• Journal of Korean Classical Literature and Education
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• no.15
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• pp.329-353
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• 2008

Tasan Jeong Yak-yong is great scholar, who makes a synthesis of Sil-hak[實學, Practical Science of Korea], reformer of society, and a poet in the Joseon Dynasty. He expressed contradiction and conflict of those days by intellectual language, and reperceived basic ideology of the Joseon society. Also he theorized dissatisfaction of the people about those days and its system as form of religion. We can divide Tasan's life into two times. The first part is his ages 16~39 in the period of Jeong-jo(1777~1800). The second part is in the period of Sun-jo(1801~1834). In this period, he was exiled into Gang-jin for 17 years. After banishment, he lived a quiet life for the rest of his life in his hometown. His allegoric poetry were written in this second period. The special feature of allegoric poetry is strong satire. An allegory would be that is 'king's ear', which the barber has sight, or the barber's voice, which has divulged king's secret among the bamboos. Otherwise it would be that is the sound 'king's ear is donkey's ear' in the bamboos. This sound is divulging of the true donkey's ear. It doesn't travel to audiences, but travels trough wind in the bamboos. The narration exists just as story that barber can't stand to keep silence about king's secret. There are exposure of true and critical motive as allegoric expression. Tasan's allegoric poetry stand on the basis of his love for the people. Also there reveals his thought deeply with an enormous amount of reading and self-communion. Moreover there are his warm mind with his sharp insight in which captures alive lives as allegoric materials. Most of allegoric poetry satirize actuality of those days to make an excuse for external distinguishing marks of animals and plants. However Tasan's poetry are different from them. After he grasped serious problems from his contemporary actuality, and then choosed allegoric media to express correctly. Because he grasped the special features of lives after minute observation, he could exposure controversial point of the actual. His sharp insight was not limited to allegoric media. He noticed his period and the current of his society sensitively. It made his allegoric poetry as important materials to make us to know the condition of the people in the Joseon Dynasty. Tasan's allegoric poetry is inherited by Baek Seok[白石, 1912~1995] as regular juvenile literature. Baek Seok's juvenile stories are the results of expansion and transition for Tasan's allegoric poetry. Allegoric poetry was the shout of barber to prosecute about social irregularities and contradiction, and the sound of the bamboos to travel moaning of the people in the past. Now allegoric poetry create new emotion to make us to speculate ourselves with our surrounding. This changes are caused by special feature of allegoric poetry as a form to reflect our general lives.

• Journal of Korean Classical Literature and Education
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• no.38
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• pp.65-101
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• 2018

In the late Joseon Dynasty, patriarchal ideology became central to the family and the clan, and once again became acutely felt with "the familism of clan rules that centered around a legitimate and eldest son." The establishment of the family-clan system, though somewhat complex, was largely aimed at the family line of "a paternalist-a legitimate and eldest son." The trend was not limited to a particular family, but rather, was a historical and social trend. Changseonggameirok showed how to solve the family crisis by setting up a problem for the next generation's patriarch. This paper tries to explain the issue of Hwachun's complex as the legitimate and eldest son complex. First, it suggests that Hwachun's complex is as universal as the Cain complex, also known as the eldest son complex, and that Hwachun's complex is a special instance of the legitimate and eldest son complex in Changseonggameirok. Next this paper studies the aspects of Hwachun's legitimate and eldest son complex combined with Mrs. Sim's complex, as well as her daughter-in-law's complex, and eventually tracks the development of the family-clan complex. As a result, we've come to a new conclusion that the legitimate and eldest son complex was found in Changseonggameirok for the first time in Korean literary history. This paper also examines the fact that when the legitimate and eldest son complex was transferred to Hwajin, it became a family complex that Hwajin had to contend with; this paper tracks the process wherein Hwajin's filial piety solved the legitimate and eldest son complex. As a result, we realized that Hwajin's filial duty and brotherly love went beyond his feelings for Mrs. Sim and Hwachun, and supported the substantiation for "the familism of a clan that is based on rules of the legitimate and eldest son" in the course of public opinion. However the familism of these rules was not embodied in the absolute; in the royal family, for example, it was rather flexibly implemented when the characters admitted to breaking the law. In addition, this paper provides the room for a critical reading of Changseonggameirok, reflecting back on the underlying guilt and psychological pain of the characters who are affected by the particular rules, and concluding that guilt and suffering are fundamentally insoluble. This is because the two ideas, "the legitimate and eldest son complex" and "the familism of a clan rules centered on a legitimate and eldest son" are two sides of the same coin.

