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A Study on 16th century Literary Men’s Poems Reminiscing about the Baekje Dynasty
Journal of Korean Classical Chinese Literature
Abbr :
한문고전연구
2015, 30(1), pp.129-161
DOI : 10.18213/jkccl.2015.30.1.005
Publisher : The Classical Chinese Literature Association of Korea
Research Area : Korean Language and Literature
2015, 30(1), pp.129-161
DOI : 10.18213/jkccl.2015.30.1.005
Publisher : The Classical Chinese Literature Association of Korea
Research Area : Korean Language and Literature
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This study purposed to examine the current state, contents, and literary characteristics of poems reminiscing about the Baekje Dynasty written by literary men in the 16th century and ultimately to broaden our understanding of poems reminiscing the Baekje. Poems reminiscing about the Baekje Dynasty refer to poems composed on the theme of remains, people, events, and history related to Baekje by those who visited the remains of the Baekje Dynasty including Buyeo, the last capital of Baekje. There are 44 extant poems reminiscing about the Baekje Dynasty written by 14 literary men in the 16th century including So Se‐yang(蘇世讓). The contents of the poems are mostly about the vanity of history, and a few literary men such as Hwang Jun‐ryang wrote poems satirizing the realities in those days but the number is small. The reasons are as follows. First, different from that in the 15th century, 16th‐century Joseon was already rooted deeply into the Neo‐Confucian value, the national founding ideology of Joseon, in various aspects of the state including politics, economy, and society. However, there were a series of political incidents including Gimyosahwa(己卯士禍: massacre of Confucian scholars in 1519) resulting from continuous political conflicts between aristocrats monopolizing power and wealth and those anxious for new politics. As a result, literary men’s interest in history was generally diminished far lower than that in the past. Second, as Neo‐Confucianism was deepened and popularized in the 16th century, the Neo‐Confucian view of history soaked into literary men unknowingly. The king had to attend the learning session[經筵] everyday and discussed Confucian texts and history with the subjects. The main textbooks of the learning session were Liujing[六經: the Six Classics] and Jachitonggamgangmok(資治通鑑綱目) reorganized by Chu‐his. Jachitonggamgangmok is a book of Chinese history, not Korean, restructured from the Neo‐Confucian viewpoint based on existing Chinese history books. Therefore, literary men versed in Jachitonggamgangmok, namely, Chinese history but did not have keen interest in and deep knowledge of Korean history. Third, because there were not works for organizing Korean history in those days, the knowledge of Baekje history could not go beyond the records in Samguksagi, and people’s perception of Baekje history was negative. For these reasons, there were not many poets and poems revealing reminiscent emotions on Baekje history compared to those in the early period of the Joseon Dynasty, and most of written poems expressed the vanity of history irrelevant to the realities in those days. Only few literary men including Hwang Jun‐ryang exposed their sentiment of lamentation and admonition in their poems, which criticized King Euija and adored Seongchung from the viewpoint of ultimate governing ideology[至治主義].
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