At the crossroads of literature and history: Maninbo (10,000 Lives) as social biography

Abstract

Maninbo (10,000 Lives), Ko Un's 30-volume series of poems published between 1986 and 2010, represents a meeting point between history and literature. It can be seen either as historical writing in the form of poetry or as a literary narrative with historical content. The poet reconstructs the entire scheme of Korean history through the life-stories of numerous individuals, thus transforming their lived experiences into narrated history. Maninbo bears some characteristics of social biography, which is one way of writing history. However, it differs from other styles of social biography in its poetic sketches of thousands of individuals, which ultimately comprise a grand mosaic of Korean history. As a social biography, Maninbo reveals the ideals underlying modern Korean society: national independence, democracy, desire for reunification, and, most of all, humanism.

Keywords:

• Maninbo (10,000 Lives)
• literature
• history
• Korean
• biography
• poetry

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to David Bell and Alun Munslow for spending the time and effort providing me with invaluable reviews of my manuscript, and also to Sangwha Lee and Brother Anthony for their help with my translations of the poems. My thanks also to the anonymous referees for their constructive comments.

Notes

 1. Due to space limitations, I will not discuss the multilayered time-structure of Maninbo in detail, except to remark that the work raises a question of historical time – which, according to Paul Ricœur, occurs when phenomenological (subjective, lived) time is placed into cosmic time (see Ricœur 1985) – and historical actuality, which refers to the significance that past events (and the state of affairs in the past) have for the present and future. Maninbo transforms a ‘lived time’ (temps vécu) into a ‘narrated time’ (temps raconté) in Ricœur's term, or transforms a ‘sequential account’ into a ‘narrative account’, i.e. a ‘chronicle’ into a ‘history’ within historical time in Hayden White's language (see White 1984).

 2. Note that each volume contains a few poems which are exceptions to the main or dominant temporal orientation of that collection. I note here only the main period of each volume.

 3. At this writing, the last four volumes of Maninbo are now being published as part of a newly-revised, collected edition of 30 volumes. Volumes 27 to 30 are therefore not discussed here. Note also that this paper follows the first edition, published between 1986 and 2007 by Ch'angjakkwa pip'yŏngsa.

 4. Concerning the reconstitution of the context, Pierre Bourdieu remarks that biographical events happen in a social space where individuals are mutually connected in different champs (see Bourdieu 1986).

 5. The title of the original 1937 German version, Jacques Offenbach und das Paris seiner Zeit (Jacques Offenbach and the Paris of His Time), was translated into French as Jacques Offenbach ou le secret du Second Empire (Jacques Offenbach, or the secret of the Second Empire), which emphasizes that this biography on Offenbach actually depicts the epoch of the Second Empire of France under Napoleon III.

 6. The temporal background of this biography begins from Louis-Philippe's July Monarchy, which was the result of the July Revolution of 1830. Then it passes through Louis-Napoléon (Napoleon III)'s Second French Empire (1852–1870), as the product of the December coup d'état in 1851, which followed the 1848 Revolution and the French Second Republic, and it finally reaches the French Third Republic of Offenbach's later years.

 7. Ko Un is a pen name shortened from Ko Ŭnt'ae, with Ko being his family name and Ŭnt'ae his personal name. As the poet is already well known as Ko Un, this paper follows the conventional arrangement of his name, putting the family name first.

 8. By this is meant from the northern (Puyŏ) to the southern (Mahan) limits of ancient Korea. Translation by Brother Anthony of Taizé and Sang-wha Lee, from their work in progress. Ten Thousand Lives, the 2005 English edition of Maninbo, contains selected poems from Volumes 1 to 10. For poems from later volumes (and those from Vol. 1–10 but not included in the English edition), I use either my own translation or the translation in progress by Brother Anthony of Taizé and Sang-wha Lee (intended for a forthcoming new English edition), with their permission.

