Chunhyangga
Encyclopedia
The Chunhyangga is the most famous Pansori in Korea. The Chunhyangga has delighted all Korean for a century. The Chunhyangga is the best Pansori as musically, literary, and a well-made play.
There are not any record that the exact time when Chunhyangga made. The Chunhyangga was found in written by Jinhan-Yu in the Joseon Dynasty period, and at the same era written by Juik-Yang. Therefore it supposed that Chunhyangga was existed before the Sukjong(1661 ~ 1720).
The Chunhyangga is not only story about a woman of chaste reputation, but also resistance to aristocrat. Chunhyang, who is Gisaeng become a legal wife of district magistrate. That means the story writer denies a status system. In the Chunhyangga, there are common people's wish to truth and human freedom.
Also it has various scenes:peaceful, sad, humorous, serious. The musics are change as the scene and story are turn in to other themes. The many Pansori singers left famous Deoneum
Deoneum
Deoneum is a new, revised section of a pansori song, made by a master pansori singer.Following years of training, master singers sometimes change or add new parts to a pansori song, inputting aspects of their own individuality...

, so it is valuable musically.
The Chunhyangga is the longest among the five Pansories. In 1969, master singer of Pansori Dongjin-park sang Chunhyangga for eight hours which made people surprised. The original version of Chunhyangga was not that long, but for a long time it developed. The singers of Pansori added new technique, melody,story to the Chunhyangga.

The Chunhyangga
is one of the five surviving stories of the Korea
Korea
Korea ) is an East Asian geographic region that is currently divided into two separate sovereign states — North Korea and South Korea. Located on the Korean Peninsula, Korea is bordered by the People's Republic of China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, and is separated from Japan to the...

n pansori
Pansori
Pansori is a genre of Korean traditional music. It is a vocal and percussional music performed by one sorikkun and one gosu . The term pansori is derived from pan , and sori .- Overview :...

 storytelling tradition. The other stories are Simcheongga
Simcheongga
Simcheongga is one of the five surviving stories of the Korean pansori storytelling tradition. The other stories are Chunhyangga, Heungbuga, Jeokbyeokga, and Sugungga.History=...

, Heungbuga
Heungbuga
Heungbuga is one of the five surviving stories of the Korean pansori storytelling tradition. It is also called Baktaryeong . The other stories are Simcheongga, Chunhyangga, Jeokbyeokga and Sugungga. It is about a story of Heungbu who was a poor but good man with many children.Heungbuga depicted...

, Jeokbyeokga
Jeokbyeokga
Jeokbyeokga is one of the five surviving stories of the Korean pansori storytelling tradition. The other stories are Simcheongga, Heungbuga, Chunhyangga and Sugungga.This story is a retelling of the Chinese historical legend of the Battle of Red Cliffs....

and Sugungga
Sugungga
Sugungga is one of the five surviving stories of the Korean pansori storytelling tradition. The other stories are Simcheongga, Heungbuga, Jeokbyeokga, and Chunhyangga....

. Although based on older traditional songs, it was composed in its present form in the 1870s by the pansori writer Shin Jae-hyo.
The Chunhyangga tells the story of love between Chunhyang, the daughter of a kisaeng
Kisaeng
Kisaeng , sometimes called ginyeo , were female Korean official prostitute or entertainers. Kisaeng are artists who work to entertain others, such as the yangbans and kings....

 entertainer, and Yi Mongryong, the son of a magistrate. After the two are illegally married, Mongryong goes to Seoul and a corrupt local magistrate attempts to force Chunhyang to be his concubine. She refuses and is faced with death, but is rescued at the last minute by Mongryong returning in his new role as a secret royal inspector
Secret royal inspector
Secret royal inspector, or Amhaeng-eosa was a temporary position unique to Joseon Dynasty, in which an undercover official directly appointed by the king was sent to local provinces to monitor government officials and look after the populace while traveling incognito...

.

The story is set in Namwon
Namwon
Namwon is a city in North Jeolla Province, South Korea. Namwon is about 45 minutes from the provincial capital of Jeonju, which is three hours away from Seoul....

