introduced new methods with language and form.
In particular, a modernist group called the Later
Years gained critical recognition for integrating
satire about social conditions in their poetry.
Poetic trends were also affected by the 1960
student riots that toppled the government. Sen-
timental escapism was rejected for poetry that
would be a force in the political discussion.
During the 1970s, a similar trend focused on
the experiences of the oppressed masses and
promoted resistance to industrial exploitation.
However, lyrical poetry dominated from the
1970s into the early 2000s. The National Liter-
ature Movement was created in the 1980s to give
poets a unified voice on the issues of a divided
country. Besides this influential organization,
new poets emerged who tackled issues concern-
ing the laboring class and women.
Koreans read a great deal of poetry, not
only what is published but also what is written
by writers whose works are not published. Dur-
ing the 1970s, two Korean poets sold more than
one million copies of their books. In the early
2000s, South Korean publishers market more
than 200 poetry books each year, selling on aver-
age up to 2,000 copies each. That is higher than
any but the most well-known European or
American poets can usually expect.
The Green Deer Group
Besides Pak, two other poets, Pak Mogweol
(1917–1978) and Cho Chihun (1920–1968), made
their debut on the poetry scene in 1939. The three
had much in common. While they wrote as mod-
ernists, they continued in the Korean tradition of
nature poetry and refusedtotakeupthedecadent
topics, spiritual apathy, and trite foreign phrases
that Pak said had crept into the poems of those
trying to copy modernism. Also, all three worked
in banking institutions, and all three refused to
publish after the Japanese ban on the use of the
Korean language in literature in 1941. They did
not stop writing, however, so in 1946 they were
able to publishThe Green Deer Anthology,acol-
lection of forty-five poems, fifteen by each of the
three poets in his own distinctive voice. The pub-
lication of this anthology had a major influence on
Korean poetry. The anthology stressed the impor-
tance of seeing poetry writteninKoreanagain;it
was a symbol of the new freedom from Japanese
oppression. It also bridged the gap between the
periods before and after liberation. This anthology
is often viewed as the basis of a national Korean
rebirthinpoetry.
Critical Overview.
Pak’s fame as a poet was established with the
publication ofThe Green Deer Anthology.He
and his two compatriots not only rescued
Korean poetry from the fashions of the time,
but they reestablished the merit of nature poetry
and applied to it a call for a better Korea. As
Jaihiun Kim says about Pak inModern Korean
Poetry, ‘‘He looks to nature for the salvation of
corrupted humanity.’’
Peter Lee, a professor of Korean and com-
parative literature at University of California at
Los Angeles and author of numerous books on
Korean literature, has written about Pak several
times. In the introduction to his translations of
Pak’s poems in his bookA History of Korean
Literature, Lee states that ‘‘By using such nature
imagery as mountain, river, ocean, star, sun and
sky, he summons hope for a new life.’’ Only the
mountain from this list is missing from ‘‘River of
August,’’ in which Pak used the imagery of aInhabitant of a South Korean village, c. 1948
(Carl Mydans / Time & Life Pictures)River of August