Yoo Yeong (; November 24, 1917 â August 25, 2002) was a South Korean literary scholar, translator, and poet.
He was a professor at the Department of English Language and Literature of Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea from 1956 to 1983. He taught English Poetry at school, his specialty being in John Milton and Rabindranath Tagore. He was given the Dongbaeg Medal (the third class of South KoreaâÂÂs Order of Civil Merit) by the South Korean government for his contribution to education when he retired from his professorate in 1983. He translated many literary works such as HomerâÂÂs Iliad and Odyssey, MiltonâÂÂs Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained into Korean. He was the first Korean to translate the complete collection of TagoreâÂÂs poetry.
He is also known for his acquaintance with one of the most well-known poets in Korea, Yun Dong-ju. After the poetâÂÂs death, YooâÂÂs memorial poem for his friend was included in the first edition of YunâÂÂs posthumously published collection of poems. Being a poet himself, Yoo published his own poems under the titles Day and Night (æÂ¥æÂÂ) (1970), The Preface of Air and Earth (天å°åºÂ) (1975), The Mind is a Wing (ë§ÂìÂÂì ë ê°Â) (1992) and so on. A translation award is being given under his name (Yoo Yeong Translation Award) since 2007.
Yoo was born in 1917 in Yongin, Korea, Empire of Japan. Before he went to public school, he was taught at a traditional Korean village school (ìÂÂë¹) at the age of six. He went to Yonhi College (later Yonsei University) in 1938. Graduating from school in 1943, he worked at the newspaper Keijà  Nippà  until 1945. He was arrested and imprisoned for 6 months by the Japanese government under the security law set during the JapanâÂÂs Occupation of Korea. After the Japanese occupation of the country ended in 1945, he majored in English Literature at Seoul National University. He worked at Taesung High School as a teacher from 1948 to 1956. He was a professor at Yonsei University from 1956 to his retirement in 1983.
YooâÂÂs main study on literature was on John Milton and Rabindranath Tagore. His study on Milton, A Study of the Miltonic Epic: Its Poetic Structures from Aesthetic Point of View (ë°Âüì æÂÂäºÂè©©ç¡Â究: ê·¸ ç¾Âå¸ç æ§ÂæÂÂè«Â), was introduced in John M. SteadmanâÂÂs Epic and Tragic Structure in Paradise Lost (published in 1967) as one of the âÂÂrecent studies of MiltonâÂÂs major poetry, its structure, and its relations to epic and tragic tradition.â His lifelong study on Tagore was published as The Literature of Tagore: The Aesthetics of its Myth and Mystery (ÃÂÂ골ì æÂÂå¸: ê·¸ ç¥Â話ì ç¥Âç§Âì ç¾Âå¸) in 1983. His scholarly world also includes comparisons between literatures of the West and the East. In The Aesthetic Perception of the Western and Eastern literature (ëÂÂìÂÂ문ÃÂÂì 미ÃÂÂì  ì¸ìÂÂ), he traces the common themes that reoccur in both the Western and Eastern regionâÂÂs literatures.
In 2007, Yoo YeongâÂÂs son, Yoo Hyuksoo established a translation award under the name of his father in order to remember his contribution to the translation history in Korea. The award is given every year on November at Yonsei University. Yoo Yeong Translation Symposium has been held at the same day and place since 2016. The award is being co-sponsored by Yoo Yeong Research Foundation and the Department of English Language and Literature of Yonsei University. In 2017, the award was given to Uhm Il-nyeo who translated Sarah Watersâ âÂÂThe Little Stranger.âÂÂ
Yoo was one of the closest friends of the well-known Korean poet Yun Dong-ju. He entered Yonhi College in the same year with the poet. They lived at the same lodging house and wrote poems together with their fellow school colleagues. In an interview with MBC news in 1995, Yoo remembered the poet Yun to have had a sincere and warm smiling attitude, his entire life being a poem (âÂÂê°ÂìÂÂ¥ ëÂÂë ·ì´ 기ìµëÂÂë ê²Âì 그 ì‘ÂÂì ì±ì¤ÃÂÂ, ÃÂÂëÂÂ, ì¤ëÂÂ주ìÂÂ. 그리고ìÂÂ주 ë¹Â그렠ìÂÂë ë°ë»Ã ÃÂÂëÂÂ. ìÂÂ맠그 ì‘ÂÂì ì‘ 겠ì Â붠ìÂÂìÂÂì¼ëÂÂê¹ÂâÂÂ). YooâÂÂs memorial poem for his friend was included in the first edition of the poet YunâÂÂs posthumously published collection of poems.