Korean poetry

Korean poetry is poetry performed or written in the Korean language or by Korean people. Traditional Korean poetry is often sung in performance. Until the 20th century, much of Korean poetry was written in Hanja and later Hangul.

The performance of oral songs in the religious life of the ancient Korean people is vivildy recorded in Chinese dynastic histories. At state assemblies the chief ritualist would tell the story of the divine origin of the founder, as evinced by foundation myths, and his extraordinary deeds in war and peace. Recited narrative was interspersed with primal songs (norae) that not only welcomed, entertained, and sent off gods and spirits. Thus orality and performance were significant features of vernacular poetry in ancient Korea.

A famous surviving example dates to 17 BC, Yuri's Song of Yellow Birds (Hwangjoga, 황조가/黃鳥歌). Some later Korean poetry followed the style of Tang lyric poetry such as the shi poetry form. Notable Korean poetry began to flourish during the Goryeo period (starting in 935). Collections were rarely printed.

Sijo, Korea's favorite poetic genre, is often traced to seonbi scholars of the 11th century, but its roots, too, are in those earlier forms. The earliest surviving poem of the sijo genre is from the 4th century. Its greatest flowering occurred in the 16th and 17th centuries under the Joseon Dynasty.

Hyangga poetry refers to vernacular Korean poetry which transcribed Korean sounds using Hanja (similar to the idu system, the hyangga style of transcription is called hyangch'al) and is characteristic of the literature of Unified Silla. It is one of the first uniquely Korean forms of poetry. The Goryeo period Samguk Yusa contains 14 poems that have been preserved to the present day. These are thought to have been taken by Ilyon (compiler of Samguk Yusa) from an anthology called the Samdaemok(삼대목/三代目) which was completed during the Shilla period, in 888 (according to Samguk Sagi), but is no longer extant today. This lost anthology is thought to have contained approximately 1,000 hyangga. Eleven poems from the later Goryeo Dynasty Gyunyeojeon (균여전/均如傳), characterized by the same style, have also been preserved.

...
Wikipedia