내일의 전통, 오늘의 관객을 만나다

월간국립극장

I was born and raised in Italy and after getting a degree in Korean Studies at Ca' Foscari University of Venice I pursued my masters in Modern Korean Literature at Korea University. I am currently enrolled in a PhD program in the same department and I am mostly interested in women’s literature from the 1990s. However I believe that in order to understand more recent literature we have to start from the beginning, which is what drew my interest towards the translation of “Mujeong”.

It was 1917 when the Korean newspaper Maeil Sinbo started serializing “Mujeong”, drawing the attention of the general public. The summary of the work, which many Koreans will most likely be familiar with is the following: like many other intellectuals of his time, modern man and young teacher Yi Hyeongsik studied in Japan, knows how to read and hold a conversation in foreign languages and is employed in one of the most prestigious schools in the capital of colonial Seoul.

As if this wasn’t enough, Yi Hyeongsik is given the chance to marry a beautiful, educated young woman, daughter of one of the most influential people in the city. At first glance, Yi Hyeongsik would appear to have everything anyone would dream of: security in the present and hope for the future. However, after a young woman from his past reappears in his life, Hyeongsik is met with doubt and fear. It is only through a series of decisive episodes for his self-growth that Hyeongsik is able to understand his role in the world and in the course of the history of his country.

Even reading this brief summary makes it quite easy to understand why this particular work would represent a challenge for any translator. Being set in colonial Korea and representing the country’s first step into modernity and Korean Kyemong, or enlightenment, Yi Kwangsu’s “Mujeong” is a work that is not only important from a literary standpoint but also from a historical one. However, being a modern literature researcher myself, I decided I would do my best to make it so that people from a completely different cultural background, such as Italian readers, could enjoy and fully appreciate the first masterpiece of Korean Modern Literature.

The first of the numerous challenges I was met with when translating this novel was none other than the title. In order to understand why it represented a challenge, it’s important to analyze the meaning of title of the work. ‘Mujeong’ or ‘無情’ connects directly with Yi Kwangsu’s belief that the most important factor in the development of Korean literature would be passion because a literature without passion would not be able to involve and move the hearts of the readers. However, the characters forming the word ‘Mujeong’ directly translate to lack of passion or fervor. This is because they portray the reality of Korean literature at the time of Yi Kwangsu, and his hope that Korea would move from a reality of “lack” to one of “passion”.

In other words, he intended to set the first stone on a new path for modern Korean literature. Expressing certain concepts that are unique to Korea and Korean language in a language that is not Chinese character based, such as is the case of Italian, is often difficult and there are times when the translator has no choice but to make a sacrifice: choosing between saving the meaning therefore finding a roundabout way to express it, or translating directly while letting go of the original meaning of the word. For the Italian translation of ‘Mujeong’ the simplest solution was also the most effective.

Luckily for “Mujeong”’s case, the peculiarity of the Italian expression ‘senza cuore’ allowed for a translation that respected both the intent of the author and a similarity to the original Korean title. While the Italian expression ‘senza cuore’ can, similarly to the English ‘heartless’, mean someone ‘unkind’ or ‘merciless’, ‘senza cuore’ also translates literally as ‘without heart’. This expression, when used in the context of literature, can also mean “empty” or “without passion”. So, ‘letteratura senza cuore’ would mean an empty literature, a literature without any passion or feelings. This way, while ‘senza cuore’ is a direct translation, it also ends up aligning with Yi Kwangsu’s intent when choosing the title for his novel.

Other elements that represented a challenge when translating “Mujeong” were the many Confucian Classics and old Korean texts that appear throughout the novel. It would be familiar to a public of Eastern readers but completely foreign to a public of Western readers who are approaching modern Korean Literature by themselves for the first time.

For these, I carefully researched about the general content of the books before choosing a translation that would reflect what they meant without detracting from the originals, and would still be familiar to the Italian reader. Among concepts that are unique to Eastern culture, is the concept of ‘Taoist Fairy’, that is often mentioned in the novel when describing Youngchae, one of the female protagonists. For this and other similar cases, a direct translation was followed by a brief explanation that would help the reader understand both meaning and context for the words used.

Overall, translating “Mujeong” as a lover of Korean literature was a challenging yet satisfying experience. Translation is a bridge able to connect readers from different backgrounds and cultures and I believe that, now that an Italian translation of such a cardinal work for Korean literature exist, more and more Italian readers and students majoring in Korean Studies will be able to approach and appreciate Yi Kwangsu’s “Mujeong”.