Localized Globality in Colonial Korean Literature: Ch’angjo as part of the ‘Little Magazine’ Movement

This thesis analyzes the Korean literary coterie magazine Ch’angjo (1919-1921) as part of the global little magazine movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The analysis is conducted on three different levels of increasing depth: the material, the linguistic, and the literary semantic. Through these levels of analysis, it becomes clear that while the writers of the Ch’angjo coterie were aware of and utilizing many Western literary forms and ideologies in their writing, it was with the overarching aim of elevating their own national literature to be on par with the global literature they encountered while studying in Japan. These forms and ideas were translated into the Korean literary context, not with an aim to make Korean literature emulate the Western, but rather to indigenize these forms within a wholly Korean context. The results of these experimentations helped form the foundations of modern Korean literature.M.A