Sijo

Sijo (ɕi.dʑo) is a Korean traditional poetic form that emerged during the Goryeo Dynasty, flourished during the Joseon Dynasty, and is still written today. Bucolic, metaphysical, and cosmological themes are often explored. The three lines average 14–16 syllables, for a total of 42–48: theme (3, 4,4,4); elaboration (3,4,4,4); counter-theme (3,5) and completion (4,3). Sijo may be narrative or thematic and introduces a situation in line 1, development in line 2, and twist and conclusion in line 3. The first half of the final line employs a "twist": a surprise of meaning, sound, or other device. Sijo is often more lyrical and personal than other East Asian poetic forms, and the final line can take a profound turn. Yet, "The conclusion of sijo is seldom epigrammatic or witty; a witty close to a sentence would have been foreign to the genius of stylized Korean diction in the great sijo periods." P’yong sijo prioritized its grammatical structure for recitation purposes and not writing; so, this made the “rules” of sijo structure quite strict. Authors were mostly of the higher up yangban social class and emphasized how their sijo would be sung melodically first as opposed to written down later. This meant that the rhythmic pattern in these sijos had to be learned exactly to be considered a truthful recitation. Tang poetry was traditionally rhythmically segmented in its stanzas. This feature was one that was passed down onto p’yong sijo as well as other early forms of sijo. Sijo poems often follow a rhythmic structure characterized by the syllabic ways of Chinese and Hangul characters. Specifically, they follow a 3-4-3-4, 3-4-3-4, 3-5-4-3 rhythmic structure per line. An example of the strictness of early sijo is seen especially in their third lines. It sticks hard to the “3-5” syllable rule at the beginning of the third line. This is done so to further drive the rhetorical conclusion of the sijo. As David McCann puts it, syllabic counting plays “a role in patterns of syllable distribution among the four phrases or syllable groups that constitute the lines [of a sijo].