Sijo () is a Korean traditional poetic form that emerged during the Goryeo dynasty, flourished during the Joseon dynasty, and is still written today. Bucolic, metaphysical, and cosmological themes are often explored. The three lines average 14–16 syllables, for a total of 42–48: theme (3, 4,4,4); elaboration (3,4,4,4); counter-theme (3,5) and completion (4,3).
Sijo may be narrative or thematic and introduces a situation in line 1, development in line 2, and twist and conclusion in line 3. The first half of the final line employs a "twist": a surprise of meaning, sound, or other device. Sijo is often more lyrical and personal than other East Asian poetic forms, and the final line can take a profound turn. Yet, "The conclusion of sijo is seldom epigrammatic or witty; a witty close to a sentence would have been foreign to the genius of stylized Korean diction in the great sijo periods."My close friends I count would be water and stone, pine tree, bamboo.
Moon rising on eastern peaks, there is one more so good to see!
Keeping them, beyond these five friends, what more do I need to add?
윤선도 Yun Sŏndo (1587-1671)
내 벗이 몇 인고 하니 수(水) 석(石)과 송(松) 죽(竹)이라
동산(東山)에 달 오르니 그 더욱 반갑구나
두어라 이 다섯밖에 또 더해 무엇하리
--- From A Lone Flute Resounds, 2015, translations recomposed in English from Korean by Kim Goeng Pil
Formation & Development
Sijo is not simply a poetic form from early Korea, it is also a reflection of the development of Korean history back in the fourteenth century, throughout the Koryŏ dynasty and the Chosŏn dynasty. In the history of early sijo, it functioned as a type of song performed with music and instruments, the purpose of entertainment was the focus of early sijo. Sijo was enjoyed by people from elite classes who were educated and having higher social status, it was performed most often in social and entertainment settings for these people. Therefore, early sijo contains elements such as loyalty, morality, and political values with the influence from Confucian ideas. In addition, due to the entertainment functions of early sijo, its structure also focused on performing more natural rhythm in the expression. However, as the development of written language in Korea, sijo also shifted from verbal performance to more literary purpose for later Korean history.McCann, David. “The Sijo: A Window into Korean Culture - Association for Asian Studies.” Association for Asian Studies, 15 June 2023, https://www.asianstudies.org/publications/eaa/archives/the-sijo-a-window-into-korean-culture/.
As the development of literature in Korea and the influence of Confucian ideas, more and more people started to learn and record sijo. Instead of simply perform it for entertainment to educated elite groups, sijo then became more generalized and shared by normal individuals. With the increase in both literature and the accessibility of sijo, it began to be written down and recorded more often. Even women who had a lower social distance at the time started to participate in the development of sijo, which added more emotional and personal feelings into the creation of sijo poems. Furthermore, political instability is also one of the most important influence to the shift of sijo, such as the transition from Koryŏ dynasty to Chosŏn dynasty, the Japanese Invasion from 1592-1598, and the Manchu Invasions, etc. All these wars and political changes contributed to a result that poets started to express personal emotions about social changes, loyalty, and morality. This phenomenon made sijo to shift from performing art into a tool to express feelings and ideas on social comments. As sijo developed to this point, the format and structure of sijo also changed to match the new expression for these more personalized poems. Without function as formal performance tool, its structure was more flexible while keeping the idea to follow natural breathing rhythm. Due to these developments, sijo expanded its function to a wider range of audience with more meaningful purposes, shifting to literature practice in Korea society at the time."Sejong Cultural Society - "Si Jo"" www.sejongsociety.org,http://www.sejongsociety.org/korean_theme/sijo/sijo_more.html.
As sijo developed further into modern days, it has been transformed in many ways while still retaining the essential and classic structure of sijo. Nowadays, the poets often change the compositions of sijo to reflect the current social condition. They use the simpler words and take new subjects such as self and life in the daily life routine. Sijo has long changed from the musical performance to the written art, but still, it has the elements of musical performance and vocal art. Now, sijo becomes a part of studies of the Korean literary heritage and it is known around the world by the international education and practice. The coexistence of the conventional contents with dramatic changes gives sijo the reason to still be a living poetic genre.
Structure
Elements of early sijo P'yŏng sijo prioritized its grammatical structure for recitation purposes and not writing; so, this made the "rules" of sijo structure quite strict. Authors were mostly of the higher up yangban social class and emphasized how their sijo would be sung melodically first as opposed to written down later. This meant that the rhythmic pattern in these sijos had to be learned exactly to be considered a truthful recitation.
