Yun Sŏndo was born in Seoul. His family home was in Haenam, Chŏlla Province. He is regarded by most Korean commentators as the greatest of the shijo poets; he was also an accomplished hanshi poet. A chinsa, the basic university degree qualification, at the age of twenty-six, he did not serve under the tyrant Kwanghaegun. He regularly refused insignificant posts, preferring to return to Haenam and the neighbouring islands where he liked to construct dykes, manage land development projects, engage in military training etc. For a poet-official who never attained the highest ranks in the government, he had a remarkably turbulent political career. In 1616, he presented a memorial to the king remonstrating against corruption in the court, for which he was exiled to Kyŏnwŏn, where he spent the next thirteen years and is said to have written his earliest poems. He was recalled in 1623 when Injo succeeded to the throne. In 1628, he was appointed personal tutor to the two young princes, Pongnim and Inp'yŏng. He got into trouble again during the Manchu Invasion of 1636 for failing to attend on the king. He was exiled to Yŏngdŏk but soon released. Over the next number of years, he wrote a series of memorials to the king that kept getting him into trouble. The final embroilment occurred over the length of the mourning period that was adjudged appropriate for Hyojong's mother. Again, his opponents carried the day and the poet was banished to Samsu where he remained until his release in 1668.
ŎBU SASHI SA (THE FISHERMAN'S CALENDAR) (shijo)
Ŏbu sashi sa, a cycle of forty shijo describing the four seasons in one of Yun Sŏndo's favourite retreats, is universally regarded as the acme of shijo composition. The fisherman is a time-honoured symbol of the wise man who lives simply in nature. There is a solid tradition of poems treating this theme both in China and Korea.
Yun Sŏndo was inspired to write his poem when reworking the earlier "Ŏbu ka" (Fisherman's Song) by Yi Hyŏnbo (in which Yi T'oegye collaborated), which in turn was a reworking into nine verses of an anonymous poem from Koryŏ.
Ŏbu sashi sa is by far the most ambitious series of shijo in the canon. Throughout the poem, the reader, while experiencing at first hand the day-to-day life of the fisherman through the four seasons, a life Yun Sondo knew intimately from his experiences on Pogil Island, constantly feels the tension between the concepts of retreat in nature and public service in the court and the effort of a Confucian gentleman to work out his own confusion.
Ŏbu sashi sa shows some differences in syllable count from the regular shijo pattern. In addition, it features two refrains that are not found in shijo. The first refrain varies in a regular pattern through the verses; it describes various tasks on the boat, pushing off, raising sail, lowering sail, rowing etc. The second refrain is onomatopoeic: chighukch'ong, chigukch'ong, representing the winding of the anchor chain, and ŏsawa, a chant to the rhythm of the oars.