I'm reading Rook's little collection of Korean history books and am so blown away. I want to know all about King Chu'ngson's Hall of Ten Thousand Volumes, in 1308, and later in the 1400s the Precious Mirror for Succeeding Reigns, the Calculation of the Motions of the Seven Celestial Determinants, and Records on Gunpowder Weaponry. But then! The 17th century Shirhak movement of "Practical Learning" really had it going on. Topical Discourses, Record of Concerns for the Underprivileged by Yi Ik, Yu So-won's "Idle Jotting", all written for reform, improvement, even revolution. A clean break with tradition, The king could not exist with out the people... and the Northern Learning faction who wrote travel books Hong TaeYong with Pekin Diary, Pak Chi Won, Jehol Diary. Pak Che-ga, Discourses on NOrthern Learning. Studies on HIstorical Geography of Korea, Ecological Guide to Korea (still before 1650 here) Studies on Routes and Roads, Studies on Mountains and Rivers, Map of Korea. Chong Yak-yong 1(1762-1830) sounded quite cool; Admonitions on Governing the People; Treatise on Farmland; Design for Good Government; Toward a new jurisprudence, Studies on our Land; Catalog of Fishes of the Chasan Island, Comprehensive Treatise on Smallpox. And the fiction! 14th century, New Stories of the Golden Turtle, Dream of Cloud Nind (1689) by Kim Man-jung; Tale of Hong Kil-tong - social injustice exposed. Tale of Yangban - ridicule. Tale of C'unhyang and so many more. Historical novels - The War Diary of 1592.
Wish I could read them all.... Probably none of them are translated.... it's torture!
I would very much like to read the catalogue of fishes!
Technorati Tags: books, translation
Some of them are for sure. The Tale of Chunhyang, say, is a hugely popular tale -- there's an English novel (out-of-print), manga, and two movie adaptations of it (1961 and 2000) .
Posted by: Rook | April 25, 2007 at 10:41 AM
excellent - I had not looked - was just overwhelmed in the middle of the night with desire to read this stuff and wished fervently that I could at least see it in English! And as I mentioned to you... was also just full of that frustrated feeling I often get - as I considered how many times I have heard people spout off pompously about the Enlightenment or the french revolution or whatever and how unique and superior it is when actually all they are doing is exposing their massive ignorance of the rest of the world and its history.
Posted by: badgerbag | April 25, 2007 at 01:39 PM
I will add that after writing this perhaps in the middle of the night while my sleeping pill was kicking in, I ordered a bunch of books online and I'm reading one of them now. "Korean Sketches" by James S. Gale, and it is one of the most uninspiring bits of racist colonialist writing ever. Unfunny snarks about poor people and schizophrenic stances of how Koreans are lazy and dirty and then the next page on how hard the "coolies" are working. And then constant making-fun-of anyone who is gentlemanly or scholarly or educated. It barely has any interesting details and is all Ironic Posing! So here is a hearty un-recommendation for James S. Gale. Who even bothered to go to the effort to print this? I'm saying this as a person who LOVES to read obnoxious colonialisty travel journals, Freya Stark, Mary Kingsley, etc. This is a boring one. Thumbs down on James S. Gale's 1890 travels.
Posted by: badgerbag | April 30, 2007 at 09:11 PM
Greetings from Seoul. Pity that more Korean classics are not in English. But we're working on it. Try Memoirs of a Korean Queen by Lady Hong, 1985 remaindered thru Amazon. A beautiful translation from Sino-Korean and a wonderful story. Pak Chiwon's Jehol Diary should be in print in about 6-9 months time - a difficult translation task, thankfully approaching final stages.
Posted by: Raymondemon | September 19, 2007 at 08:08 AM