Abstract

This paper explores how the streamlining discourse and the automobile symbolism constructed modern disciplinary norms in colonial Korea, particularly as reflected in Jeong Ji-yong’s poem Yuseon Aesang (Streamline Melancholy). In the 1920s–30s, streamlined aesthetics circulated through transportation, consumer goods and women’s bodies, promoting fantasies of empire, masculinity, and modernity as rational ideals. The automobile, emblematic of speed and strength, reinforced the image of the ideal imperial man and positioned Koreans—and especially Korean women—as modernity’s Others. In Yuseon Aesang, the streamlined car initially appears as a modern fantasy but ends in noise and futility. Through its poetic form, the poem exposes the fictitious nature of Western civilization and modernity.