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Hwaseo School's perception and criticism of Su Dongpo

Kim Geun-tai 1

1강원대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study is to examine a craze for Su Dongpo among the literati of Joseon in the 19th century and the perception of him by Hwaseo School. For the literati of Joseon in the 19th century, Su Dongpo was more than an excellent writer or poet. The literati tried to learn and follow everything about Su Dongpo beyond his poetry and prose. Especially, Gyenghwasejok(京華世族) who played an active part in Seoul regarded Su Dongpo as a paragon of ideal life. It can be said that their role model of life was changed from Zhuzi to Su Dongpo. However, the writers of Hwaseo School still adhered to the consciousness of the existing Neo-confucian scholars. Their scholastic mantle linked from Yulgok, through Wooam, to Hwaseo reflected the perception of Su Dongpo. The Hwaseo School thought that Su Dongpo was nothing but a troublemaker who disturbed the order of nature and threw the people into chaos, based on the historical event in which Su Dongpo had a political conflict with Cheng Yi. The negative perception of Su Dongpo was obviously displayed in a history book, Songwonhwadongsahabpyeongangmok(宋元華東史合編綱目), compiled to rectify orthodoxy and to make the sharp Sino-barbarian Dichotomy(華夷). Hwaseo School accepted the record of Su Dongpo described in the existing history, but modified it to emphasize negative side of him. Moreover, they just commented on Su Dongpo's death instead of writing a separate article about it, because he had committed a very great evil. The reason why Hwaseo School maintained the negative perception and exclusive attitude toward Su Dongpo is in line with the ideas of moral philosophy scholars of the Song Dynasty such as Zhuzi, and the Neo-confucian scholars in the mid-Joseon period. In other words, Su Dongpo was not bound by any particular idea, so he had a wide range of thoughts including Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism. And he freely made sentences based on his innate literary ability. For these reasons, there were many people who were fascinated by Su Dongpo's sentences during his lifetime and even after he died. Under these circumstances, it was clear that the moral philosophy(道學) claimed by the Neo-confucian scholars would not get much response. Therefore they actively stood up to block the Su Dongpo's influence, fearing that such a situation would occur.

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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

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