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A Study on the poetic themes and styles appeared in Okgye No-Jin’s poetry

  • Journal of Korean Classical Chinese Literature
  • Abbr : 한문고전연구
  • 2014, 29(1), pp.69-91
  • DOI : 10.18213/jkccl.2014.29.1.003
  • Publisher : The Classical Chinese Literature Association of Korea
  • Research Area : Humanities > Korean Language and Literature

Kim Geun-tai 1

1강원대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

This paper aims to consider the poetic themes and styles in the poems of Okgye No-Jin. Practically it’s difficult to say Okgye has a definite status in the history of Sino-Korean Poetry, because he’s not a professional poet. However the poems from one neo-confucianist’s profound knowledge and noble personality are easy and plain, and show us his high spiritual world beyond mundanity. In this article, these poetic themes and styles are defined as Pyong-Dam(平澹): calm, lucid and pure. Okgye had accumulated a deep academic knowledge while communicating with scholars of the day. Since his gentle and quiet character, he had been skeptical about the corrupt, rapidly changing political world which was too ambiguous to look ahead. For that reason he was eager to quit the government office, return home and lead a quiet life by practicing of his study. But it was never achieved. During just a short time staying home after withdraw from his office, it’s possible to do sightseeing several places around Jirisan and writing poems about nature and the people lived in. Therefore it might say the remaining poems in his anthology recite honestly his feelings about hometown or landscape, and such poems are mainstream. Okgye No-Jin’s poems seem to be plain because of no special skill, poetic devices, difficult allusion or polishing any poetic diction. In addition, the emotion and feelings of the author so rarely revealed, that could be considered his poems are even insipid rather than plain. But the more reader read those poems, the more taste deep flavor contained in them unfolding in a very natural way, consequentially they worked very well to last infinite emotional resonance. Other poems written while excursing implicit the spirit of neo-confucianist: to cultivate one’s mind and the vast flowing spirit[浩然之氣], and internalize his virtuous mental world.

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