Maesan Hong Jik‐pil was excellent in academics to be praised by his mentor, Park Yun‐won, for "We entrust our Do to you." He as a Nakron School scholar who abandoned the preparation of the civil service examination devoted himself to scholarship by living in scholar living in the forest, and produced numerous students. He wrote a vast number of poems reaching 3,555 poems at leisure from studies and cultivation of junior scholars, and his poems were evaluated as profound.
This study focusing on the poems that Hong Jik‐pil wrote during his youth, explores first, the will of defeating the evil and defending the discipline, second, the pursuit of just as human beings, and third, his practicing living in retirement (自靖) through abandoning the government and living in the mountains, to help understand his literary world.
First, this study examined the poems that revealed the will of 'the defeating the evil and defending the discipline.' Hong Jik‐pil believed that the end of Joseon was caused by the fact that heresy such as Catholic came into the gap while Confucianism was divided into Nakron and Horon, fighting each other with their alleged arguments. He said that the revival of Confucianism, together with the consolidation of divided schools, should enhance ancient sages, encourage the scholastic disciples to cultivate talents who will become paragons, correct the customs, and establish the discipline.
Second, this study looked at the 'poems' pursued by just as human beings. In the first half of the 18th century when Hong Jik‐pil lived, with the exception of some Noron ruling classes, the people had almost no sense of Ming's grace that saved the dying. However, his fidelity of respecting Ming was in the background of family pride and academic background, so that he argued that the grace should not be forgotten even if Ming was ruined. His fidelity of respecting Ming has expanded to the will to defeat Qing, and the spirit of coping with national affairs, which praises a person who gave his life as the fidelity to one's principle among the historical figures of our country on the extension line of protecting justice.
Third, this study explored the 'poems' of practicing a life in retirement through self‐discipline and living in the mountains. Hong Jik‐pil took the civil service examination as a compulsory solicitation of his father, but gave up his study of the civil service examination after he failed. After his resignation at Sejasema for eight days at the age of 39, he had been appointed to several public posts, but he did not enter on an official career for the rest of his life. He perceived that the reality of the present day was the end of politics caused by Sedo politics and the decline of Confucianism, and the fact that Catholic, which was introduced from the West, became more and more popular every day. Living in the forest for keeping one's body and chastity (守身安分), he showed his willingness to living in retirement (自靖) to cultivate his academy and to cultivate junior scholars.
Future research is to analyze his poems of everyday life which were mainly written after the middle and later period of Hong Jik‐pil, and review his poetry as a whole in order to identify his position in the history of Sino‐Korean literature in the 19th century