Lee Eun-sang was born on October 22, 1903 at Sangnam-dong, Masan in Korea. In 1918, he graduated from the Changshin High School which his father had established, and in 1923, he entered the department of liberal arts at Yonhee College, the predecessor of Yonsei University. He withdrew in 1923. He worked for Changshin School as a teacher for a time until he enrolled at Waseda University in Japan, majoring in history in 1925. He worked at Ewha Womans University as a professor from 1931 to 1932. After that, he worked for Dong-a Ilbo and Chosun Ilbo. In 1942, he was arrested on the suspicion of being implicated in the so-called "incident of Chosun Language Academy", and was released the next year when his indictment suspended. In 1945, he was detained in custody as a political offender at the Gwang-yang police station and was released at the time of independence from Japan. After Korea's liberation from Japan, Lee taught at Cheong-gu University, Seoul National University, and Young-nam University. In 1954, he was invited to join the Korean Academy of the Arts, and by 1978 he had achieved a life-time membership in the Korean Academy of the Arts. Lee served as the chairman of the Admiral Lee Sun-sin Memorial Committee, a member of the Korea Alpinist's Association, the Korea Culture Preservation Association, and the People's Culture Association, as well as being Editor-in-Chief for the History of KoreaIndependence Movements. Lee won the Rose of Sharon National Medal of Honor in 1970, and died in 1982.
Works
In his childhood, Lee and his friends enjoyed playing near a stream close to his house on the hills of Mount No-bi-san. Whenever he visited Masan, his hometown, later in life, he went to the stream as it reminded him of his childhood. The poems Climbing Up the Old Hill and Symphony of Spring both depict the days when he played on the hill of Mount Nobisan. One of his motivations for writing poetry in the sijo form is that his father would recited it to him when he was a child. In 1921, the poem Hyul-jo was published for the first time, in Ah-sung, volume 4, under the pen name Du-wu-seong. Lee Eun Sang earned a reputation as a poet who opened up a new modern free form of sijo. Most of his poems became lyrics for classical style songs. Nosan Sijo-jip, his first volume of poetry, was published in 1932. The works integrated characteristics of homesickness, sentimentality, and the beauty of nature. The poems Memory of Hometown, Ga-go-pa, and Night of Seong-bul Temple are filled with lyricism. His deep lyricism in poems such as Bom-cheo-nyeo and 'Ga-go-pa' , and his mastery of sijo style into a new style, he is considered the best poet in the revival of sijo in modern era. His Dong-hae-song and High Ground is Over There are celebrated as a great accomplishments. He was a historian and a scholar of classical studies. Among his many achievements in these fields, the most notable is the translation into modern Korean the Admiral Lee Sun-Shin's "Diary of Battles of Im-Jin War" The Korea Literature Translation Institute, summarizes Lee's contributions to Korean literature as follows:
Awards
In 1969, he was awarded the Presidential Prize, and in 1970, the National Medal of Honor, Republic of Korea, Mu-gung-hwa-jang The Medal of Rose of Sharon.