 9. The phrase ‘kungkung ŭlŭl' is first found in the Chosŏn-era prophetic book Chŏnggamnok, which foretells the downfall of Chosŏn. Different interpretations of this phrase were put forth in the eighteenth century Chŏnggamnok cases (in which people were tried and sentenced for their activities in connection with this book) and later by the Tonghak (‘Eastern Learning') movement of the late nineteenth century, which regarded it as a protective religious spell based on the configuration of Taiji (the ‘great axial pole', in the sense of ‘Supreme Ultimate', eternal life or completeness). By using this phrase for the sea wind, Ko Un creates a double effect: both as a spell taken from Tonghak, the minjung-based religious social movement, and as an onomatopoeic word for the sea wind.

10. Korean traditional liquor.

11. See Alun Munslow (2007, 2010). Understanding history as narrative representation of the past by the author-historian, Munslow develops the idea of expressionist history, which proposes diverse forms of expression as a narrative mode of historical representation. He also observes a relationship between expressionist history and irony, noting that ‘irony like scepticism is in all its forms a formal structural principle of historical (and all other) narratives. The reason I make this claim is because such texts are (always to some extent) self-contradictory, composed of multiple tropic and emplotment possibilities, can be misread or mis-written and are metaleptic' (Munslow 2010, 86).

12. However, Everist adds that this critique might miss another point of Kracauer's undertaking, i.e. ‘the temptation to treat his book on Offenbach as in part a biographical novel' (Everist 2004, 111).

13. On representation in art and history, see Ankersmit (1988, 214–24).

14. Hwang Chong-yŏn criticizes Maninbo for its reliance on minjung-based nationalism, whose collectivist ideals, he says, leave no room for the individual independence and liberalism necessary to the realization of democracy. He also criticizes Maninbo for reducing the complex identities of minjung (which he sees as an ‘empty signifier') to a national community (see Hwang Chong-yŏn 2004a, 386–410). His article was followed by a spirited debate (see Ha Chŏng-il 2004; Hwang Chong-yŏn 2004b; Han Wŏn'-gyun 2004; Hwang Chong-yŏn and Paek Nak-ch'ŏng 2006, 300–8). Hwang's criticism arises from a rather one-sided understanding of Maninbo, and a failure to appreciate its true scope. He also seems to suffer from preconceived ideas about what he calls ‘minjung-nationalism’, conceived as a combination of ‘minjung-ism’ and ‘nationalism’, and which (along with ‘democracy’) dominated the ideological discourse of the 1980s’ social movement in South Korea. The limitations of this ideology – though conditioned by the situation of the epoch – are visible, for example, in its disregard for gender issues in comparison to class concerns. In view of the diverse female figures portrayed by Maninbo (from lovely girls of the poet's hometown, to women full of life or ferocity, to self-sacrificing activists), a point about gender could be made, but this would carry us too far afield.

15. Depending on the context, the word ‘nation’ can be translated into Korean as minjok (people/ethnos), kungmin (country/people), nara (country) or kukka (state). The word minjok carries connotations related to membership of a common ethnicity, race, and/or cultural tradition. The multiplicity of Korean translations of the word ‘nation’ is due to the fact that the concept of ‘nation’ originated in the West, where it carried the meaning of sovereignty.

16. This former name of Korea was used by Korean people until the foundation of two separate Koreas in 1948, and is still used in North Korea.

17. Present Soyŏnghyang in Yŏn'gil-si (Yánjí City). Its name in those days was Soyŏngja-ch'on in Yŏn'gil-hyŏn (Yánjí Province). In the poem ‘Lee Dong-hui's Wits', we find ‘[…] Soyŏngja Rock / in Kando's Hwaryŏng Province’, and Hwaryŏng (Hélóng) is next to Yŏn'gil.

18. In 1920, the year of Kyŏngsin, the Japanese Empire massacred enormous numbers of Koreans living in Kando with the excuse of mounting a punitive expedition against Korean armed resistance groups. This event is also called the Kando Massacre.

19. Yangban refers to the ruling class or the aristocracy in Chosŏn, based on the Confucian idea of a ‘scholar-bureaucrat’ (sadaebu). The title itself originated from the two rows of tongban (the row of civil functionaries on the eastern side) and sŏban (the row of military functionaries on the western side) which faced the king at court.

