writer and
thirdly, he is highly ranked as a pioneering master of style. However, in
spite of all these European literary labels onemight say that KimTong-in
is an original writer and, whether consciously or not, he has literary roots
stretchingback into theKorean tradition.
The formation andpeakofKimTong-in’s literary activity came in the
veryyears,whenafter the
sin soseol
㔶㏢㍺
works (“newprose”asdistinct
from theold traditionalone—
kodaesoseol
ἶ╖㏢㍺
), theprosaic literature
of the new epoch of Korea literature appears (
keundae soseol
⁒╖㏢㍺
,
keundae munhak
⁒╖ⶎ䞯
). Such works still followed the traditions of
theme selection and the characters often resembled the characters of the
traditional classic prose.
Lee In-jik
㧊㧎㰗
(1862–1916), who has written “Tears of Blood”
䡞㦮
, “ChiakMountain”
䂮㞛㌆
, “TheVoiceof theDevil”
‖㦮㎇
etc.,
23
KoreanLanguage romanizationsystemused inpresentarticlewasbasedonprinciples
described in thearticleofL.R. Kontsevich«RussianandLatin systemsof transcription
ofKoreanwordsandnames” //Proceedingsof theRussianAssociationofKoreanStudies
inUniversities. No 1.Moscow, 2009. P. 203–225.
