Page:The passing of Korea.djvu/407

 "The Adventures of Kyong-op." Coming down to more modern times, we might mention the novel of Yi Mun-jong, written about 1760, and bearing the Aristophanean title of " The Frogs." Then there were " The Praise of Virtue and Righteousness," " Nine Men's Dreams," " A Dream at Keum-san Monastery," " The Adventures of Yi Ha-ryong," " The Golden Jewel," " The Story of a Clever Woman," " The Adventures of Sir Rabbit " and many others.

While many of these novels place the scene of the story in Korea, others go far afield, China being a favourite setting for many purely Korean stories. In this the Koreans have but followed the example of writers in other lands,, as the works of Bulwer Lytton, Kingsley, Scott and a host of others bear witness.

These that we have mentioned are written in Chinese characters, but Korea is also filled with fiction written only in the native character. Nominally these tales are despised by the literary class, which forms a small fraction of the people, but in reality there are very few even of this class who are not thoroughly conversant with the contents of these novels. They are on sale in every bookstore in the country, and in Seoul alone there are several circulating libraries where novels both in Chinese and in pure Korean are found by the hundreds. Many, in fact most, of these novels are anonymous, their character being such that they would hardly reflect credit upon their writers. And yet, however discreditable they may be, they are a true mirror of the morals of Korea to-day.

The customs which prevail in Korea, as in every other Oriental country, make it out of the question for anyone to produce a " love story " in our sense of the term ; but as the relations of the sexes, here as elsewhere, are of absorbing interest, we find some explanation of the salacious character of many Korean novels. Just as the names of Aspasia and other hctairai play such an important part in a certain class of Greek literature, so the kisang, or dancing-girl, trips through the pages of Korean fiction.