20. Sangmin designates Chosŏn's lower classes, in contrast to the aristocratic yangban.

21. Ŭlmi ch'ambyŏn refers to the assassination of Empress Myŏngsŏng, the wife of King Kojong (the 26th king of Chosŏn and later the first Emperor of Korean Empire, Taehan Cheguk), by the Japanese Empire in 1895, the year of Ŭlmi. Considering her as the biggest obstacle to Japan's invasion of Chosŏn, Japan sent sword-bearing assassins, allegedly under the command of the resident minister Miura Gorō, to kill Empress Myŏngsŏng in Kyŏngbok Palace. Her corpse was burnt in order to eliminate the evidence.

22. Wijŏngch'ŏksa is a social movement from the late Chosŏn period which promoted Neo-Confucianism as the only true learning and rejected all other schools of thought, those from the West in particular.

23. Sangnom is a contemptuous appellation of sangmin.

24. One of the seven peaks of a mountain in Chech'ŏn.

25. This is a theological movement from Korean Christianity based on the concept of minjung. It emerged in the 1970s, and developed during the dictatorship of the 1980s.

26. The concept of minjung as the subject of history has been well studied and theoretically systematized in various disciplines like economics, politics, sociology, theology, literature, art and other cultural areas.

27. The original Korean title is ‘Sŏnang-dang', which indicates a shrine to the deity Sŏnang. According to folk belief, this deity protects villages and land.

28. Mosi-kaettŏk and mosi-ttŏk are pieces of grain-cake made from buckwheat, barley flour and other ingredients with pulverized ramie leaves kneaded into them.

29. Kukt'ong was the highest rank of Buddhist priest-officials in the Silla epoch. Chajang (590–658) was a famous Buddhist monk from the chingol, the highest class of the Silla aristocracy next to sŏnggol according to the kolp'um chedo (the bone rank system).

30. Namely the Buddhist temple Hwangnyongsa.

31. A well-known Buddhist monk from sixth-century Paekche.

32. Taeach'an was the fifth grade of Silla's official rank (out of 17). Only chingol people were eligible for this post.

33. In China, Korea and Japan, years were traditionally numbered with era names showing the regnal title of a monarch, and the year of his reign. (In Japan this system is still used.)

34. Chajang received not only the title of kukt'ong but ‘taegukt'ong’ (‘great kukt'ong’), which shows his position in the Silla Dynasty.

35. A famous Silla monk (571∼644) said to have been the teacher of the famous monk Wŏnhyo (617–686).

36. Another famous Silla monk, of unknown dates, associated with Wŏnhyo.

37. ‘Taean’ means ‘great comfort’, ‘calm’, ‘tranquility’ or ‘peace’.

38. Besides those mentioned above, other newly-created or newly-revived art forms included open-air theater (madang-gŭk), song-theater (norae-gŭk) and poetry-theater (si-gŭk). These differ in style from the various types of Western theaters and are also distinguished by their political engagement.

39. ‘Kushirŏng’ in Korean is a mimetic word used to express mumbling or grumbling, hence the old man's nickname.

40. In the original Korean, the poet uses the word ttaenggam, which literally means an unripe astringent persimmon. However, ttaenggam is also used to insult an old man (yŏnggam in Korean) in the expression yŏnggam ttanggam. This phrase can be assumed to have been formed from the rhyme and meter rather than from the meaning itself.

41. Samsil means the descent of Samsin, a deity in charge of blessing babies, childbirth and child-rearing. Sam means ‘amnion’ or ‘pregnancy’ in Korean. Samsin is also called Sansin, Samsin halmŏni (Grandmother Samsin) or Samsŭng halmang.

42. Sumaksae are a kind of roofing tile (kiwa in Korean) used in traditional Korean architecture. Korean roofing tiles consist mainly of amkiwa (female, plain) and sukiwa (male, round). The former is covered by the latter to repel rain more easily, in a coupling called kiwaggol. Sumaksae are used on the end of rows of kiwaggol, i.e. along the edge of the roof. The expression ‘making a mirror from a roofing tile’ is from a Zen Buddhist story about a monk who wetted a roofing tile over and over until it became a mirror in which he saw his true nature reflected.