• Journal of Korean Classical Literature and Education
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• no.34
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• pp.115-147
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• 2017

This paper compared and reviewed the poetic theories and Chinese poems of the Korean author Kim Chang Heup and his Japanese counterpart, Kan Chazan. Kim Chang Heup and Kan Chazan shared largely the same opinions on poetry, and both rejected archaism. First, they did not just copy High Tang poetry. Instead, they focused on the (sometimes trivial) scenery right in front of them, and described the calm feelings evoked by what they had seen. They also adopted a sincere tone, instead of an exaggerated one, because both believed that poetry should be realistic. However the differences between the two poets are also noteworthy. Kim Chang Heup claimed that feelings and scenery meet each other within a literary work through Natural Law, and the linguistic expressions that mediate the two are philosophical in nature. However, Kan Chazan did not use Natural Law as a medium between feelings and scenery. Instead the Japanese writer said the ideal poetical composition comes from a close observation and detailed description of scenery. In sum, while Kim Chang Heup continued to express reason through scenery, Kan Chazan did not go further than depicting the scenery itself. In addition, Kim Chang Heup believed poetry was not only a representation of Natural Law, but also a high-level linguistic activity that conveys a poetic concern about national politics. As a sadaebu (scholar-gentry), he held literature in high esteem because he thought that literature could achieve important outcomes. On the other hand, Kan Chazan regarded it as a form of entertainment, thereby insisting literature had its own territory that is separate from that of philosophy or politics. In other words, whereas Kim Chang Heup considered literature as something close to a form of learning, Kan Chazan viewed it as art. One might wonder whether the poetics of Kim Chang Heup and Kan Chazan reflect their individual accomplishments, or if the characteristics of Chinese poetry that Korean and Japanese poets had long sought after had finally surfaced in these two writers. This paper argued that the two authors' poetics represent characteristics of Chinese poetry in Korea and Japan, or general characteristics of Korean and Japanese literatures in a wider sense. Their request to depict actual scenery in a unique way, free from the ideal model of literature, must have facilitated an outward materialization of Korean and Japanese literary characteristics that had developed over a long time.