• (The)Study of the Eastern Classic
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• no.57
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• pp.331-357
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• 2014

This paper is to examine Okdong Lee Seo's historical view through analyzing Yeokdaega("歷代歌"), Okdong's full-length historical epic. As long as Okdong Lee Seo was a Confucian scholar holding moral cultivation as the highest value, his Yeokdaega is hard to explain separately from the Confucian world view. Okdong's Yeokdaega is a long old-style sino-korean poem consisting of 526 7-syllable verses, yet it considerably differs in structure from other historical epics known so far. Okdong's Yeokdaega consists of two parts: the first narrates Chinese historical facts from the beginning to the fall of Ming dynasty, and the second describes the social irrationality of the time and reveals his strong social criticism. It is very different from an ordinary historical epic piece narrating the orders and disorders and the rise and fall of historical facts. It is thought that Okdong's Yeokdaega was written based on his Confucian historical view. It seems that for Okdong the rise and fall of Chinese historical dynasties did not merely mean historical facts but functioned as a tool explaining the reason for people to persue moral cultivation. Okdong summed up his knowledge of the rise and fall of Chinese historical dynasties, his sharp criticism on social irrationality, and his stimulation about the necessity of moral cultivation, and then created a long 526-verse historical epic Yeokdaega. For the reasons, it is not easy to say that Okdong's Yeokdaega is the result of pure literary activities only for artistry. However, Okdong's Yeokdaega is not inferior to other historical epic pieces written by the time in literary value. Especially, Okdong's Yeokdaega can be said to be more meaningful since it was, over its literary value, not only a tool to strengthen his own study and will but also a educational tool for others around himself.