Youth, Authenticity and Social Change from Shakespeare’s Hamlet to Yoon Dong Ju

My essay intervenes in the long-standing debate as to whether Yoon Dong Ju is a poet of social resistance or of lyrical, apolitical inwardness by exploring how Yoon reconceives inner authenticity as the foundation of social action. I argue in particular that Yoon reworks the Western legacy of authenticity that stretches from Martin Luther and Hamlet to the British Romantics; more specifically, Yoon reimagines the relationship between the individual and the collective and thereby what authentic engagement with the world might mean. I ultimately argue that Yoon’s greatest social legacy is the reimagined form of authenticity embodied in his poetry. KCI Citation Count: 0