"Are you truly Living?
No, I am yearning for death to truly live."
-Kim Woo-Jin
'The Theory of Life and Death' is a beautiful and melancholic poem. It was written by the first Korean literature critic Woo-Jin Kim. He was a writer and playwright during the Japanese occupation of the Korean Peninsula.
Woo-Jin was from a wealthy and reputed family who was expected to be perfect and stay out of trouble. However, he was a patriot who stood against his colonizers through his plays. Being a filial son, he fulfilled his duties by getting married to the woman his parents pointed to and had children.
Though he was married, he never love his wife. So, one fine day, he met a beautiful woman with who he connected. Her name was Sim-Deok Yun, Korea's first professional soprano. The love between a wealthy married man and a singer from a poor household was forbidden. So, they could never be together.
They both knew that the life they were living was not a life. The Japanese occupation had put a restriction on their passions and love for each other. He could not write patriotic plays where he wanted to showcase the power of his nation and she could not be with him. The only way they could get was by paying their life as the price.
Woo-Jin realized that in this life he cannot truly live by living his dreams. So, he decided to die to truly live in the afterlife or the next life with the one he loved. The poem, "The Theory of Life and Death" was his last words to the world. It was the answer he left for the people who would wonder why he died. He wrote this poem on a piece of paper, then took the hand of his beloved and jumped into the cold ocean.
The reason that I am telling the life story of the poet rather than just jumping into the poem is every poem has a story. The stories behind the poems are what gives them life. If you just see them and read them as words, you can never find the true meaning of the poem. Knowing the story adds emotion to the poem.
The difference between simply reading a poem and truly feeling and reading a poem is knowing the story that led to the creation of the poem and the ability to convey the emotions through our tone. The one thing about poems that I have realized through this poem is that poems are intangible feelings whose true meaning cannot be conveyed through words.
PS: Here is a link to the limited Netflix series Hymn of Death based on the life of the poet Woo-Jin Kim.
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