• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.48
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• pp.1-30
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• 2017

The purpose of this study is to review two books on the history of Korean literature written in Japanese, taking special interest in ancient Korean literature, examining transcultural patterns between the history of North and South Korean literature and that of Japanese literature, and thereby identifying perceptions and description patterns of the history of Korean literature from the perspective of comparative literature. This study analyzes two books with the same title The History of Joseon Literature written in Japanese by Kim Dongwook and Byeon Jaesoo. The two books are not translations of Korean books but were written in Japanese for Japanese and ethnic Korean readers in Japan. The History of Joseon Literature (1974) by Kim Dongwook mainly compares Joseon literature with Japanese literature. The History of Joseon Literature (1985) by Byeon Jaesoo, an ethnic North Korean in Japan, was written from socialistic perspectives. The two books have different standards for evaluating value of the history of Joseon literature and different perceptions about it. Due to the division between North and South Korea, the history of literature is unfolding in different ways in the two Koreas, and the two books reflect such differences. However, they have several common features. For example, they highly regard the value of literature written in Chinese characters and originality of hangga (a folk song of Silla), Hangeul (the Korean alphabet), and pansori (a form of Korean folk music in which a singer accompanied by a supportive drummer sings and chants an epic story). In addition, they both demonstrated that literature written in Hangeul and that written in Chinese characters interacted with each other as the same Korean literature. When the two books were written, the history of Korean literature had been considered a subunit of the history of East Asian or Chinese literature. However, as this study found, Kim and Byeon wrote the two books from a perspective of departing from this view based on nationalism, re-establishing the value of Korean literature, promoting Japanese people's understanding of the high quality of Korean literature, and imbuing ethnic Koreans in Japan with nationalistic pride.