• Journal of Korean Classical Literature and Education
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• no.38
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• pp.175-200
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• 2018

From the point of view of the law and public morals in Yi-dynasty, it is possible to discover new meanings in the love of Chunhyang and Mongryong-Lee, the conflicts between Chunhyang and Hakdo-Byeon, and the rescue of Chunhyang by Mongryong-Lee as a secret royal inspector. First, although the love of Chunhyang and Mongryong-Lee was against the law and public morals of Yi-dynasty, the narrator did not call to account, but he described the love as a romantic and new one conflicting with the ruling system. And it was an unprecedented case that Chunhyang asked a written contract as a legal guarantee for marriage when Mongryong-Lee courted her. Second, Hakdo-Byeon, the Namwon county governor, accused Chunhyang, a female entertainer of the Namwon county, of disobedience to his oder and contempt of him, and interrogated her with torture when she denied his demand for bed service which was prohibited by law. Chunhyang refuted against him and regarded his demand for bed service as the rape of a married woman. In this process, narrator sharply contrasted Chunhyang's claim for human rights with Hakdo-Byeon's legal administration. Characters such as people of Namwon county and king did not call Mongryong-Lee to account for that he, as a secret royal inspector, allegedly used his power privately to rescue his sweetheart Chunhyang from Hakdo-Byeon's illegal oppression. These different judgements on legal administrations of Hakdo-Byeon and Mongryong-Lee came from the legal emotion of characters and reading publics of . Namely, people who sympathized with Chunhyang's claim for love and human rights had the legal emotion that Mongryong-Lee's administrative order suspending Hakdo-Byeon's govenor's status could be approved as an legal and exciting one. Therefore the love of Chunhyang and Mongryong-Lee implied a new legal emotion which based on the sympathy with Chunhyang's human rights consciousness, and regarded the positive law of Yi - dynasty as one behind times.

• Journal of Korean Classical Literature and Education
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• no.32
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• pp.5-27
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• 2016

This study shows the points of interest and the meanings contained within Hyangga which are derived from three literary characteristics: easy-to-understand structure of dialectic thinking, old-fashioned and universal lyric, and the sense of a place from the past that it reveals. Hyangga is a literary genre that is structured on dialectic thinking in its form and contents. The construction of meaning in these poems happens three stages, which is explicit in four-line and eight line Hyangga as well as in ten-line Hyangga. Therefore, to enjoy Hyangga, it makes more sense to understand the structure of the thoughts contained in Hyangga. A deeper understanding and enjoyment of the thoughts contained in Hyangga can be gained by thinking dialectically. The poems of Hyangga that have survived to present day have peculiar and rich lyrics. The emotions and thoughts contained in Hyangga are a combination of the universal human being and historically peculiar ones. The literary interests of Hyangga come from its universality and individuality, and the concreteness and reality of emotions expressed in its poems. Its beautifully and aesthetically described emotions resonate deep within us. The poems of Hyangga reveal features relating to spaces. We are able to get a sense of places from the past by reading their description in these poems. The places mentioned in Hyangga bring about a connection between our past and our present because they describe the same place but in a different period. Hyangga is a literary genre depicting the emotions and thoughts derived from places that belong to our people's territories. Therefore, the sense of place that Hyangga awakens in us reveals how we exist in the flow of our history. To sum up, the point of interest and meaning contained within Hyangga reveal the structure of dialectic thinking, the lyrics of those days, and the feeling of a sense of place. If these boundaries can be extended, there will be a wider scope for enjoying Hyangga.