Customer Reviews

Early Korean Literature

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As an indulgent scholar of Korean history and culture, I greatly appreciate Dr. McCann's masterful work in compiling and weaving this selection of early Korean literature into an English-language printed text. Dr. McCann includes some of the keystone pieces of Korean literary history, including an extract from the Samguk sagi (The History of the Three Kingdoms), and also the most commonly known early Korean myth, the Tangun story, as drawn from the Samguk yusa (Remnants of the Three Kingdoms). This is the most complete version of the Tangun story I have seen. Dr. McCann's insightful commentaries and introductions on the dozens of other selections from prose to literary debates reveal his academic career as a professor of Korean literature, much to the benefit of the readers. He schools the uninformed reader on the Korean sijo and kasa vernacular verse forms, and follows the concise lesson with several beautiful examples of these poems.

I highly recommend this book for college students majoring in world literature, Asian/Korean literature, Korean studies, Asian history, or political science with an Asian focus. I would recommend this text for inclusion in high school and public libraries, as well as for high school students showing an interest in foreign literature and history.