Woman Poet Ho Ran Sol Hon

Ho Ran Sol Hon (1563-1589), a 16-century poet, was the elder sister of Ho Kyun (1569-1618) who wrote a classic novel Story of Hong Kil Tong.

Since her childhood Ran Sol Hon was clever and unusually beautiful. She was called a child prodigy as she began to compose a poem at 5.

Her father Ho Yop did not teach her how to write. At the time, it was regarded as not good to teach girls writing.

So she eavesdropped on what her elder brothers were taught to learn writing and compose poems. With extraordinary cleverness, she read more writings and wrote more poems than her brothers.

Even after getting married, she continued to write poems while raising children, but she unfortunately died young.

She composed fine poems depicting bitter life experience of the contemporary women, becoming one of the typical female poets in the 16th century and contributing to the development of poetry.

There is the Collection of Ran Sol Hon’s Poems that puts together her available prose collections. It serves as an important document showing the development of the contemporary poetry by Chongroan women writers.