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Books by Dennis Wuerthner

University of Hawai'i Press, 2024

Poems and Stories for Overcoming Idleness is the first complete translation in any Western langua... more Poems and Stories for Overcoming Idleness is the first complete translation in any Western language of P’ahan chip, the earliest Korean work of sihwa (C. shihua; “remarks on poetry”) and one of the oldest extant Korean sources. The collection was written and compiled by Yi Illo (1152–1220) during the mid-Koryǒ dynasty (918–1392). P’ahan chip features poetry composed in Literary Chinese (the scriptura franca of the premodern East Asian “Sinographic Sphere”) by the author and his friends, which included such literary greats as Im Ch’un (dates unknown) and O Sejae (1133–?). P’ahan chip also contains the work of other writers of diverse backgrounds: Chinese master poets, famous Confucian literati, eminent Buddhist masters, erudite Daoist hermits, Koryŏ kings—as well as long-forgotten lower-level officials, unemployed intellectuals, and rural scholars. The verse compositions are embedded in short narratives by Yi that provide context for the poems. In accordance with the guidelines of the sihwa-genre, these narratives focus primarily on matters relating to poetry while touching on a wide array of subjects such as Korean history and customs; the court and government institutions; official procedures and festivals; Koryǒ foreign-policy and diplomacy; books and the circulation of knowledge; calligraphy and painting; Confucian, Daoist, and Buddhist thought; the role of women; and scenic spots and famous buildings.

The book opens with an extensive introduction by translator Dennis Wuerthner on Yi Illo and P’ahan chip set against the backdrop of literary and historical developments in Korea and sino-centric East Asia and vital issues relating to Koryŏ politics, society, and culture. Wuerthner’s comprehensive, thought-provoking study is followed by a copiously annotated translation of this important Korean classic.

ISBN-13: 9780824897246

University of Hawai'i Press, 2020

One of the most important and celebrated works of premodern Korean prose fiction, Kŭmo sinhwa (Ne... more One of the most important and celebrated works of premodern Korean prose fiction, Kŭmo sinhwa (New Tales of the Golden Turtle) is a collection of five tales of the strange artfully written in literary Chinese by Kim Sisŭp (1435–1493). Kim was a major intellectual and poet of the early Chosŏn dynasty (1392–1897), and this book is widely recognized as marking the beginning of classical fiction in Korea.

The present volume features an extensive study of Kim and the Kŭmo sinhwa, followed by a copiously annotated, complete English translation of the tales from the oldest extant edition. The translation captures the vivaciousness of the original, while the annotations reveal the work’s complexity, unraveling the deep and diverse intertextual connections between the Kŭmo sinhwa and preceding works of Chinese and Korean literature and philosophy. The Kŭmo sinhwa can thus be read and appreciated as a hybrid work that is both distinctly Korean and Sino-centric East Asian. A translator’s introduction discusses this hybridity in detail, as well as the unusual life and tumultuous times of Kim Sisŭp; the Kŭmo sinhwa’s creation and its translation and transformation in early modern Japan and twentieth-century (especially North) Korea and beyond; and its characteristics as a work of dissent.

Tales of the Strange by a Korean Confucian Monk will be welcomed by Korean and East Asian studies scholars and students, yet the body of the work—stories of strange affairs, fantastic realms, seductive ghosts, and majestic but eerie beings from the netherworld—will be enjoyed by academics and non-specialist readers alike.

Peter Lang, 2017.

This case study deals with late Chosŏn dynasty works of narrative fiction modelled after Kuunmong... more This case study deals with late Chosŏn dynasty works of narrative fiction modelled after Kuunmong (A Dream of Nine Clouds) by Kim Manjung (1637-1692). The focus lies on a novel extant in two manuscripts: Sinjŭng Kuullu (Revised augmented edition of the Nine Cloud Tower) and Sinjŭng chaeja Kuun’gi (Revised augmented caizi edition of the Story of Nine Clouds), short Kuullu/Kuun’gi. While this study specifically discusses late premodern hypertexts of Kuunmong, it is also concerned with a set of broader questions regarding the diffusion, circulation, reception, and creative transformation of literary products of different languages on the eve of modernity in Sino-centric East Asia.

