Earticle

This essay was originally presented as the keynote speech at the Keimyung International Conference on Korean Studies in Celebration of the Fiftieth Anniversary of Keimyung University entitled, “The Korean Beat: In Search of the Origins of Korean Culture.” In his speech Professor Hwang Byung-ki [Hwang Pyŏnggi] provided a rapt audience with a magisterial overview of the role of percussion and percussion instruments in traditional Korean music and daily life. In this essay he introduces the major instruments from the various musical traditions of Korea, including Shamanism, Buddhism, the Confucian court, the yangban literati, and the farming community. Both the defining characteristics of instruments such as the hourglass drum (changgu), clapper (pak), barrel drum (puk), and also the major Korean rhythmic forms are explained with admirable clarity, making this complex subject easily accessible to the non-specialist. The essay concludes with a brief examination of the ways in which rhythm has permeated the daily life of Koreans in such simple acts as the woodcutter beating out a rhythm on his A-frame carrier with a stick or a woman enlivening her chores in the kitchen by beating on an upturned water scoop made from a gourd. By cherishing and cultivating these rhythms, the author argues, Koreans will open up “a new era in musical creation.”

An examination of the assumption that Korean music descends from rhythm is overdue. It is almost as if the belief in rhythmic primacy is so deeply embedded in Korea, and in writings about Korean music composed both in the peninsula and beyond, that it cannot be questioned. This is convenient, in that it sets up a contrast between Korean and Western music, the former based on rhythm and the latter on harmony. But it relies on a history that must be contested, not least since its very evolutionary nature—that rhythm came first and melody later in human development—was long ago undermined in academic discourse. The ancient history that related to rhythm in Korea starts with the interpretation of a single third-century Chinese historical text, and then requires interpretations of legend, in ways that often seem anachronistic. Centred on SamulNori, a Korean percussion quartet with roots both in local bands and itinerant troupes that first took to the stage in 1978, and comparing contemporary perspectives from elsewhere, this paper explores different facets of the constructions surrounding rhythm.

In the last fifteen to twenty years, Korean musicians have interacted intensively with musicians from other countries, resulting in a diverse category of music often referred to broadly as “fusion music” (p’yujŏn ŭmak). A substantial number of Korean fusion music pieces in recent years have not employed Korean rhythms, instead relying solely on the timbre (sound quality) of Korean instruments to give them a “Korean feel.” Many members of the younger generation would identify any music that had a Korean instrumental timbre (e.g., a haegŭm playing with a synthesizer and electric guitar) as “Korean,” even if the rhythm bore no relationship to Korea’s rich rhythmic heritage of changdan. I propose in this paper that the most successful pieces of fusion music, those that represent a true blending of Korean and foreign elements, will reveal a basis in Korean rhythms and that rhythm, more so than timbre, represents a fundamental aspect of musical stylistic identity. Data from a small survey of Korean listeners, rating forty-one fusion examples, are discussed in the paper and lend support to this hypothesis.

Although images of animals occupied an important place in Chosŏn-dynasty (1392–1910) paintings, along with landscapes, figures, “Four Gentlemen” (i.e., bamboo, plum, orchid and chrysanthemum), genre pictures and folk paintings, very little research has hitherto been conducted on animal pictures in recent scholarship. This is due to the paucity of documentary sources which can shed light on the content and style of the animal paintings themselves. However, examination of some important Korean animal pictures reveals a number of salient features unique to Korean animal paintings, particularly a warmth and intimacy conveying close relationships among animals. Since distinctive visual elements in Chosŏn-dynasty animal images have not been explored in recent scholarship, it is necessary to undertake a preliminary study of these important stylistic characteristics. This article analyzes a selected number of delightful and moving paintings associated with highly celebrated artists, including Yi Am (1499–died after 1545), Sin Saimdang (1504–1551), Kim Sik (1579–1662), and Pyŏn Sangbyŏk (eighteenth c.). By studying the depiction of animals’ poses, behavior and facial expressions within a broader compositional format, this article elucidates the ways by which major Chosŏn-dynasty artists imparted warm and affectionate feelings through the recurring motifs of animals turning toward each other. Furthermore, this paper explores the possibility that important practitioners of animal imagery perceived a certain kind of order in animals’ social lives, not unlike the Confucian relations among human beings in Chosŏn society.

For decades foreign observers have regarded Kim Il Sung’s so-called juche speech of 1955 as a watershed in his country’s ideological history—the first public occasion on which the dictator spoke of the nationalist concept of juche. The speech is also routinely described, though with no textual evidence, as an enunciation of the need for national self-reliance. All too often foreigners, unconsciously emulating the North Koreans’ own practice, have projected the party’s more recent interpretations of the term juche backward in time onto the 1955 speech. The following article proceeds from the view that the speech must be read closely with a view to the context of its own time—a time in which P’yŏngyang’s own dictionaries either defined juche as a concept devoid of nationalist connotations or ignored it altogether; a time when it was considered acceptable throughout the socialist bloc to call for the “creative” application of Marxism-Leninism to national conditions; a time in which the juche speech appears to have aroused no more attention than was usually given to Kim’s public discourse. Through an analysis of the text itself, the article sets out to show that the speech—only the first half of which deals with juche at all—is not nationalist in any meaningful sense of the term, nor does it even mention self-reliance. In closing, the article raises the possibility that Kim’s criticism of the more ludicrous excesses of sovietophilia was motivated by his fear that they could alienate public opinion in South Korea.

Visionaries dream about reality. Believe me, reality is what visionaries dream about. Chang Chŏngil, from The Woman Crazy For Sylvia Plath.

Brother Anthony of Taizé was born in England in 1942, studied medieval literature at Oxford, then in 1969 joined the Community of Taizé in France as a religious brother. In 1980 he arrived in Korea, sent with other members of the community in response to an invitation from Cardinal Kim Su-Hwan. He became a full-time member of the faculty of the English Department at Sogang University (Seoul) in 1985, where he has twice served as Department Chairman. He is a founding member and former president of the Medieval and Early Modern English Studies Association of Korea. He is also active as a translator of modern Korean poetry and fiction. He took Korean nationality in 1994, with the name An Sonjae.

Reviewer’s Preface This review was originally intended to be a brief description and critique of the volume in question. After having read the first two chapters of the book, however, it became clear to me that certain of the author’s claims and interpretations of historical events demanded a more thorough treatment than a review in standard format would permit. With so little published scholarship on Koguryŏ in the English language, the majority of Western readers would be likely to approach the book without the specialized historical and archaeological background necessary to place the author’s claims in perspective. Since many of these claims are novel and the conclusions sweeping and provocative, a more careful and detailed critique is called for, lest some readers be tempted to accept the unchallenged book as the final word on the topic under consideration. I therefore offer the following extended review in the hope that it will serve to highlight some of the more problematic areas in the author’s work and, perhaps, stimulate academic debate as well.