FORM AND TECHNIQUE

The origin of kasa is traced to popular songs of Koryô, kyônggi-ch'e songs, or didactic folk songs. The difference between these forms and kasa is one of scale, for the kasa allows one to give a lengthier and more sustained treatment. A typical kasa line, as in sijo, consists of four metric segments. This line is repeated with matched pairings and enumerative development. A poem generally concludes in a line of 3, 5, 4, and 3/4 syllables (again as in sijo) in the kasa composed by literati and a line of 4, 4, 4, and 4 in the commoner's and women's kasa. The simple metric basis of kasa invites inventiveness in everything from the development of a theme, narrative techniques, sequences of imagery, and the speaker's ethos to views of life and the world itself. Therefore, the freedom the writer of kasa enjoys is considerable.

Although the kasa resembles the Chinese fu (rhymeprose, or rhapsody) in form and technique, it is neither prose nor rhymed. It is narrative poetry meant to be sung (or chanted in the case of literati kasa). Unlike the three-line sijo, it tells a story, often adhering to a linear temporal and spatial sequence, though frequently without a plot in the sense of a narrative of events with an emphasis on causality. kasa are organized by certain patterns. Poems built on the seasonal pattern, for example, unfold a series of nature scenes that evoke each season.