While Chinese was, by and large, the formal and public literary language of the Korean court and aristocracy, native Korean literature survived as an oral tradition in the more informal and private realms of life. The Yi Dynasty which lasted until the Japanese annexation of 1910, produced and recorded a rich treasury of Chinese and Korean literature. The Korean poet seems to have escaped the full impact of China sent influences, but the writer of fiction used the Chinese language, form, theme and setting. By the 19th century the Koreans had moved from the Chinese standard towards a discovery of the possibilities of the Korean experience. Korean literature went through a period of traumatic and irreversible change during the Era of Enlightenment, dated from the 1884 Reforms to the annexation by Japan in 1910. This period is marked by modernization and gave rise to the "New Literature". The late 1920's and early '30s saw the growth of another movement that was to have a profound effect; that of the politically left oriented, Proletarian Literature Movement. The current movement of writers are deeply involved in the conditions that surround them. (Author/AM)