Sijo

Although sijo gained much of its popularity in the Chosŏn dynasty, it is important to note that the roots of the sijo are attributed to the late Koryŏ dynasty. In fact, the earliest existing sijo was found to have been written towards the end of the 14th century[4] as Confucian scholars sought to overcome the existing Buddhist-dominated literary, music, and art forms.[5] As a result, there are important differences between the sijo written at the end of the Koryŏ dynasty and those written in the Chosŏn dynasty. The sijo of the times, mostly written by men of elite status, are very reflective of the contemporary politics; thus, to understand the importance of the themes of Koryŏ dynasty sijo, it is important to understand the political climate surrounding the poetry.

Much of the Koryŏ dynasty was plagued with political strife. In 1170, the military aristocracy seized power from the civil aristocracy. Instability reigned in the government and the countryside for the next 25 years as military leaders plotted against each other and peasants rebelled against landowners and local officers. It was not until 1196 that things stabilized, when Choe Chung-heon seized power and established rule of the Choe family. Much of his power came from the parallel government he created, which was based on house institutions under his direct control staffed with people personally loyal to him. He also made effective use of mun'gaek, private military retainers of great clans.

Korea then endured repeated Mongol invasions from 1217 to 1258, and from 1270 to 1356, Korea was under Mongol domination. After Korea was liberated from Mongol control, there were still political conflicts on all sides of Koryŏ. Koryŏ was consistently under attack from Japanese pirates and Yuan refugees and faced two invasions from the Red Turbans. Finally, the Koryŏ dynasty ended when Yi Seong-gye rose to power, proclaiming himself as King Taejo and renaming the state as the Chosŏn. This transition was quite violent and unstable, as the crown princes and members of the Wang royal house were reinstated only to be purged, and two factions arose towards the later Koryŏ era – one whose loyalty to the existing regime continued, another whose loyalty shifted towards the new movement of the Chosŏn.

It was this incident for which the sijo poems of the late Koryŏ are most well-known. The most prevalent theme of this era is loyalty to a lost cause,[6] arising as a reaction to the rise of the new Chosŏn dynasty as the most powerful groups of the period struggled with where their loyalties lay. However, exacerbating the situation were the simultaneous struggles of China's Sung dynasty and the ascending Ming dynasty, further conflicting the people's loyalties. Thus, the ensuing confusion and chaos of the times gave way to themes of strong emotions such as regret over aging and sorrow over love, as many sought to express their mixed, complicated thoughts and harken back to the time of peace and stability.

One of the most famous sijo poems that demonstrates such political upheavals and tensions of the period is Chŏng Mongju's sijo, seen below, with the English translation:

Though this frame should die and die,
  though I die a hundred times,
My bleached bones all turn to dust,
  my very soul exist or not –
What can change the undivided heart
  that glows with faith toward my lord?

Chŏng, a great scholar of the time referred to as P'oŭn, supposedly wrote this poem in response to Yi Seong-gye's son's suggestion to defect and join the growing Chosŏn movement. The very idea that one's "undivided heart" remains loyal to the same despite dying "a hundred times" and one's "bleached bones all turn(ing) to dust" clearly exhibits the overall sense of honor, integrity, and fidelity that is emblematic of this generation's sijo poetry. In fact, this poem has become one of the prototypical examples of loyalty in Korea, even possibly one of the best known of all Korean sijo poems among Koreans. Today, this sijo has become to be known as the "Song of a Loyal Heart," or the "Tansim ka."[7]

Sijo was first written in the 14th century during the end of the Goryeo dynasty. However, it was not until the Joseon dynasty that it gained immense popularity. During the rise of the early Joseon dynasty sijo became very popular among yangban and the ruling class. In its earlier stages sijo was often written in classical Chinese by yangban and the ruling class. A lot of the poems used language which showed social hierarchy. It was not accessible to the masses due to it being written in classical Chinese characters. It was also hard to adapt to sijo-chang (sijo in song form) because of the Chinese characters.

The 18th century marked two very important events in sijo. The first being the reemergence of the term. The second being the shift from classical or traditional sijo to modern sijo. During the 18th century, the word sijo reemerged and with it came changes. Sijo was now written in Korean and was more accessible to the masses. It was no longer confined to just being a product by and for the ruling class and the yangban. Sijo was now available, created and performed by the general Korean public. New poems outside of Confucian ideal and hierarchy were being written and performed. This led to the invention of different forms of sijo such as sasol sijo, ossijo, and yon sijo. The themes of sijo expanded and included more than just the narrative of the upper class.

In early to mid 18th century sijo reemerged and can be seen as traditional sijo. This is mainly due to the fact that this period signified Korea's isolation to the outside world. After the Treaty of Ganghwa which opened Korea to a foreign nation, Sijo also shifted to become a modern poetry form. Up until the end of the Joseon dynasty, there was not a singular name for this form of poetry and sijo was not considered a literary genre. Instead, they were seen as songs and were labeled to signify what type of song it was. For example, it would have names such as sijoelga or sijeoldanga due to the situation in which it was a sung source. It was not until late 18th century that the word "sijo" reemerged as a literary poetic genre. It was in the 19th century that the movement of the restoration of sijo began. The activists involved in that movement took the first part of the word sijochang which historically was sung and kept the word as "sijo" to define this literary genre.

