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Hyangga (Korean: 향가; Hanja: 鄕歌) were poems written using Chinese characters in a system known as hyangchal during the Unified Silla and early Goryeo periods of Korean history. Only a few have survived: 14 in the Samguk yusa (late 6th to 9th centuries) and 11 by the monk Kyunyeo (10th century).

Features

Written using Hanja in a system known as hyangchal the hyangga are believed to have been first written in the Goryeo period, as the style was already beginning to fade. A collection of hyangga known as the Samdaemok (삼대목; 三代目) was compiled in the late 9th century by Wihong, the prime minister of Queen Jinseong of Silla, and the monk Taegu-Hwasang, but was since lost. The surviving hyangga consist of 14 recorded in the Samguk Yusa and 11 in the Gyunyeojeon by Kyunyeo.

The name hyangga is formed from the character for "back-country" or "rural village" (鄕) – which was often used by the Silla people to describe their nation, specifically to distinguish these distinctly Silla poems from "pure" Chinese literature – and the character for "song" (歌). These poems are accordingly sometimes known as "Silla songs."

Eighteen of the 25 surviving hyangga reflect Buddhist themes. Another dominant theme was death. Many of the poems are eulogies to monks, to warriors, and to family members — in one case, a sister. The Silla period, especially before unification in 668, was a time of warfare; the hyangga capture the sorrow of mourning for the dead while Buddhism provided answers about where the dead go and the afterlife.

Structure

The structure of hyangga is not completely understood. The only contemporaneous reference is a comment by Hyŏngnyŏn Chŏng, the compiler of Gyunyeo's biography that "their poetry is written in Chinese in penta- and heptasyllabic lines, our songs are written in the vernacular in three gu and six myeong". What is meant by "three gu and six myeong" remains unresolved; Peter H. Lee interprets it as "three-line stanzas of six phrases each", while Alexander Vovin translates it more literally as "three stanzas, six names".

Since the work of linguist Shinpei Ogura in the 1920s, surviving hyangga have traditionally been classified into one of three forms: a single-quatrain form used in folk songs; an intermediate two-quatrain form; and a ten-line form of two quatrains and a concluding couplet, the most fully developed form of hyangga. This classification has been questioned in Korean scholarship since the 1980s, and a new hypothesis, proposed by Kim Sung-kyu in 2016, suggests that there were really only two forms of hyangga: a single-quatrain form and a two-tercet form. Kim interprets two consecutive lines of the ten-line form as one long line with a caesura, and the so-called "concluding" couplet of the ten-line hyangga to be a refrain for each of the stanzas, thus forming two tercets with shared final lines. Kim further argues that apparently eight-line forms are the result of a line being lost during transmission.

The two hypotheses are illustrated below with the ten-line work Jemangmaega, written for the funeral of the poet's sister.

Example

A typical hyangga is "The Ode for Life Eternal" (or, perhaps, "The Ode for Nirvana"), a song that calls upon the Moon to convey the supplicant's prayer to the Western paradise, the home of Amita (or Amitabha, the Buddha of the Western Pure Land Sukhavati). The poem's authorship is somewhat unclear; it was either written by a monk named Gwangdeok (Korean: 광덕; Hanja: 廣德]) or, one source says, the monk's wife.

List

Hyangga in the Samguk yusa

Title	English	Author	Date	Graphs	Lines	Location	Text
Hyeseong ga	Song of a Comet	Master Yungcheon	c. 594	83	10	2:228	혜성가
Seodong yo	Song of Seodong	King Mu of Baekje	c. 600	25	4	2:98	서동요
Pung yo	Ode to Yangji	anonymous	c. 635	26	4	4:187–188	풍요
Won wangsaeng ga	Prayer to Amitāyus / Ode for Life Eternal	Gwangdeok or his wife	c. 661–681	77	10	5:220	원왕생가
Mo Jukjilang ga	Ode to Knight Jukji	Deugo	c. 692–702	60	8	2:76–78	모죽지랑가
Heonhwa ga	Dedication of the Flower	an old herdsman	c. 702–737	34	4	2:79	헌화가
Won ga	Regret	Sinchung	c. 737	56	8	5:232–233	원가
Chan Gipalang ga	Ode to Knight Gipa	Master Chungdam	c. 742–765	71	10	2:80–81	찬기파랑가
Dosol ga	Song of Tuṣita Heaven	Master Weolmyeong	c. 760	37	4	5:222	도솔가
Je mangmae ga	Requiem for the Dead Sister	Master Weolmyeong	c. 762–765	75	10	2:79–80	제망매가
Do Cheonsu Gwaneum ga	Hymn to the Thousand-Eyed Sound Observer	Huimyeong	c. 762–765	81	10	3:158–159	도천수관음가
Anmin ga	Statesmanship	Master Chungdam	c. 765	98	10	2:79–80	안민가
Ujeog ga	Meeting with Bandits	Master Yeonghae	c. 785–798	75	10	5:235	우적가
Cheoyong ga	Song of Cheoyong	Cheoyong	c. 879	61	8	2:88–89	처용가

