Against Silence: Voices of Freedom

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A: Hello, everyone. Today’s topic is “Censorship and Literature About The Writers Whose Freedom Of Speech Was Threatened.” To compare more, we will look at two poems which are “The Wounded.” by Miguel Hernández and “Winter Republic” by Yang Sung-woo. We are going to listen to how they have resisted the threat of their voices.

 

B: Let us start with Hernández’s poem “The Wounded.”

During the Spanish Civil War, he experienced prison, illness, and constant danger. Yet even in such conditions, he continued to write, believing that poetry could treat the illness.

“Para la libertad sangro, lucho, pervivo.

For freedom I bleed, I fight, I live on.”

For Hernández, a hospital was not only a place of pain or death. He imagined it as a field where freedom could overcome its presence again. Just as a cut tree sprouts new branches, he argued that even a broken body could still start a new life, and recover resistance, and hope. His poem is filled with hope that freedom would rise again, no matter how much blood has been spilled.

 

C: Now, let’s look at how a Korean poem has been written about the threatened freedom. The “Winter Republic” discloses about the harsh control of a military dictatorship. His poem is not about cruel battlefields, but about the everyday lives of people being crushed under military power.

In these lines, the fields and rice paddies mean the life and spirit of everyday people. The poet shows how these people are in danger and made to be quiet. But the poet doesn't end with sadness. He writes that even azaleas, which are a kind of flower, will definitely grow on the frozen ground.

This idea shows hope. It means that even in the coldest and hardest times when people are kept down, spring will finally arrive. When we look at these two poems together, we can see something surprising.

 

A: Hernández and Yang use images of suffering—blood, wounds, frozen fields—as symbols of resistance and rebirth. Their work reminds us that human freedom is stronger than government censorship, even when books are banned and writers are silenced. From Spanish hospitals to Korean fields, their voices resonate across time and space. They remind contemporary readers not to take freedom for granted but to reflect on its meaning in their own lives.

"What does freedom mean to you?“

 

 

By Staff Reporter Yoon Yoojung (1-1)
Cheon Yeongmin (2-1)

Lee Yoon Seo (2-2)

Youn Chanhee (2-2)