Windows on Jung Ji Yong

Within Kim Ki-rim’s portal and the portrayal of glass one may catch a glimpse of the early Korean development of glass as a poetic tool. It “clouds”, is “cracked” and becomes “wet with tears” as the poet gazes beyond its flaws throughout the night to see something more revealed “gazing at shooting stars”. Herein the sense of the window as it relates to the poet’s voice in the early modern era gleans through. This uniqueness sheds light on the view of Korea as a captive in the politics of the East Asian World Order and its forced occupation by the Japanese. Living in this poor country amid scarce resources, glass was surely rare and undoubtedly impure, leaving an opaque and blurred vision of the outside. Like Kim, another of the “circle of nine” (ku inhoe), Jung Ji Yong looked often at life in Korea’s haggard land through such misty glass.

As one of the first modern poets who positively wished to “continue to be a poet beyond his 25th year” (Yu JongHo, The ban on poets…) however, Jung Ji Yong looked at life through a slightly different pane than others, it grew with him and became integral to his self-preservation; a source of both protection and consolation. The portal he considers is one not limited to views and perceptions, but an entity to be interacted with and accorded life, possibly a soul. While such speculations might easily overstep the intentions of the poet, we must yet look beyond the poet’s words to see his mind at work. This is especially necessary considering the period of ruthless suppression of political radicalism promulgated by the imperial “cultural policy” (bunka seiji) of the Japanese.

As he reaches his 25th year, his rest came softly. In 슬픈기차- Melancholy Train, Jung occupies his mind with the passing scenery of Japan. Distant from his homeland in both mind and body on his journey, his hope flies before him with the train’s window a portal home.

나는 언제든지 슬프기는 슬프나마 마음만은 가벼워 나는 차창에 기댄 대로 휘파람이나 날리자.

“At ease against the window” with the familiar color of yellow cabbage to comfort him, his adventure spreads out before him with a whistle. Lulled by the movement of the train in another moment of ease his lean against the window:

나는 차창에 기댄 대로 옥토끼처럼 고마운 잠이나 들자.

His thankful slumber is tempered by the knowledge that he is so far from home that he becomes like the jade hare that inhabits the distant moon. Though the poem is touched with the sadness of the Japanese treatment of Koreans as inferior… as little boys, and though they have forced their names to be changed to Japanese names,

나는 아들이 아닌 것을, 웃수염 자리 잡혀가는, 어린 아들이 버얼써 아닌 것을. 나는 유리쪽에 갑갑한 입김을 비추어 내가 제일 좋아하는 이름이나 그시며 가 자.

the view through the window remains hopeful. Jung ponders the passing of puffs of breath on the window and resolves to make the best of the change.

Only three years later, the comfort would fade, as would the window’s depiction of opportunity and hope. In 유리창1 we see the withdrawal of Jung from the youthful exuberance and spiritual innocence of the younger poet. In the death of his child, lies the impetus for his fall from the grace of youth. The Window, one of his greatest poems encompasses his transition. 유리(琉璃)에 차고 슬픈 것이 어른거린다. With the first line he sets the mood. You can see his weariness in the clouds of breath overtaking the glass. 열없이 붙어 서서 입김을 흐리우니He wipes the steam away only to find the black night. The “drenched stars, agleam are set like jewels,” those of the window’s condensation and the tears of loss. He says 물먹은 별이, 반짝 보석처럼 박힌다. The poem ends with the epitaph to his son who has flown away.

A year later the poet returned to the window that now separated him from his son, and his innocence. In 유리창 2 the window meets his fever as he peers out into the sadness of the pitch black of the night. The night, a reflection of the blackness within and the fever rising within his soul: 나는 목이마르다.// 또, 가까이가유리를 입으로 쫏다. “My throat dry.” He returns to the window and presses his lips against its cool pane. Though the line, 아아, 항 안에 든 금붕어처럼 갑갑하다 indicates a stifling of the fish within, one might ask: is the goldfish stifled by the glass surrounding him or protected by it? The answer is both, but the spirit that can project beyond its realm must be at the same time troubled and comforted. 별도 없다, 물도없다, 휘파람 부는밤. Later, “starless and waterless the whistling night” of winter makes the little window shiver to “beat and blister the naked body” (of the window or the man?).

In the lines of the poem that follow we see the window becoming a portal between the worlds of now and the hereafter.

나는 열이 오른다. 뺨은 차라리 연정스레히 유리에 부빈다, 차디찬 입맞춤을 마신다. 쓰라리, 알연히, 그싯는 음향-------- 머언꽃! 도회에는 고운화재가오른다.

The poet enters a state of ecstasy as his fever rises. He touches his cheek against the pane with a tender passion presumably for the lost child he wishes to caress. Only the glass can calm his fever as he nuzzles it to “drink a cold kiss.” In the distance, he sees the spark of hope and the distant fire of heaven.

In both poems entitled 유리창 the window developed into a sort of panacea. In the moment it cures his fever and his desire to see the outside world, but it protects him from it as well while its cloudiness allows him to view the world awry, only as a true poet could. It also gives him a view of the passage to heaven in his fever of anguish. Jung’s grief has skewed his perception of the world and as he looks out from the safety of the poet’s den, he realizes that he will never look again at nature or the world through the untainted eyes of youth. He gazes here and for his future through the clarity of reality and realizes the true nature of the window in all its impurity.

“My eyes waver / I lean and lean / yet sleep never comes” writes Jung at 30 in 기차(汽車) . The window, for him, has lost its hope and its comforting panacea yet remains in his mind. Jung returns to the idea of the train as a portal and a harbinger of distance from the utopia of the hometown, which he sees as undisturbed by the worry and pain of life, death… and the Japanese. The rhythmic motion of the train could no longer settle his soul. He leans on the window and bears his yearning for the past and the innocence he could not recapture.

In 1940, “Catholic Church” which follows a period of teaching and spiritual growth Jung returns to the window. He seems to be both in awe of the window and nervous. Is he pondering his own death? He approaches without the fever of his youth and having recovered from the loss of his son. “Feverless I walk to the window and stand silently.” He says as if approaching a gate to another place. “My forehead cooled by the frosted glass.” Again it is able to soothe and heal his wounds, yet it holds a bit of worry as he becomes conscious of “chewing the insipid pencil tip, a harsh taste.” It was the bitter taste of life, one that left him always on the wrong side of the window.

In the end Jung Ji Yong could see the world evolving around him and the adventurers coming and going; he could see the sadness all around and the pain and the suffering; he could see the beauty and the joy; he could even see up to the distant heaven where his beloved had gone; and he could recall and write about it all; but he could do nothing to affect it. He was truly trapped behind a window of society and one of living and one of action, just as Korea was trapped. The window, as a central figure in Jung’s poetry recurred and developed with his life but only in the end did he begin to discover the meaning of its tears.

The poems in Korean