Park Tu-jin

Park Tu-jin
Hangeul	박두진
Hanja	朴 斗 鎭
Revised Romanization	Bak Du-jin
McCune- Reischauer	Park Tu-jin
See also : Korean name

Park Tu-jin (born March 10, 1916 in Anjō , Keiki-do , former Japanese Empire , today's South Korea ; † September 16, 1998 in Seoul , South Korea) was a South Korean poet .

Life

Park's family were too poor to allow him an education, yet he made his debut in 1939 when two of his poems were published. After Korea gained independence from Japan, he became a renowned writer and an important voice in modern Korean literature. He worked as a professor at Ewha Womans University , Yonsei University , Korea University and Woosuk University . He died on September 16, 1998 in Seoul.

Park's poetry usually has nature as its subject. His verses, which sing of green meadows, chirping birds, happily jumping deer and sunsets, are often understood by critics as commentaries on social and political problems. One theorist also argues that his poems used these very images to predict independence from Japan.

It is precisely this nature symbolism in Park's poems that sets the lyrical quality of his poems apart from the lyrical quality of romantic and pastoral poetry by other Korean poets. The role of nature is that of a catalyst that helps understand the human world.

After 1949 he began to incorporate Christian ideals into his poetry, thus representing a certain lyrical direction. The knowledge of the difficult situation of his people after the Korean War inspired him to write works that expressed both anger and criticism in the face of what he considered to be absurd political measures and social realities. In the sixties he continued his search to find a creative solution to the problems of his time by presenting history not as something given, but as a process that is shaped by everyone involved.

Work

Korean

Poetry collections

• 청록 집 Turquoise (1946)
• 오도 misleading (1953)
• 거미 와 성좌 The Spider and the Constellations (1962)
• 인간 밀림 Forest of People (1963)
• 하얀 날개 White Wings (1967)
• 고산 식물 Mountain Plant (1973)
• 사도 행전 Acts of the Apostles (1973)
• 수석 열전 The biography of water and stones (1981)
• 야생 대 The Wilderness (1981)
• 포옹 무한 Infinite Hug (1981)

Essay collections

• 생각 하는 갈대 Thinking Reed (1981)
• 언덕 에 이는 바람 Wind Over the Hill (1981)
• 그래도 해 는 뜬다 And the sun rises anyway (1981)

Translations

English

• River of Life, River of Hope: Selected Poems of Pak Tu-Jin , Eastbridge (2005) ISBN 978-1891936418

Awards

• 1993 - 제 15 회 외솔 상 ( Oesol Prize )
• 1989 - 정지용 문학상 ( Chŏng Chi-yong Literature Prize )
• 1988 - 인촌 상 ( Inch'on Prize )
• 1976 - 대한민국 예술 원상 ( Korean Art Academy Award )
• 1970 - 삼일 문화상 ( Samil Culture Prize )
• 1963 - 서울 특별시 시 문화상 ( Culture Prize for Poetry of the City of Seoul )
• 1956 - 아시아 자유 문학상 ( Asian Freedom Prize for Literature )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Other common transcriptions can be viewed under Korean Literature Authors Name Authority Database: 박두진 ( Memento of the original from October 6, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed on August 15, 2014 
2. ↑ 다음 백과 사전: 박두진  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved August 15, 2014 (Korean)  
3. ↑ Author Database of LTI Korea: Pak Tu-jin ( Memento of the original from June 7, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed on August 15, 2014 

Note: This article places the family name before the person's first name. This is the usual order in Korean. Park is the family name here, Tu-jin is the first name.