The Figurative Structure of 'One Night, Counting the Stars"

윤동주의 시 "별헤는 밤"의 비유구조

In this paper, I propose that the figurative structure of Tongjoo Yoon′s "One Night, Counting the Stars" reflects the poet′s anguish over the colonial reality of Korea in the later stages of the Japanese occupation, especially regarding the forced adoption of Japanese names in 1939. The poet Yoon himself registered at Yonhi College with an adopted Japanese name. In the second half of the poem, the speaker alludes to this historical fact when he confesses that "On a hill lit by myriads of stars / I spelled my name / And covered it over with dirt," and that he "laments (his) shameful name." In the simile of the last stanza, the speaker continues to allude to the "buried" name: "But past winter, come spring to my star, / As green grass sprouts on a grave mound, / So will it spread with pride / On the hill where my name is buried." The longing and the yearning, expressed so simply and in child-like manner in the first half of the poem, become in the second half an urgent need for something that should have been but cannot be, and yet will be in the future-for a world that should be, now lost but to be regained. The poem contains the poet′s earnest belief that the inherited Korean names that were then so shamefully taken away will one day be recovered. It is almost impossible to find any other work written in Korean (despite the most suppressive measures against the use of the Korean language) that also alludes to the adoption of Japanese names. In this respect, "One Night, Counting the Stars" has a unique value in the history of modem Korean literature.