Abstract:
What is by consensus the “first modern novel” written in the Korean language, Yi Kwangsu’s Mujŏng (Heartless, 1917) is often commended as a literary embodiment of the idea of enlightenment.

In this presentation, I will revisit this work from a trans-East Asian comparative perspective, particularly analyzing its abundant intertextualization of the thematic, rhetorical, and stylistic elements of classical Korean narrative literature and classical Chinese poetry. I will thereby attempt to illuminate an alternative temporality of “mourning” expressed in the novel’s narrative and explore how it dislocates the novel’s manifestation of enlightenment.