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IKS Lecture: Young-mee Cho, "Korean Songs: From Sijo to K-Pop"

18th century painting of sijo performers
February 17, 2021
4:00 pm - 5:30 pm
Online (Registration Required)

The Institute for Korean Studies presents:

Korean Songs: From Sijo to K-Pop

Young-mee Cho
Rutgers University

Flyer: Cho Flyer [PDF]

Abstract:  Professor Cho discusses one of the most prominent and enduring poetic forms of traditional Korea, sijo, a three-line verse form written to be performed in a musical setting, emerged in the latter part of the Koryŏ dynasty (918-1392), flourished through the Chosŏn dynasty (1392-1910).  After chronicling the rise of this distinctive literary/musical genre, I will then explore its developmental into the 18th century sasŏl sijo as a narrative form and modern sijo as written both in Korean and English. Finally, I will examine the 20th century emergence of song lyrics as a new literary genre in the context of musical performance: art songs based on poems at one end and Korean popular music (yuhaengga & K-Pop) at the other.