본문 바로가기
  • Home

A Study on Chugang(秋江) Nam Hyo-on(南孝溫)’s poem, <Buyeo Hoego(夫餘懷古)>

DongJae Lee 1

1공주대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

This paper, as a preliminary study for understanding Chugang Nam Hyo-on’s historical reminiscent poems in general, has taken a look at his created poem ‘Buyeo Hoego (a reminiscence of Buyeo).’ Chugana’s poem, ‘Buyeo Hoego’ is a sequential poem consisting of the first and second halves with 10 sub-poems for each half, which he created while doing sightseeing in Buyeo in the middle of his travel over the whole country with his son-in-law, Lee Chong in 1491. This poem can be said to be a reminiscent poem about the history of Baekje with 10 sub-poems as it does not have independent poetic themes for the sub-poems, which in turn are closely correlated with each other. Hungu literary men like Seo Geo-jeong only expressed simple feelings of condolence in their reminiscent poems about the history of Baekje written in the early Joseon period. Contrastively, Chugang’s poem ‘Buyeo Hoego’ was one that was created for seeking a way to solve the real problems in the times, in which he lived from the previous history of falling in Buyeo, a historic site of the fallen Baekje rather than singing the transience of human conditions. Chugang’s poem ‘Buyeo Hoego’ can be understood as follows. First, the poem is a poeticization of Chugang’s deep understanding of the history of Baekje as a whole. Though his understanding of the history of Baekje did not overcome the records in 『Samguksagi』 and 『Samgukyusa』, he tried to throughly follow them and leave lessons for the next generations with his objective description rather than with his emotional engagement. Second, Chuganga’s poem ‘Buyeo Hoego’ is an expression of his will to reflect upon the present beyond simply recording past events, and to show further how one should keep his right also in the future. That is to say, his identification of himself with such loyal subjects like Seong Chung is an attempt to establish a novel figure of literary man who should be able to resist the injustice in reality via his own fidelity and sacrifice. Third, Chugang’s poem ‘Buyeo Hoego’ is one that was created from a fairer and more objective perspective of the history of Baekje. That is to say, he did not ascribe the falling of Baekje completely to King Uija’s atrocious boozing and womanizing but recognized that the subjects at that time should share responsibilities as they were in charge of national politics. Furthermore, he thought of the Baekje-reconstruction movement as positive. That was a unique recognition among other reminiscent poems about Baekje created in the Goryeo and early Joseon periods. Consequently, Chugang’s ‘Buyeo Hoego’ is an allegoric poem that he created to find out a method or lesson to solve the problems in the times in which he lived, via his novel recognition of the history of Baekje.

Citation status

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