Some Ways to Express Homesickness in Korean Classical Poetry

This paper takes into consideration some Korean classical poems, in distinctive Chinese style, dealing with the theme of homesickness in its various aspects. As a state of mind which is difficult to define semantically, homesickness can be experienced (and suffered) at different levels and can be felt under a purely emotional (and therefore “natural”) aspect or also within the limits of a more intellectual (and consequently “cultural”) sphere. This difference makes homesickness a state of mind which can be felt (to use purely anthropological vocabulary) either in a condition of “lived time” or “structured time”. The poems translated and analyzed in this paper are only a few literary examples, but they clearly show some fundamental mechanisms, created and illustrated by means of poetical skill, connected with the arousing of that particular (and ineffable) state of mind called “homesickness” or “nostalgia”.