Sijo emerged in the late Koryŏ Period as a performing art and eventually gained popularity through the Chosŏn period. Initially, it spread amongst the yangban, or upper class, and later amongst the commoners. Sijo was passed down as an oral tradition during this period as a means to preserve the art form. While sijo encompasses a wide variety of traditional Korean poetry, one specific variation that derives from it is known as sijo chang. One of the most significant differences when comparing standard sijo with sijo chang is the presence of musical instruments. Sijo chang poetry employs the use of various Korean instruments to accompany the vocalist reciting the poem.

Sijo chang is known as "short song" because it has slow tunes with long, drawn-out ending pronunciation. For this reason it may also be called "the slowest song in the world". It demands a high level of ability and coordination between drummer and performer in order to keep the song flowing well. Throughout each sijo, the singer employs practiced techniques, such as vibrato and pitch changes.[8]

The singer is accompanied by the dae-gum (bamboo flute) and the chang-gu (hour-glass shaped drum). The singer uses a wide range of vibrato in addition to pitch changes. All sijo chang are sung in a very deliberate pace. The singer must be trained to extend the notes of the song for effect. Other instruments are used as the background musical support to keep the flow. For instance, the piri (bamboo oboe), taegum (transverse flute), tanso (vertical flute), and haegum (two-fiddle zither) may also be used to accompany the vocalist. Although a wide variety of instruments may be used as an accompaniment to the sijo chang vocalist, not all may be used at one time. In more informal settings the chang-gu may be used as the sole instrument. Oftentimes, the sound of hitting one's lap may also serve as the only instrumental accompaniment.[8]

Sijo was first written in Chinese because Chinese was the only written language in Korea before Joseon dynasty. The borrowing and usage of Chinese characters can be traced back to the 5th century. With the adoption of Chinese literary exams during the Goryeo dynasty, the usage of Chinese characters became more popular and it lasted for thousands of years until King Sejong invented Hangul in the Joseon dynasty. This brought about a close relationship between Korean and Chinese literature.

Sijo was influenced by Chinese Tang poetry and jueju poetry, one kind of Chinese Tang poetry that has four lines, can be found in the three line organization of sijo. In jueju, the first line states the theme; the second line develops the theme; the third line offers a twist or a contrasting idea, and the last line presents a conclusion. In sijo, the first two lines play a similar role to Chinese Tang poetry, but the third line can be considered as a combination of the third and fourth line of Chinese Tang poetry. Sijo's first part of the third line gives a twist and the whole third line offers a conclusion.

Yuefu poetry accepted in the ancient Joseon Dynasty Koreans accepted the influence of Chinese literature and made Chinese literary works. It can be said that it started from the Han Dynasty. Jin Yu Cui Bao's "Ancient and Modern Annotations" contained "The Quotation", the wife of the ancient Korean Jin Bai's mad husband, Li Yu, as a hint to the situation at that time. The poem said: "Gong did not cross the river, Gong actually crossed the river. When he fell into the river and died, the general did nothing." Except for this Yuefu poem, there is no word left on the Chinese literature in the ancient Korean era. However, we pay attention to the identity of Li Yu, the author of "Quote". She is a dalit woman. The unofficial class's Yuefu poems have reached such a complete state. At that time, the general society's concern and attained level of Yuefu literature could be imagined. The Chinese and the five-character poems accepted in the second and third kingdom eras.

Among the three kingdoms, Goguryeo accepted advanced ideology and culture such as Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism earlier, as the basis of national development. Baekje and Silla, later accepted the Confucian, Buddhist, and Taoist ideas from Goguryeo to achieve their own unique culture

The unification of the five-seven-character poems and the scriptures that were accepted during the Silla era, used Tang aid to achieve the unification of the Three Kingdoms, so they had frequent contact with Tang. Among them, contained in the history of Korean literature is the historical fact that the Silla royal family sent many students to the Tang Dynasty to study the close-up poems of five or seven-word verse and the four or six scriptures.

There are many similarities between Korean sijo poetry and Chinese Tang poetry: the reason that people wrote poems, the messages that they want to deliver, and how they express their feelings by talking about natural things. The following passage shows the translation of Kwon Homun's "The Wind is Pure and Clear" (바람은 절로 맑고):

The wind is pure and clear, the moon is pure and bright.
The pine veranda in the bamboo garden is pure of worldly cares.
But a lute and piles of scrolls can make it pure still.[9]

There are only wind, moon, pine, lute and books in the poem. However, Kwon Homun used these to paint a world of himself that he dreams of. For him, a simple life like this is enough, but even this seemly simple life is hard for him to realize. Similarly, Chinese poets in the Tang dynasty also wrote poems in this way and for this reason. Here is the translation of Li Bai's "At the Yellow Crane Tower to Bid Meng Haoran Bon Voyage" (黄鹤楼送孟浩然之广陵):

At the tower of yellow crane, my friend, to the west, you said goodbye,
In this misty, flowery early spring, for Yangzhou downstream, you ply.
A speck, a silhouette is your lonely sail, to the verdant receding, till
In my eyes, there is only the long, Long River, rolling to the verge of the sky.

