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The Characteristic of Nam Jeongilheon(南貞一軒)'s Poetic world

김여주 1

1성신여자대학교

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ABSTRACT

Nam Jeongilheon(南貞一軒) was the wife of Seong Daeho(成大鎬) who was a 10th generation descendent of Woogye Seong Hwon(牛溪 成渾) from the late period of Chosun. She was the typical female poet of Sadaebuga(士大夫家) who lived in Seoul in her younger years and spent later years of her life in Hoseo(湖西). After 18th century when the class in charge of literature expanded and the change in the way of life caused by Seoul's development as a city and improved productivity led to the proliferation of aesthetic taste of Sa Dae Bu(士大夫) or the middle-class bracket. These state of the time paradoxically became the basis for female authors' creative activity and they endeavored in the activity with various poetic world and philosophical thinking according to their own social status and characters. This diversity were possible because of the large influence of various changes in the late Chosun's literary circle and the silent support and recognition of the female authors from men. This article studied the aspect of this diversity by looking at the life and works of Nam Jeongilheon(南貞一軒) who was the female author from the late 19th century before the modern era. 『Jeongilheon Poetry Collection(貞一軒詩集)』 was put together by her son Taeyeong(台永) who worried that his mothers's intention to burn all her poems would lead to the loss of the entire work. Her early works had the structure of verse poem and five cadence poem where she depicted a simplicity of everyday life in a forthright and simple manner using the short and compact structure. Life's simplicity was portrayed through subject matters such as everyday occurrence between family members and her surroundings. The way in which she used the calm and composed expression in depicting the sad situation made the sadness not shown conspicuously. Her works from later period, as she became more confident, was based on the consciousness of Sadaebu(士大夫) as a lady. The poems showed the aspect of her as a poet where she put meaning to the things themselves when looking at things and expressed the logics attached in a new way without failing to catch the joys of the objects. Lastly in Akbusi(樂府詩) where the structure was free-from, she was expressing her own unique views freely about diverse subject matters and feelings that were somewhat restricted to women by utilizing various subject matters such as seasonal customs of the time. It could be seen that from the work of Jeongilheon(貞一軒), the female poets of the transitional period of late Chosun, was not much different from the male intellectuals [Sadaebu(士大夫)]. This could be considered as a limitation of female poet of Sadaebuga(士大夫家) but also be concluded that the female authors of late Chosun naturally grew to be independent poets as their various creative activities were accumulated and they gained support from male authors and families. Nam Jeongilheon(南貞一軒)'s status in literary history could be properly established when her unique poetic world was viewed in the manner which acknowledged it as the growing aspect of women's literature in transitional period to modern era.

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