essay

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Dohun Kim (Seoul National University)

Note: Please do not copy, cite, or circulate the paper.

Poetry as Ghost: Deconstructing Poetry in Unyŏng-jŏn

At its most basic level, the story of Unyŏng is, at the same time, a ghost story and a

love story. But this ghost/love story narrative is punctuated by verse and, more bizarrely,

discussions regarding the judgement of poetry. This essay will argue that the insertion of

these poems and the discussions which ensue is far from accidental; within the narrative of

Unyong-jon is a critique of poetry itself. The closeness between the descriptions of poetry

and the circumstances of the palace women in particular ties together the fates of the

producers of poems and their product. Poetry, like Unyŏng, is akin to a ghost in the story,

operating on the edges of existence. This means the tragedy which unfolds is as much a

tragedy of poetry as much as a tragedy of Unyŏng.

At the heart of the nature of poetry in the story is a contradiction. Poetry, on the one

hand, is supposed to be free from the imperfections of our mutable world, complete without

the forces which corrupt it. It is this which means the Grand Prince believes “all of the

talented men of this world must move to a tranquil place, and only after they study in such a

locale are they able to achieve success” 1 and Sŏng Sammun praises the palace ladies’ poems

because “there is not even a small trace of the mundane world” 2 in them. But at the same time,

the Grand Prince declares that “as poems are what one has in one’s mind, they are not

1 Anonymous, Unyŏng-Jŏn: A Love Affair at the Royal Palace of Chosŏn Korea, trans.

Michael J. Pettid (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009), 68.

2 Ibid., 75.

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something that can be covered or hidden” 3 despite the fact that what one has in their mind are

thoughts of the mundane world like lust, yearning, and home. The story reveals the duality of

poetry in its critique—that it must be at once worldly and otherworldly, immediate and

transcendental.

It is clear from the discussions of poetry in the story that though the qualities of poetry

are contradictory, they cannot be separated. When the Grand Prince and Kim chinsa are

discussing the merits and demerits of certain poets, the younger man’s rebuttal to his superior

who says that Du Fu is the greatest poet, is that while Du Fu might have mastered the literary

styles corresponding to poetic form, his work is “deficient for expressing passions and

emotions” 4 —a charge the Grand Prince later accepts. Within this esoteric debate is the idea

that a perfect form is a perfect conciliation of the contradictory elements of form and passion,

of refinement and emotional power. To separate one from the other is to destroy a poem.

This contradictory property of poetry is placed not as distinct from the main narrative

but in a direct relationship with it for both Kim chinsa and Unyŏng are depicted with much

the same language that poetry is discussed in the story. The reader learns that “Unyŏng’s face

and carriage are not those of a person of this world” 5 which granted her the favour of the

Grand Prince and that the shaman saw “the unworldliness of the chinsa’s face.” 6 But Unyŏng

and Kim chinsa, like the poems they write, cannot be purely ethereal, god-like beings but are

intimately tied to the mortal world. Unyŏng’s unworldly appearance has been decaying out of

desire for the chinsa: “her slender waist had become haggard, and her voice thread-thin as if

3 Ibid., 73.

4 Ibid., 80.

5 Ibid., 90.

6 Ibid., 83.

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nothing at all was coming out of her mouth.” 7 The chinsa too is described in the same period

of the story by the slave T’ŭk as “not long for this world” 8 on account of his emaciated

appearance. Like poetry, Unyŏng and Kim chinsa are incurably both otherworldly and human.

In this sense, the fate of poetry and the lovers are tied together. If Unyŏng and Kim chinsa are

liminal figures who operate on the borders of life and death, this world and the next—

qualities which both anticipate and reinforce their later transformations into ghosts—poetry,

too, operates on the same border.

It is not just Unyŏng and Kim chinsa who have deep connections with poetry but all

the other producers of poems in the story, namely the palace women. These women, from an

early age, were removed from society to turn their sole focus on poetry under the instruction

of the Grand Prince. Their only company was themselves because the punishment for making

contact with the outside world was death. These women themselves are invisible to the

outside world; they are only visible indirectly through their poetry. Sŏng Sammun, therefore,

can guess that “you [the Grand Prince] have undoubtedly fostered ten heavenly fairies at this

palace.” 9 Poetry is the liminal force between the palace women and the outside world and the

reason why is precisely because of its ghost-like ambiguity. If poetry were more certain, the

Grand Prince would not show his guests the palace women’s poems. Yet, it is because poetry

reveals but also hides that the Grand Prince consents to the display of the palace women’s

poems.

But if poetry serves a liberating function when it allows the invisible palace women to

become at least partially visible, the story also reveals the limitations—and violence—of the

poetic mode. In an ironic turn from the Grand Prince’s original, benevolent intention that

7 Ibid., 91.

8 Ibid., 97.

9 Ibid., 75.

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because “talent comes down from the heavens,” 10

women should have equal opportunity to

study poetry as men, the palace women have become rendered non-existent save their poetry.

In other words, instead of liberating the palace women from a society of gender inequality,

their learning of poetry reinforced it with a vengeance. To render the palace women obsolete,

their presence confined to the shadows, is an act of violence towards them—of which poetry

is as culpable as the Grand Prince. For the Grand Prince acts the way he does for the sake of

poetry; his belief that poetry needs to be free from the disturbances and distractions of the

mundane world causes him to remove the palace women from society. In this way, the

contradiction in poetry manifests itself in the suppression of the palace women; poetry itself

is unstable as an entity. The Grand Prince’s belief in the noble pursuit of poetry with the

power to transcend gender norms ends in tragic failure.

This fundamental link between the theme of poetry and the narrative mean that the

tragedy which unfolds at the end of the story cannot be taken as just a tragedy on the level of

just the characters, but a tragedy of poetry itself also. The instability of poetry, caused by its

latent contradictions, means that poetry cannot realise the lofty ambitions of the Grand Prince

to transform society. It is condemned, like Unyŏng and Kim chinsa, to be a ghost-like

presence in between two worlds; it is beautiful and alluring, but ultimately dead and impotent.

This is seen in the outermost frame of the story which depicts the Grand Prince’s palace after

historical events have ravaged it of its splendour. But it is not just historical events which

ravaged it, but metaphorical events. The “drinking parties, groups of archers, poets and artists,

or singing boys and flute-playing boys” who go up to the palace “for pleasure” 11

are parodies

of the serious, learned men who used to reside there: “the men of letters and great

10

Ibid., 69.

11 Ibid., 65.

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calligraphers of the day.” 12

It is a visual reminder of the failure and decline of poetry. When

Scholar Yu, the literatus, upon hearing Unyŏng’s story lay “sad and dejected, at a rock’s

edge,” 13

he mourns not only her death but the death of poetry also. He who once wished to

join the hedonists up the mountain understands its futility.

Despite the best intended beliefs of the Grand Prince, the perfect conciliation of the

contradictory elements of poetry is impossible in the story; the contradiction is too vast, the

notion of poetry too tenuous. The result is that poetry itself becomes a ghost, not fully one

thing or another, a mere spectre of potential in the same way the lovers in turn become ghosts.

But unlike the lovers who disappear at the end of the story, poetry remains with us—forever

inspiring, forever haunting.

12

Ibid., 68.

13 Ibid., 112.