Midang

Born	(1915-05-08)May 8, 1915
Died	December 24, 2000(2000-12-24) (aged 85)
Language	Korean
Nationality	South Korean
Ethnicity	Korean
Citizenship	South Korean

Seo Jeong-ju
Hangul	서정주
Hanja	徐廷柱
Revised Romanization	Seo Jeong-ju
McCune–Reischauer	Sŏ Chŏng-ju
Pen name
Hangul	미당
Hanja	未堂
Revised Romanization	Midang
McCune–Reischauer	Midang

Seo Jeong-ju (May 18, 1915 – December 24, 2000) was a Korean poet and university professor who wrote under the pen name Midang (lit. "not yet fully grown"). He is widely considered as one of the best poets in twentieth-century Korean literature and was nominated five times for the Nobel Prize in literature.

Seo Jeong-ju was born in Gochang County, North Jeolla Province, and received his primary education in Seodang village until 1924. The traditional stories told him by his grandmother, his primary education and his youthful experiences influenced his literary style. He went to Jung-Ang Buddhist College, but he dropped out of school in 1936 after being involved in a demonstration. In 1936, his poem, Byuk (Wall), was published in the The Dong-a Ilbo newspaper. He became a pro-Japanese activist, and wrote various poems in praise of Japanese Imperialism in the late colonial period.

After the independence of Korea, he worked as a professor of literature at Dongguk University and others from 1959 to 1979. Since his wife's death in October 2000, he barely ate or drank anything besides beer and died on December 24, 2000.

Seo Jeong-ju's early works were modernistic and also surrealistic, influenced mostly by foreign literature. His first collection of poems, Wha-Sa Jip (Flower snake), was published in 1941. The book explores humanity's feelings of guilt and folklore. His poem Jahwasang (Portrait) describes a young poet whose desire to learn was interrupted by Imperial Japan in 1910. However, Midang wrote Japanophilic literature for the newspaper Mail Ilbo from 1942 to 1944 under the Japanese penname, Datsushiro Shizuo (達城靜雄^?).

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