Byeon Yeong-ro

Byeon Yeong-ro (Korean: 변영로; 1898–1961), also known by the art name Suju (수주), was a Korean poet and English literature scholar.¹ His original name was Byeon Yeong-bok (변영복; 卞榮福), but he changed his name in 1958.² He is considered a pioneer of modern Korean poetry and is well known for the poem, "Nongae" (논개), which was included in South Korean government-issued textbooks from 1953 to 2003.³

Biography

Byeon was born in Seoul in 1898. He began studying English in 1915 when he was 17 years old and graduated from a three-year English language course in only six months. In 1923, he became a lecturer at Ewha Womans University, and in 1931, he went to the United States to study at San José State University. In 1946, he became an English professor at Sungkyunkwan University. In 1955, he was elected the first chairman of the Korean PEN association.¹⁴

Byeon died of throat cancer in 1961.⁵

Works

• Cosmos – An English poem written in 1918, published in the magazine Youth (청춘)¹
• Non-Gae – A poem published in 1922 about the spirit of Nongae⁶
• Sa-Byeuk song