Images of the 15th Century's Bureaucrats in Jo Wi's Poems and Their Implications

KIM Chang Ho

doi:10.18213/jkccl.2012.25.1.010

The purpose of this article is to examine images of the 15th century's bureaucrats in Jo Wi's poems, and what implications they have with changes of zeitgeist in the early Joseon period. There were two bases of the formation of Jo's images of bureaucrats. One is his brother-in-law and teacher, Kim Jong-jik, who woke up Jo about the importance of the exploration and practice of the radical ideologies of Confucianism, and expected him to open a new age on the basis of such an ideological orientation. The other is his uncle (his father's cousin) Jo Seok-mun, who got Jo Wi to recognize himself as a member of a Hungu family in capital society, and helped him to be equipped with capital-cultural features in his early days. The ‘images of bureaucrats’ not only meant ideal points toward which officials who assisted the king and govern people should be oriented, but also directly refer to directions in which they disciplined themselves and established their practice on the ground of the evaluation of the times. Jo's images of bureaucrats can be summarized generally in two dimensions. In one dimension, they are ‘officials assisting the lord in the reign of peace’ in the days of King Seongjong, which the poet himself regarded as the reign of peace. This was a reflection of his confidence in the times or optimistic thoughts, and the officials in those images appeared to vow to fulfill their responsibilities in keeping the time of prosperity. In the other dimension related with neo-bureaucratic consciousness, they were ‘officials maintaining morality on the basis of self-regulation.’ In particular, they put priority on public welfare, and were willing to criticize political situations at that time. The parallelism between the two images of bureaucrats in Jo Wi's poems well reflect the aspects of the middle and late 15th century, in which politics, scholarship, and power began to move from Hungu to Sarim. This can be accounted for on the side of changes of zeitgeist.

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