“A Lucky Day” in History of 20th Century Korean Literature

Abstract

The article examines the influence of Russian literature, in particular the short stories “Misery” by A.P. Chekhov and “Happiness” by M.P. Artsybashev on the work of Korean writer Hyŏn Jin-gŏn, who made a significant contribution to the formation and development of realism in Korean literature. It explores the intertextual interaction between the short story “A Lucky Day” written by Hyŏn Jin-gŏn in 1924 and the eponymous work written by Yi Mun-yŏl in the postmodern period in 1987. In Korean literary circles, it is generally accepted that Hyŏn Jin-gŏn wrote his story “A Lucky Day” under the impression of A.P. Chekhov’s story “Misery”, borrowing both the theme and the narrative structure from the Russian writer. However, the authors of the article come to the conclusion that the above-mentioned story by Hyŏn Jin-gŏn has much in common with the story “Happiness” by M.P. Artsybashev which Hyŏn Jin-gŏn translated into Korean by himself. The motif of imaginary luck is the leading one both in the story “A Lucky Day” and in the story “Happiness”. And this motif is strongly associated with the phrase “Lucky Day” among modern carriers of Korean culture. The authors of the article also note that Hyŏn Jin-gŏn’s story “A Luchy Day” can be directly compared in terms of tragedy with the story “Rickshaw” published a year later, in 1925, but not with the postmodern story “A Lucky Day” by Yi Mun-yŏl. In their opinion, this story by Yi Mun-yŏl, based on a deliberate reference to the story by Hyŏn Jin-gŏn, remains underestimated in the Republic of Korea, and its main advantage is not the spirit of tragedy, but irony.

References

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