Hyangga
Hyangga was a form poetical 'country song,' distinct from contemporary Chinese songs, which were written in the Silla and Goryeo kingdoms of ancient Korea between the 7th and 10th century CE. The indigenous songs cover such topics as love, loss, and Buddhist devotion. The majority are written in couplets arranged in four-line stanzas with each line having four syllables. The poems were designed to be sung accompanied by music and dancing. Only 25 hyangga survive, but they were once widely written and performed, including by such famous figures as Wonhyo, the Buddhist philosopher-monk.
Composition & Structure
The hyangga, also known as saenaennorae, were written in idu, that is the Korean language written using Chinese characters. In hyannga, the Chinese characters are used to represent not only meanings but also the sounds of Old Korean in a technique known as hyangchal. The hyangga are the oldest examples of this form of writing. They may have developed from the earlier singa, songs sung by shamans during rituals.
Only 25 songs survive; 14 are to be found in the Samguk Yusa ('Memorabilia of the Three Kingdoms'), the 13th-century CE collection of texts on Korean history and culture compiled by the Buddhist scholar-monk Iryon. The remaining 11 songs appear in the Kyunyo-jon. In 888 CE, the Samdaemok ('Collection of the Three Periods'), an anthology of hyangga, was compiled by the monk Daegu and Silla Prime Minister Wihong, but it was unfortunately destroyed in the 13th-century CE Mongol invasions of Korea.
Most songs are composed of 10 lines with two four-line stanzas, each with two couplets, and then a closing couplet. The ninth line invariably begins with an interjection, raising the speaker's intonation and signalling the finale of the song which usually contains a wish, command, or exclamation. The genre died out in the 11th century CE, replaced with a long-lasting fashion amongst intellectuals for purely Chinese literature.
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