Yi Kwang-su
1892–1950
Biography
Yi Kwang-su (1892–1950), who also wrote under the pen name Chunwon, was a Korean novelist, journalist, poet, critic and translator. He came of age after Japan annexed Korea in 1910. His novel Mujeong (The Heartless, 1917) is commonly described as the first modern Korean novel, and he wrote his fiction in pure Hangul. Contemporaries counted him, with Choe Nam-seon and Hong Myeong-hui, among the three great talents of the age, and he was an idol to many young readers and writers.
He was active in the independence movement. In 1919 he drafted and led the declaration of independence made by Korean students in Tokyo, then went to Shanghai and worked with the provisional government in exile. He returned to Korea in 1921 and rose to senior posts on the newspapers Dong-A Ilbo and Chosun Ilbo. From the late 1930s, however, he moved towards open support for Japan's colonial policy: after a short imprisonment in 1937 he led a pro-Japanese writers' association, argued for the war effort and conscription, and in 1940 took a Japanese name. Historians now treat this as a grave failing. He was charged with collaboration after liberation and released, and in 1950 he was taken north during the Korean War and died there.
This library holds three of his works: Danjong Aesa (단종애사), a historical novel about the boy-king Danjong, who was deposed by his uncle; Gaecheokja (개척자); and the autobiography titled 그의 자서전. Read them with his later record in mind. They show the enlightenment-minded and nationalist writer of the 1910s and 1920s, but his wartime writings belong to the same life.
This biography was written by a language model. The sources below are where to check it; treat details with care.
Books
개척자
by 이광수
The chemist Kim Seong-jae spends his life on an experiment that he hopes will lift his country, and the family money and the love of his sister Seong-sun are staked on its success. Yi Kwang-su's novel of 1917 sets the new man of science against old family duty.
Summary written by Claude Sonnet 5.5.그의 자서전
by 이광수
A man looks back on his life, beginning in a farming village under Samgaksan, and then through his school days and his years as a teacher. Yi Kwang-su's 1936 novel is told in the first person, though its title calls him only he, so that it reads as the story of any Korean of his…
Summary written by Claude Sonnet 5.5.단종애사(端宗哀史)
by 이광수
The boy king Danjong comes to the throne of Joseon in the 1450s, and his uncle Prince Suyang, later King Sejo, seizes power by killing the loyal ministers who guarded him. Yi Kwang-su's historical novel follows the child's exile and death and the six ministers who died for him…
Summary written by Claude Sonnet 5.5.무정(無情)
by 이광수
Yi Hyeong-sik, a young English teacher in colonial Seoul, is pulled between the gisaeng Pak Yeong-chae, once promised to him, and the well-bred Kim Seon-hyeong, whom he is expected to marry. Serialized in 1917, it is usually called the first modern Korean novel and ends with a…
Summary written by Claude Sonnet 5.5.사랑의 동명왕
by 이광수
The archer Jumong, who will found the kingdom of Goguryeo, loves Yerang and is hunted by the princes of Buyeo, who fear his skill, and he leaves with his mother's blessing to build a country of his own. Yi Kwang-su's late novel gives the foundation myth the shape of a love…
Summary written by Claude Sonnet 5.5.원효대사
by 이광수
Wonhyo, the great monk of seventh-century Silla, struggles with the world he has renounced, above all his love for Princess Yoseok, and the novel follows him from his trials of faith through his breaking of the monastic vows to his wandering among ordinary people. Yi Kwang-su's…
Summary written by Claude Sonnet 5.5.이순신
by 이광수
In 1591, the new naval commander Yi Sun-sin arrives at a decayed fleet on the southern coast and sets about making ready for a Japanese invasion that the court does not believe will come. Yi Kwang-su's serial follows the admiral through the first years of the Imjin war in very…
Summary written by Claude Sonnet 5.5.흙
by 이광수
Heo Sung, a Seoul lawyer, gives up his career and goes to a poor farming village to lift its people, while his wife in the city falls into an affair that his absence helps to start. Yi Kwang-su's serial of 1932 sets the nationalist hope of the countryside against the temptations…
Summary written by Claude Sonnet 5.5.