Poet; pastoral lyricist of Candlelight and A Sad Pastoral
| Life | 1907 ~ 1974 |
| Era | 근현대 (일제강점기~대한민국) |
| Clan | 영월 신씨 |
Shin Seok-jeong (辛夕汀, 1907–1974) was one of modern Korea's leading pastoral poets and a member of the Yeongwol Shin clan. His real name was written 辛錫正, and besides Seokjeong he used pen names such as Sojeok and Hoseong. He was born in Dongjung-ri, Buan, North Jeolla, the second son of Sin Gi-on, who had studied Confucian classics under Jeon U, and Yi Yun-ok. His grandfather Sin Je-yeol was the younger brother of the Buan scholar Sin Gwan-yeol, and the family belongs to the Yeongwol Shin Ilong-gong branch.
After primary school in Buan he studied classical Chinese at home and published his first poem, "The Setting Sun", in the Chosun Ilbo in 1924. In 1930 he went to Seoul to study Buddhist scripture under the monk Park Han-yeong at the Buddhist seminary that preceded Dongguk University, and from 1931, when his poem "Gift" appeared in the third issue of Simunhak, he was counted among the Simunhak school with Jeong Ji-yong, Park Yong-cheol and Kim Yeong-rang.
Returning home in 1935, he built a house called Cheonguwon in Buan, planted it with trees, and there wrote his first collections, Candlelight (1939) and A Sad Pastoral (1947). In the last years of colonial rule he kept writing without publishing to avoid censorship and is said to have refused to adopt a Japanese name. After liberation and the Korean War his poetry took on a stronger sense of history and social engagement. From 1952 he taught Korean at Jeonju High School and lived in Jeonju for the rest of his life, publishing Glacier, Overture of the Mountains and The Sound of Bamboo Wind. He also translated the poems of the Buan-born poet Yi Mae-chang.
He received the North Jeolla Culture Award (1958), the Korean Literature Award (1968) and the National Culture and Arts Award (1973). He died on 6 July 1974 and was first buried in Imsil, then moved in 2000 to the family graves in Haengan-myeon, Buan. His Buan home is a provincial monument, the Seokjeong Literature Museum opened in 2011, and the Yeongwol Shin Ilong-gong association holds the Shin Seok-jeong Poetry Award there each year. He is also listed on the Korean Wikipedia page for the Yeongsan Shin, but the Buan encyclopedia and clan records place him in the Yeongwol Shin.
Family graves at Yeok-ri, Haengan-myeon, Buan, North Jeolla (moved from Imsil in 2000)