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The way to gain a status of Korean classical saga novel in Joseon Dynasty
Journal of Korean Literature
2005,
(13), pp.129-152
Publisher : The Society Of Korean Literature
Research Area : Korean Language and Literature
Publisher : The Society Of Korean Literature
Research Area : Korean Language and Literature
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This paper examined what sort of strategic narrative was used in the hangeul saga novel, Myeonghaengjeonguirok(명행정의록), in order to raise the status of novels in the late Joseon period. Since its origin, the novel had been continuously denounced because it was not fact, but gradually this fictitiousness was recognized and then accepted. Yet the fact that the novel was fundamentally not based on fact acted as a stumbling block to the active acceptance of the novel's value until the concept of the modern novel, which accepted this fictitiousness as the essence of the novel, became standard. If we reexamine from the point of view of the classical novel author this understanding of the novel's fictitiousness as falsehood, we see that, in one way or another, a breakthrough was necessary in the creative process. In order to solve this problem, the author of Myeonghaengjeonguirok expressed the emptiness of the narrative of history through an analogy between the narrative of Boeungiurok(보은기우록: the prequel to Myeonghaengjeonguirok) and the narrative of history. And on the premise of this narrative of history, the author insists that Myeonghaengjeonguirok contains unrecorded facts of history. Concerning history whose authority is officially recognized as a record of past facts, Myeonghaengjeonguirok shows that historical records are not at all the entirety of actual past events. Through this, Myeonghaengjeonguirok goes beyond the reality unrecorded by history to prove that the novel can demonstrate the principles of operation of a transcendental life and recognize a broader world.
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