2025, Vol.21, No.21

This study examines the regression narrative of the web novel Reborn Rich (also known as The Youngest Son of a Conglomerate) by analyzing the binary oppositions of ‘servant/master,’ ‘outsider/legitimate heir,’ and ‘fake/real,’ and explores how their continual reconfiguration through resubjectification exposes the persistent mechanisms of oppression. Although the protagonist Jin Do-jun appears to escape external oppression by regressing to the past and rising from the lower to the upper class, the regression narrative ultimately reveals that this ascent does not eliminate oppression but replaces it with more refined and internalized forms—disciplinary power, competitive pressure, and the burden of expectation within the domain of power itself. The repetitive deployment of these binary oppositions serves three interrelated functions: it ideologically reinforces the endurance of the capitalist order; it delivers frequent, intense cathartic moments that foster emotional addiction in readers; and it operates as an industrial strategy perfectly tailored to the pay-per chapter logic of platform-based web novels. By repeatedly inverting binary pairs, the regression narrative allows readers to vicariously experience societal absurdity and achieve a sense of psychological liberation through an overturned identity. In this way, the regression narrative simultaneously reflects contemporary desires and social contradictions while channeling their temporary resolution through the “cider-like” (highly gratifying and rapid) plot progression that characterizes the genre. Reborn Rich thus exemplifies how the regression narrative reorganizes oppressive structures under the guise of liberation and, in doing so, reveals a key reason why web novels—particularly the regression subgenre—have become a dominant master plot in twenty-first-century Korean popular literature and culture.

Korean Consonant Error Patterns in the Spontaneous Speech of Russian-speaking Educators in Korea

KIM HAN NA , Kim Gyeongyeol | 2025, 21(21) | pp.210~222 | number of Cited : 0

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Understanding of Multicultural Youth and Ways to Improve Their Career Guidance Supports

Kim, Sung Chul , Kim, Mi-Kyong | 2025, 21(21) | pp.223~233 | number of Cited : 0

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Migrant-Background Residents as Transnational Civic Subjects: A Comparative Study of Multicultural Education Policies in South Korea and the UK

Yi Jae Eun | 2025, 21(21) | pp.234~245 | number of Cited : 0

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A Study on the Sui–Goguryeo Wars and the Identification of Place-Names through Historical Sources

Nam, Eui-Hyeon | 2025, 21(21) | pp.246~263 | number of Cited : 0

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The Korean Vernacular Manuscript “Eonmunhonganggyusik” Held at Hamilton Library, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa: Expanding Glocal Studies in Language and Literature through the Discovery of New Overseas Hangul Classical Texts

Eom Tae-ung | 2025, 21(21) | pp.264~269 | number of Cited : 0

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An Analysis of the bieo(批語, marginal notes) in Dangjeolseonsan(唐絶選刪)(1): Focusing on Authorship Attribution and Editorial Patterns

LIM MIJUNG | 2025, 21(21) | pp.270~285 | number of Cited : 0

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This study investigates the bieo (批語, marginal notes) found in Dangjeolseonsan (唐絶選刪), an anthology of Chinese quatrains compiled by Heo Gyun, with the aim of clarifying both their authorship and critical character. Dangjeolseonsan is composed exclusively of five- and seven-character jeolgu selected from four earlier Chinese anthologies, reflecting a deliberate focus on the quatrain form. The sole extant manuscript is Heo Gyun’s personal copy, which contains 926 poems under 862 titles and includes over 300 bieo written in red ink. These marginal notes consist of two main types: citations of poetic criticism by Chinese literati and independent evaluative remarks that display a distinct critical voice. Despite their importance, the authorship of the bieo—whether they were written by Heo Gyun himself or by another annotator—has remained unresolved. To address this issue, the present study conducts a comparative analysis of handwriting to authenticate authorship. In addition, it examines the formal structure and thematic content of the bieo in order to elucidate the nature of Heo Gyun’s poetic criticism and to situate the work within the broader context of the reception of annotated Chinese poetry anthologies in mid-Joseon Korea. The analysis demonstrates that the bieo in Dangjeolseonsan closely engage with the critical frameworks and evaluative practices developed in annotated poetic editions of the Yuan and Ming dynasties. At the same time, they reveal an active process of selection, reinterpretation, and judgment, suggesting that Heo Gyun did not merely transmit Chinese critical discourse but adapted it to articulate his own criteria of poetic value. This study thus repositions Dangjeolseonsan as a significant site of poetic criticism and cross-cultural literary reception in the mid-Joseon period.

KJCKorea
Journal Central

International Journal of Glocal Language and Literary Studies(약칭: IGLL) 2024 KCI Impact Factor : 0.33

2025, Vol.21, No.21