Tang poetry was traditionally rhythmically segmented in its stanzas. This feature was one that was passed down onto p'yŏng sijo as well as other early forms of sijo. Sijo poems often follow a rhythmic structure characterized by the syllabic ways of Chinese and Hangul characters. Specifically, they follow a 3-4-3-4, 3-4-3-4, 3-5-4-3 rhythmic structure per line. An example of the strictness of early sijo is seen especially in their third lines. It sticks hard to the "3-5" syllable rule at the beginning of the third line. This is done so to further drive the rhetorical conclusion of the sijo.McCann, David R. "History of SIJO." YouTube, uploaded by Sejong Cultural Society, 14 February 2011, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frUUtsQyVRA. As David McCann puts it, syllabic counting plays "a role in patterns of syllable distribution among the four phrases or syllable groups that constitute the lines [of a sijo]."McCann, David R. "Korean Literature and Performance?: Sijo!" Azalea: Journal of Korean Literature & Culture, vol. 2, 2008, p. 362. Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/aza.0.0065. Furthermore, since most p'yŏng sijo were not titled and were spread mostly through recitation, their structure was much more specific and defined than the sijo forms seen later.
Elements of developed sijo There are many variants of sijo, ranging from the standard three-line p'yŏng sijo to the slightly expanded ossijo and the greatly expanded narrative sasol sijo. The conventional structure of p'yŏng sijo consists of three lines, with each line broken by a caesura (a midline pause) into two halves. Each hemistich (or half) is further broken into pairs. As a result, there are four groups total in one line. A single group is typically made up of three to five syllables, which results in a composition of approximately forty five syllables (morae).Jang, Gyung-ryul. "In Search of the Essence of Sijo." List Magazine (Literature Translation Institute of Korea). Sejong Cultural Society, https://www.sejongculturalsociety.org/mediafiles/resources/sijo-jang-essence-of-sijo.pdf. Accessed 11 Apr. 2022. However, these syllabic distributions are the average; variation in syllable count is the rule, not an exception. Sijo is an accentual verse form, not syllabic. A group generally corresponds to syntactic and rhythmic units and can be distinguished by mutual contrast, such as particles or verb endings. All traditional sijo were originally set to melodies that impose further regularity and cadence to each poem.McCann, David R. "The Structure of the Korean Sijo." Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, vol. 36, 1976, pp. 114–134., https://doi.org/10.2307/2718740.
Total number of syllable variants in 29 kisaeng sijoMcCann, David R. "The Structure of the Korean Sijo." Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, vol. 36, 1976, pp. 132., https://doi.org/10.2307/2718740. Group I II III IV Line 1 13 9 14 2 Line 2 13 11 9 1 Line 31 18 1 9
The table above illustrates that deviations from the traditional syllabic distribution occur fairly frequently, depending on the position. For example, there are 13 times that group I in line 1 has a syllable count other than 3. In contrast, the ends of the first two lines, as well as groups I and III in the third line, show very little variation. The greater regularity in these positions is directly related to the variation that precedes or follows; the increased regularity ensures the rhythm is not lost.McCann, David R. "The Structure of the Korean Sijo." Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, vol. 36, 1976, pp. 132-133., https://doi.org/10.2307/2718740.
Elements of modern sijo In contrast to the structure of early sijo forms such as p'yŏng sijo, modern sijo sticks mainly to a freer and more fluid way of writing. This is a controversial take amongst the sijo community as some argue that modern sijo focuses "on the revival of sijo, but claim that its traditional fixed form cannot be preserved."cited from Lim Jongchan by Oh, Kyong-geun. "KOREAN SIJO POEMS AND THEIR TRANSFORMATIONS". International Journal of Korean Humanities and Social Sciences, Vol. 1, Nov. 2016, pp. 37, doi:10.14746/kr.2015.01.02. Thus, there has been a large wave of people who subscribe to the thought that modern sijo can be written without attention to rhythmic segments and the fixed form. Thus, many modern poets and artists write free-verse works and still claim them as sijo. In Oh's work, the author states that "sijo, even a contemporary one, which does not obey the form, cannot be considered sijo."Oh, Kyong-geun. "KOREAN SIJO POEMS AND THEIR TRANSFORMATIONS". International Journal of Korean Humanities and Social Sciences, Vol. 1, Nov. 2016, pp. 37, doi:10.14746/kr.2015.01.02. This has left modern sijo at a divide between those who choose to honor the strictness of fixed form sijo and those who believe an adaptive free-form version of the poetic genre may still be acceptable as traditional works. Despite the fact that early forms, such as p'yŏng sijo, were not as widely written and recorded, they would still follow a 3-4-3-4, 3-4-3-4, 3-5-4-3 rhythmic structure. This made them strong and strict forms of poetry that only skilled artists would be able to remember and recite. This is changed in modern sijo. Since modern sijo is first written and not as spread through word of mouth, its structure has become much more lenient and differs in its shape across different authors.
Early sijo in the Goryeo dynasty Although sijo gained much of its popularity in the Joseon dynasty, the roots of the sijo are attributed to the late Goryeo dynasty. In fact, the earliest existing sijo was found to have been written towards the end of the 14th century as Confucian scholars sought to overcome the existing Buddhist-dominated literary, music, and art forms. As a result, there are important differences between the sijo written at the end of the Goryeo dynasty and those written in the Joseon dynasty. The sijo of the times, mostly written by men of elite status, are very reflective of the contemporary politics; thus, to understand the importance of the themes of Goryeo dynasty sijo, it is important to understand the political climate surrounding the poetry.