본문 바로가기
  • Home
Basic Search

Do-gok Uy-hyun Lee's Theory of Defending Neo-Confucianism

Jeon, Byoung-Ok 1

1고려대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

This article deals with Do-Gok Uy-hyun Lee(1669-1745)'s theory of defending Neo-Confucianism. Do-gok was a key figure representing Noron(老論) in politics, as well as a quite literary stylist in Tang-Song Gomunpa(唐宋古文派) in his era. Although he was not a leader of his party-Noron Nakron, Do-gok made an avowal of Noron's Uyli(義理) by writing numerous Shindaobimyoung(神道碑銘), Myozimyoung(墓誌銘), and the like, which contained his evaluation of Noron's leading figures of the time. In his literary writing, he wrote both verse and prose evenly, but more importantly, he mostly wrote Manshi(輓詩) and Biziliu(碑誌類), which dealt with Noron's figures. He asserted that Zhuziwenzi(朱子文集) should be treated as a paragon in literature, and thus faithfully represented Noron's standpoint which rated Zhuzi(朱子) more highly than that of shaoron(少論). The existing research of Do-gok tends to focus on his literary theory, shedding light on that he openly ranged over an extensive writing styles while he succeeded to Zhuzi's literary theory. According to these researches, it is considered that he acknowledged the merit of Mun(文) independently, while he tried to reconcile Dao(道) with Mun. In this context, some researchers claimed that the characteristic of Do-gok's literary theory is his effort to reconcile Dao with Mun, whereas others maintained that these two elements-his acknowledgement of independent merit of 文 and his attempt to reconcile Dao with Mun-were combined contradictorily. Despite this difference, they generally see Zhuzi's literary theory as the essential feature of Do-gok's theory. That is, basically, Do-gok's literary theory, having extensive openness, was based on Zhuzi's theory. However, I believe that the starting point of Do-gok's literary theory was not that of Zhuzi. Rather, he mainly read irrelevant text books to Dao such as Hanshu(漢書), Zhuangzi(莊子), and the like, when he started to take his literary training. He cultivated his literary ability through these books, not through SiShu-SanJing(四書三經), or Zhuzi's other works. Although it is true that Do-gok referred to Zhuzi-Daquan(朱子大全) as the basic, indispensible source of sentences, it does not mean that he took his literary training through Zhuzi-Daquan. Instead, I think, it only shows his regret late in his life, which he was misguided with his literary training. Do-gok maintained that Zhuzixue(朱子學) must be protected from attacks of heresy, but it is not because he thoroughly studied Zhuzi's theory, but because he strongly intended to defend Noron's Uyli(義理) in politics. In other words, he did not consider Zhuzi's philosophy or literary theory as perfect ones theoretically as well as aesthetically. In brief, the primary characteristic of Do-gok's literary theory is that he tried to represent Noron's Uyli by his sentences and literary theory.

Statistics

  • 228 Viewed
  • 134 Downloaded

Tools

Issue List

Citation status

* References for papers published after 2023 are currently being built.

Basic Search Advanced Search