The 11 hyangga composed by Kyunyeo (923–973) are:

1. Yekyeong Jebul ga 예경제불가
2. Chingchan Yorae ga 칭찬여래가
3. Gwangsu Gongyang ga 광수공양가
4. Chamhoe Opjang ga 참회업장가
5. Suhui Kongdeok ga 수희공덕가
6. Cheongjeon Beopyun ga 청전법륜가
7. Cheongbul Juse ga 청불왕생가
8. Sangsun Bulhak ga 상수불학가
9. Hangsun Jungsaeng ga 항순중생가
10. Bogae Hoehyang ga 보현회향가
11. Chonggyeol Mujin ga 총결무진가

See also

• Sijo
• Gasa (poetry)
• Korean literature

Notes

1. Also called Cheonsudaebiga (천수대비가; 千手大悲歌).
2. A woman who lived in Hangi-ri, Gyeongju. The woman composed the hyangga while praying to Cheonsugwaneum, a Guanyin with a thousand hands and eyes, at Bunhwangsa temple on behalf of her blind five-year old son; it is said that, as a result of this endeavour, her son eventually regained his sight.

References

Citations

1. ^ Lee & Ramsey 2011, p. 57.
2. Lee P. 2003, p. 68.
3. Lee P. 2003, p. 83.
4. ^ Vovin 2017, p. 17.
5. ^ Lee P. 2003, p. 69.
6. Sung 1988, pp. 157–158.
7. Sung 1988, pp. 157–163.
8. Kim S. 2016, p. 194.
9. Kim S. 2016, pp. 183–193.
10. Kim S. 2016, pp. 194–203.
11. The translation is from the Korean of Sung 2006: "生死路는 / 이에 있으매 두려워서 / '나는 간다' 말도 / 못다(또는 못) 이르고 간 것이오? / 날가을 이른 바람에 / 여기저기에 떠서 질 잎같이 / 한 가지에 나고도 / 가는 곳 모르는구나! / 아아! 彌陀刹에서 만날 나를 / (그대는) 길 닦아 기다릴 것이오." Sung 2006, p. 282
12. (in Korean)Several examples of Hwangga Archived 2011-10-02 at the Wayback Machine
13. ^ Koo 1999, pp. 198–199.
14. Lee P. 2003, p. 74.
15. Lee P. 2003, pp. 70–71.
16. ^ Lee P. 2003, p. 71.
17. Lee P. 2003, pp. 74–75.
18. Lee P. 2003, p. 72.
19. Lee P. 2003, pp. 72–73.
20. Lee P. 2003, pp. 77–78.
21. Lee P. 2003, pp. 71–72.
22. Lee P. 2003, pp. 75, 77.
23. Lee P. 2003, p. 79.
24. ^ "희명". Encyclopedia of Korean Culture.
25. Lee P. 2003, pp. 78–79.
26. Lee P. 2003, pp. 79–81.
27. Lee P. 2003, pp. 73–74.
28. Koo (1999), p. 200.

Bibliography

• Kim, Seong-kyu (September 2016). "향가의 구성 형식에 대한 새로운 해석 (A New Approach to the form of Hyangga)". 국어국문학 (Korean Language and Literature). 176. 국어국문학회 (Society of Korean Language and Literature): 177–208. Retrieved September 1, 2019.
• Koo, Hung Seo (1999). "Teaching Classical Korean literature: HYANG'GA 鄕歌". The Korean Language in America. 3: 193–208. JSTOR 42922241.
• Lee, Peter H. (December 18, 2003). "Chapter 3: Hyangga". In Lee, Peter H. (ed.). A History of Korean Literature. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. pp. 66–87. ISBN 978-1-139-44086-8.
• Lee, Ki-Moon; Ramsey, S. Robert (2011). A History of the Korean Language. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-139-49448-9.
• Sung, Ho-kyung (June 1988). "향가 연구의 함정과 그 극복 방안 (The Pitfalls of Hyangga Studies and How to Overcome Them)". 국어국문학 (Korean Language and Literature). 99. 국어국문학회 (Society of Korean Language and Literature): 153–163. Retrieved August 23, 2019.
• Sung, Ho-kyung (September 2006). "<제망매가(祭亡妹歌)>의 시세계" [The Poetic World of Jemangmaega]. 국어국문학 (Korean Language and Literature). 143. 국어국문학회 (Society of Korean Language and Literature): 273–304. Retrieved September 1, 2019.
• Vovin, Alexander (March 23, 2017). Man'yōshū (Book 1): A New English Translation Containing the Original Text, Kana Transliteration, Romanization, Glossing and Commentary. BRILL. ISBN 978-9-0043-4670-3.

External links

• Hyangga — World History Encyclopedia
• In Korean language online encyclopedias:
  • Doosan Encyclopedia (Naver)
  • Korean language Britannica (Empas)
  • Encyclopedia of Korean Culture (Empas)
  • Pascal World Encyclopedia (Nate)

• Korean poetry
• Korean literature