, in Jeolla
Jeolla
Jeolla was a province in southwestern Korea, one of the historical Eight Provinces of Korea during the Joseon Dynasty. It consisted of the modern South Korean provinces of North Jeolla, South Jeolla and the Special City of Gwangju as well as Jeju Island...

 province, where an annual Chunhyang Festival is held.

Plot

The Chunhyangga is composed of six parts.
<1> MongRyong Lee and Chunhyang's first meeting at GwangHanru.
<2> MongRyong Lee and Chunhyang's love.
<3> MongRyong Lee and Chunhyang's parting.
<4> The Vicious Byun ruled tyranny and Chunhyang caught in prison.
<5> MongRyong Lee won the first place in a state examination and met Chunhyang again.
<6>The Vicious Byun punished and MongRyong Lee and Chunhyang lived a long and happy life.

Kodae Sosol

The Chunhyangjeon
Chunhyangjeon
The Chunhyangjeon is one of the best known love stories and folk tales of Korea. It is based on the pansori Chunhyangga.Date of composition and author are unknown, and the present form took shape 1694~1834 from the most famous of the five surviving pansori tales, the Song of Chun Hyang.-Main...

 《춘향전》(春香傳) is a kodae sosol (고대 소설) based on the Chunhyangga.

Modern adaptations

The story has been made into a film over a dozen times, most recently as Im Kwon-taek
Im Kwon-taek
Im Kwon-taek is one of South Korea's most renowned film directors. In an active and prolific career, his films have won many domestic and international film festival awards as well as considerable box-office success, and helped bring international attention to the Korean film industry.- Early life...

's Chunhyang
Chunhyang (2000 film)
Chunhyang is a 2000 Korean film, directed by Im Kwon-taek and starring Lee Hyo-jeong and Jo Seung-woo. It was entered into the 2000 Cannes Film Festival.-Plot:...

in 2000.http://www.filmfestivals.com/cannes_2000/official/chunghyang.htm It was also the basis of the successful Korean drama series ]]Delightful Girl Choon-Hyang]].

It has also been converted to a successful children's musical, performed in English by Theater Seoul entirely by children and youth. This show has been brought to the Edinburgh Fringe
Edinburgh Fringe
The Edinburgh Festival Fringe is the world’s largest arts festival. Established in 1947 as an alternative to the Edinburgh International Festival, it takes place annually in Scotland's capital, in the month of August...

 Festival twice, once to the Underbelly (2006) and once to C venues
C venues
C venues is the home of the largest theatre and new writing programme at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, which is held annually in August each year...

 (2007).

Legend of Chun Hyang
Legend of Chun Hyang
is a manga by Clamp. Its story and characters are loosely based on a well known Korean folktale of the same name.Shin Shunkaden was first published in 1996 by Hakusensha in Japan....

, a manga
Manga
Manga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...

 by Clamp
Clamp (manga artists)
, is an all-female Japanese manga artist group that formed in the mid 1980s. Many of the group's manga series are often adapted into anime after release. It consists of their leader , who provides much of the storyline and screenplay for all their works and adaptations of those works respectively ,...

, is loosely based on this story.

External links

  • The Ch'unhyang Story - from Instrok.org, created by East Rock Institute
    East Rock Institute
    East Rock Institute is a nonprofit research and educational organization dedicated to "the enhancement and deepening of cultural understanding between Eastern and Western societies." Founded originally by Dr. Kwang Lim Koh and his wife Dr...

  • National Changguk Company of Korea


This story is very interesting and it very famous in Korea.

See also

  • Korean folklore
    Korean folklore
    Korean folklore has a long history, going back several thousand years. There has been a recent revival of folk tales on internet sites, and as well they provide constant inspiration for artists and illustrators....

  • Korean literature
    Korean literature
    Korean literature is the body of literature produced in Korea or by Korean writers. For much of its 3,000 years of literature history, it was written both in Hanja and in Korean, first using the transcription systems idu and gugyeol, and finally using the Korean script Hangul. It is commonly...

  • Korean music
    Korean music
    Traditional Korean music includes both the folk, vocal, religious and ritual music styles of the Korean people. Korean music, along with arts, painting, and sculpture has been practiced since prehistoric times....

  • List of Korea-related topics
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