A History of Korean Literature (review)

180The Journal ofKorean Studies REFERENCES Kim, Cwungsep. Hankwuke kyoyuk uy ihay (Understanding Korean Language Education ). Seoul: Hankwuk munhwasa, 2004. King, Ross. "Korean as a Heritage Language (KHL) vs. Korean as a Foreign Language (KFL) in North America and the Former USSR: Ambiguous Priorities and Insufficient Resources." In Acta Koreana, vol. 1: 27-40. Taegu: Keimyung University , 1998. ---------. Review article: The Korean Language, by Ho-min Sohn. Acta Koreana. Vol. 5, no. 2, 2002: 99-127. -. "Korean Grammar Education for Anglophone Learners: Missionary Beginnings ." In Hankwuke kyoyuklon (Korean language education), ed. by Min Hyensik et al., vol. 2, pp. 237-74. Seoul: International Association of Korean Language Education, forthcoming, 2005. King, Ross, and Jae-Hoon Yeon. Elementary Korean. Rutland, VT: Tuttle Publishing Co., 2000. King, Ross, and Jae-Hoon Yeon, with Insun Lee. Continuing Korean. Rutland, VT: Tuttle Publishing Co., 2002. Lukoff, Fred. "The Changing Student Population of Korean and Its Changing Needs." In Studies in Korean Language andLinguistics, ed. by Nam-Kil Kim, 126-34. Los Angeles: East Asian Study Center, University of Southern California, 1986. Martin, Samuel. A Reference Grammar ofKorean. Rutland, VT and Tokyo: Charles E. Tüttle Company, 1992. Martin, Samuel, and Young-sook Lee. Beginning Korean. Rutland, VT and Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle Company, 1969. Robin, Richard. "Helping Heritage Hares Win the Race." NCLRCLanguage Resource, vol. 6, no. 2, 2002. ---------. "Should We Teach Grammar? (part H)." The Language Resource. 2005. (4 July, 2005). Sohn, Ho-min. The Korean Language. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Sohn, Sung-ock. "The Design of Curriculum for Teaching Korean as a Heritage Language vs. as a Foreign Language." Pp. 19-35 in The Korean Language in America 1: Proceedings ofthe First National Conference on Korean Language Education, ed. Ho-Min Sohn. Honolulu: American Association of Teachers of Korean, 1995. A History of Korean Literature, edited by Peter H. Lee, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003. 654 pp. $95.00 (cloth) Writing an effective review of a nearly 600-page literary history with such broad scope is no mean task, but immeasurably harder are the tasks the book Book Reviews181 sets for itself. It attempts to meet a genuine need in Korean literary studies —the lack of careful, comprehensive, and critical scholarship on literature, history, and criticism. This constitutes a major achievement—ambitious and in many ways successful, though perhaps unevenly. Statedjust before its title page is the book's purpose: "Combining both history and criticism, the study reflects the latest scholarship and offers a systematic account of the development of all genres. . . . This is a major contribution to the field and a study that will stand for many years as the primary resource for studying Korean literature ." Treating the topics of canon-building and ideology are also identified as tasks in the introduction (xiii). This literary history includes the following general outline for its twentyfive chapters: aspects of the Korean language, a brief review of the earliest Korean literature, chapters based on genre and period through late Chosön, p'ansori, folk drama, and literary criticism. Finally, the twentieth century is divided into eight chapters based on writers' genre, period, and gender; there is also a chapter on North Korean literature. Contributors include Ho-Min Sohn, Kim Chöngnan, Kim Hunggyu, Peter H. Lee, Carolyn So, Kwön Yöngmin, and Ch'oe Yun. Responsible for most of this volume, Peter H. Lee has written the introduction as well as thirteen of the twenty-five chapters. He co-wrote an additional two. Kim Hunggyu has contributed four and co-written one; Kwön Yöngmin has written two. A glossary of terms and names is included, as well as a select list for further reading. Impressive in scope, the book provides a solid survey of most representative texts for each period and genre. Although the introduction notes that the material on the premodern period is given less attention than the modern, about 60 percent of the work treats the premodern. (Lamentably, chapter 17, on "Literary Criticism," falls into the latter category and does not deal with critical work after the mid-nineteenth century.) Overall, the material through late Chosön is quite strong, if weighted toward verse, possibly to reflect...