Papers by Dennis Wuerthner

BRILL eBooks, May 18, 2023

The Review of Korean Studies, 2023

Against the backdrop of different texts from the collected writings of Kim Sisǔp (dharma-name Sǒl... more Against the backdrop of different texts from the collected writings of Kim
Sisǔp (dharma-name Sǒlcham), this article offers an against-the-grain reading of Kim’s famous collection of strange tales Kǔmo sinhwa (New Tales of the Golden Turtle). It is hypothesized that Kim’s life as well as his fictional and nonfictional literature can be viewed in the tradition of earlier Chinese and Korean anti-Buddhist Neo-Confucian thinkers such as Cheng Hao, Zhu Xi, or Chǒng Tojǒn. Through close-reading and by discussing such issues as funerary rites, burial practices, “unhappy” Confucians, and the persuasive power of storytelling, the author aims to show that Kǔmo sinhwa may be understood as a piece of narrative anti-religious propaganda-fiction meant to dissuade a specific 1460s younger Korean Neo-Confucian readership from turning toward seemingly soothing religion, and as an agenda-driven work designed to thwart a revival of Buddhism on the state level.

Korean Literature Now, Vol.36, No. 6, 2017.

Sungkyun Journal of East Asian Studies, Vol. 12, No.2, October 2012, 165-187.

The Kŭmo sinhwa by Kim Sisŭp is today regarded as one of the major cornerstones of Korean literat... more The Kŭmo sinhwa by Kim Sisŭp is today regarded as one of the major cornerstones of Korean literature. However, leading intellectuals of Korean colonial modernity like Ch’oe Namsŏn and Kim T’aejun criticized the work for its close resemblance to the Jiandeng xinhua by Qu You. Claiming that the Kŭmo sinhwa was an ill-written copy of its Chinese predecessor, they merely acknowledged its alleged Korean national spirit and local Korean color. In this article it is argued that through the diffusion and circulation of knowledge between Ming China and Chosŏn Korea the Chinese work’s critical content as well as the biography of its author were well known in 15th century Korea. It is hypothesized that Kim Sisŭp did not simply imitate the Jiandeng xinhua due to a lack of literary ability, but that he rather consciously selected the Jiandeng xinhua in order to utilize it as a foundation for his own personal thoughts on certain contemporary individuals and political issues. It is suggested that Kim Sisŭp’s decisions to model his Kŭmo sinhwa after the Jiandeng xinhua and to set his novellas in a specifically Korean context had a profound influence on the way the collection was received and understood by a contemporary Korean readership.

Seoul Journal of Korean Studies 33, No. 2, December 2020, 419–458.

This article discusses two adaptations of Korean “classics” by Ch’oe Inhun (1936-2018), Kuunmong ... more This article discusses two adaptations of Korean “classics” by Ch’oe Inhun (1936-2018), Kuunmong (1962) and Kŭmo sinhwa (1963), offering an in-depth comparative analyses of these works with their canonized Chosŏn-dynasty models by Kim Manjung (1637-1692) and Kim Sisŭp (1435-1493) to identify and interpret intertextual ties. It is hypothesized that Ch’oe Inhun’s unusual transformations of these core-works of the national Korean canon – written in a South Korea churned by internal and external conflicts, during an age when historical and cultural memories were forged and a national heritage and identity designed to legitimize, demarcate and mobilize were created – constitute narratives of intellectual dissent. The paper at hand argues that Ch’oe Inhun’s adaptations Kuunmong and Kŭmo sinhwa, both developing meaning and impact out of the creative interplay with their premodern models, can be understood as having been specifically geared to run counter to policies of simplification, linearization, collectivization and glorification of tradition brought forth by the government under Pak Chŏnghŭi (1917-1979).

Book Reviews by Dennis Wuerthner

ACTA KOREANA, Vol. 24, No. 1, 2021

Today in both North and South Korea, (Biography of Hong Kiltong), the tale of Hong Kiltong, a soc... more Today in both North and South Korea, (Biography of Hong Kiltong), the tale of Hong Kiltong, a socially disadvantaged secondary son (or) turned leader of a band of outlaws, is among the most popular works of premodern Korean literature. (1569-1 With his , Minsoo Kang offers a comprehensive, in-depth critical study of various aspects of in English. Interestingly, the book is Myths," 2 consists of three chapters and constitutes a detailed literary and historical analysis of the source. The second part, called "The Many Afterlives of Hong Gildong," deals and television in the Koreas over the course of the twentieth century. Thus, Kang's book essentially encompasses two independent studies revolving around the same core. Kuunmong (A dream of nine clouds), which the exiled Kim Manjung (1637-1692) is said to have written for his grieving mother in only a single night, many aspects of the creation and alleged meaning of have been shrouded in "fog of myth," to put it in Kang's own words, 3 partly the result of certain premodern sources, yet mostly arising from the agenda-driven interpretations that developed during the early phases of the establishment of a national Korean literature and canon during the latter half of colonial modernity. In the ventures to dispel these thick hazes of non-text-based, agenda-led interpretation that have