On the surface, this poem is about the view and the landscape that Li Bai saw while he was in the tower of yellow crane superficially, but it actually expresses the deep feeling of Li Bai when he was still gazing at the river even though his friend Meng Haoran has left. The first line gives readers the background and the second line constructs a confused and sorrowful air. In the last two lines, it describes how Li Bai gazed after Meng Haoran and how he felt, metaphorizing his feelings as the Long River.

By comparing the meanings of these two poems, we know that both Korean sijo and Chinese Tang poetry often employ natural objects such as landscape, pines, bamboo, plants and flowers in order to express human emotions.

Sijo, unlike some other East Asian poetic forms, frequently employs metaphors, puns, allusions and similar word play. Most poets follow these guidelines very closely although there are longer examples. An exemplar is this poem by Yun Seondo (1587–1671) :

Yun Seondo also wrote a famous collection of forty sijo of the changing seasons through the eyes of a fisherman. Following is the first verse from the Spring sequence; notice the added refrains in lines 2 and 4.

Sun lights up the hill behind, mist rises on the channel ahead.
Push the boat, push the boat!
The night tide has gone out, the morning tide is coming in.
Jigukchong, jigukchong, eosawa!
Untamed flowers along the shore reach out to the far village.

Either narrative or thematic, this lyric verse introduces a situation or problem in line 1, development (called a turn) in line 2, and a strong conclusion beginning with a surprise (a twist) in line 3, which resolves tensions or questions raised by the other lines and provides a memorable ending.

Where pure snow flakes melt
Dark clouds gather threatening
Where are the spring flowers abloom?
A lonely figure lost in the shadow
of sinking sun, I have no place to go.

— Yi Saek (1328–1395), on the decline of Goryeo Kingdom.

Korean poetry can be traced at least as far back as 17 BC with King Yuri's Song of Yellow Birds but its roots are in earlier Korean culture (op. cit., Rutt, 1998, "Introduction"). Sijo, Korea's favorite poetic genre, is often traced to Confucian monks of the eleventh century, but its roots, too, are in those earlier forms. One of its peaks occurred as late as the 16th and 17th centuries under the Joseon Dynasty. One poem of the sijo genre is from the 14th century:

The spring breeze melted snow on the hills then quickly disappeared.
I wish I could borrow it briefly to blow over my hair
And melt away the aging frost forming now about my ears.

— U Tak (1262–1342)

Sijo is, first and foremost, a song. This lyric pattern gained popularity in royal courts amongst the yangban as a vehicle for religious or philosophical expression, but a parallel tradition arose among the commoners. Sijo were sung or chanted with musical accompaniment, and this tradition survives. The word originally referred only to the music, but it has come to be identified with the lyrics.

Note: The English adaptations of verses by Yun Seondo and U Tak are by Larry Gross (op. cit.) The English adaptation of the verse by Hwang Jin-i is by David R. McCann (op. cit.); Some of the information on the origins of sijo are cited from The Bamboo Grove: An Introduction to Sijo, ed. Richard Rutt (U. of Michigan Press, 1998); Kichung Kim's An Introduction to Classical Korean Literature: From Hyangga to P'ansori; and Peter H. Lee.

In South Korea today, sijo is widely considered to be a dead art-form, to the point that there are more sijo written in the U.S. today than in South Korea.[16][17]

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• The Bamboo Grove: An Introduction to Sijo, ed. Richard Rutt, University of Michigan Press, 1998.
• Soaring Phoenixes and Prancing Dragons; A Historical Survey of Korean Classical Literature, by James Hoyt, Korean Studies Series No. 20, Jimoondang International, 2000.
• Master Sijo Poems from Korea: Classical and Modern, selected and translated by Jaihun Joyce Kim, Si-sa-yong-o-sa Publishers, Inc., 1982.
• An Introduction to Classical Korean Literature: From Hyangga to P'ansori by Kichung Kim, Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 1996.
• Early Korean Literature, David R. McCann, ed., Columbia University Press, 2000.
• The Columbia Anthology of Traditional Korean Poetry, Peter H. Lee, editor, Columbia University Press, 2002.
• The Book of Korean Shijo, translated and edited by Kevin O'Rourke, Harvard East Asian Monographs 215, Harvard-Ewha Series on Korea, Harvard University Asia Center, 2002.
• Jeet Kune Do'nun Felsefesi, Yüksel Yılmaz, İstanbul, Turkey: Yalın Yayıncılık, (2008).
• For Nirvana: 108 Zen Sijo Poems,Musan Cho Oh-hyun, translated by Heinz Insu Fenkl, Columbia University Press, 2016.

• Hwang Chini's most famous sijo
• Sijo Poetry
• Yüksel Yılmaz Sijo Yüksel Yılmaz