[Week 4] My Research

1) About His Life

Lee Sang was born in Gangneung at 1910. When he was 3 years old, He began to be taken care of by their grandparents, instead of their parents. He was very interested in drawing and art when he was adolescent but he majored architecture in Gyeongsung Engineering High School called Seoul National University, Department of Engineering. Nonetheless, he graduated first his school and worked Chosun Chongdokboo 朝鮮總督府 as engineer. Many scholoars said that he maybe feel ashamed because his job was for Japanese, not his ethnic group, Korean. In 1933, He abandoned his work and started his literary career as poet. His Debut work was '이상한 가역반응 Strange Reversible reaction' but he got a lot of criticism because of shocking form. When he met Geumhong at first, they promised to marry and decided to run coffee shop named 제비 Swallow. However, his married life was not happy, rather than terrible because Geumhong was prostitute and so vain. After divorcing, he got terrible pneunomia and went to Tokyo for recovering but he was placed under arrest for rebellious ideology. Finally, when he was 27 years old, he died in Tokyo Municipal Hospital.

2) Analysis

- Parents' Nurturing Abandonment  > Skeptical attitude toward family.
  ex.) 문을 열려고 안 열리는 문을 열려고 Try to open the door in house which was closed tightly. <가정 Family>

- Majoring Architecture > Using geometrical espression
 ex.) 직선은 원을 살해하였는가? Did straight line kill the circle?
<이상한 가역반응 Strange Revisible reaction>

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[Week 1] BRAINSTORMING

Psychology, especially abnormal psychology...

Combined with literary...

How about Lee Sang?

Maybe he would be the most extraordinary person in history of Korean literary!

[Week 2] Research Proposal

What is my current topic?

My exact topic is 'Did Lee Sang Suffered from persecutory delusion during his life?'. The reason why I chooses this topic is that his literal works had very shocking form and contents. Because many scholars guess that these features of his works reflect his own anxiety and he lived very tragically, I had curiosity about his psychological condition. Furthermore, He was abandoned by his parents in his childhood and had terrible marriage life with her wife who was prostitute. For these reason, I guessed that maybe he suffered from persecutory delusion - be afraid of people.



What are my guiding question?

I want to know following things.

1) Did he suffered from persecutory delusion really?
2) How did his symptoms of persecutory delusion reveal in his works?
3) Why did he have persecutory delusion?



What are my current thoughts?

I am sure that he suffered from persecutory delusion. Many of his poems showed that he suffered from a lot of mental illness - especially persecutory delusion - forward people such as '가정 Family' and '오감도烏瞰圖'.  Furthermore, there is surprising fact that he took a dose of medicine regularly.
For these reason, I think like that.



What is the opposition?

Some used to state that it is illogical to judge that he had suffered from mental disease according to his works because most of his works are just experimental and carrying message about modernism. Also, there are a lot of literal works which have shocking form and contents. All of these poems are not patient.

[Week 2] Beginning of Research

Beginning of Research


2014. 8. 18 / week 2


When I found that our first topic is about psychology,
I want to reserach abnormal psychology which explains
human's abnormal behavior and mental disease.

Then, I thought korean famous poet, Lee Sang,
because his work is known for its originality
and unique form. This structure reflects his anxiety and
depressions. In fact, He lived very tragic life.

Many literary critics have said that his self-disunion and
own depression, confusion and divorce made his works
very shocking and puzzling. For this reason, there are no one who can suggest objective interpretation
about his work in the world. However, the only thing objective is that he suffered from mental illness.

Let's see one of his works.

ㅡ환자의容態에관한문제

About Patient's Condition

ㆍ1111111111
1ㆍ222222222
22ㆍ33333333
333ㆍ4444444
4444ㆍ555555
55555ㆍ66666
666666ㆍ7777
7777777ㆍ888
88888888ㆍ99
999999999ㆍ0
0000000000ㆍ

진단 0,1

Diagnose 0,1

26.10.1931

以上 責任醫師 李 箱

Lee Sang, Doctor in Charge.

The most plausible interpretation about this poem is that Lee Sang checked up his inner condition and found that something perfect pattern in his mind (11111111111~00000000000) was damaged and there were a lot of blanks in his mind. From this, we can understand how puzzling he is.

When I saw this mystic man in literary textbook, I wanted to resarch him more deeplier.  Also I had very big interest in psychology and decided to be psychology later, I want to analyze his mind.

So, I established my tasks about this project as following.

- What diseases did he have in his mind?                                       (From his works)

- What did make these illnesses?                                    (From big events in his life)

- How these illness did progrss and transform?          (From ordering of his works)