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A Study on the Female Literature Activity of the 19th Century through Gigak hanpil(綺閣閒筆)

  • Journal of Korean Classical Chinese Literature
  • Abbr : 한문고전연구
  • 2018, 37(1), pp.177-220
  • DOI : 10.18213/jkccl.2018.37.1.006
  • Publisher : The Classical Chinese Literature Association of Korea
  • Research Area : Humanities > Korean Language and Literature
  • Received : November 11, 2018
  • Accepted : December 15, 2018
  • Published : December 30, 2018

Kim,Yeo Ju 1

1성신여자대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

This paper aims to look at the activities of the female writers in the mid 19th century through an analysis of Gigak hanpil , a Chinese poetry work by a female writer Gigak (綺閣). The caste system of Chosen was not fair to women and the activities of female writers were limited, making it extremely difficult for their works to be published or orally passed down. Nevertheless, outstanding female writers in the history of Korean Chinese literature exited in every era, which is why we can’t slow down the study, and the discovery of Gigak hanpil is highly valuable from this perspective. In the Hangul-transcribed version of Gigak hanpil are listed 247 poems of Gigak. Each poem in Gigak hanpil is definitely a Chinese poem composed in Chinese characters, but transcribed in Hangul only without the original text in Chinese characters written. It means that the title, the explanation on the title, body and interpretation are all in Hangul only. For example, a poem meaning “Returning to Nosung” was transcribed as “환노성”, not as “還魯城”. Gigak hanpil whose form wrote Chinese poems only in the Hangul-phonetic way stands out against Chinese poetry collections of other female writers and calls for our attention. This was a part of another way of enjoying the literature , observed among female writers after the 18th century, a study on which can be said to have a significant meaning in understanding the female literature activity at that time. The Gigak hanpil we used as a study text in this paper is a material owned by “The Academy of Korean studies Jangseogak”, which intactly followed the restored works into Chinese characters by precedented researchers. A significance of this study can be argued to lie in that it tried to re-construct Gigak’s life and poetic characteristic by focusing on her individual poems as well as to look at the common yet various literature activities of the noble women in the 19th century by further extending the scope of the study. As we continued this research using a minute analysis tool, we could study Gigak’s activity which attempted to share Chinese poems through a Hangul-transcription method in the time when the activities of 19th century’s female poets varied although when they were born and died are mostly not clear. We could also observe her natural everyday life of composing poetry in her friendly meetings with close male poets including her brother. We categorized the characteristic of her poetry world by subject material, beginning with the works considered to simply write about subjects before her eyes, then dividing our analysis between object poetry(詠物詩) which wittily turned the internal nature of objects into poems and scenery poetry(景物詩) which projected her cheerful mind through an external description of the nature. What was also observed was her care to share and appreciate with other female poets by mainly composing in the form of Chilun jeolgu (七言絶句) a quatrain with seven Chinese characters in each line). From her works using lines written by old poets as titles, we could tell her attempt to master the form of poetry composition as well as the fact that Gigak’s efforts to learn old poets’ sentiment and actively express her diverse feelings were resulted from her creative will as a poet. Gigak attempted to effectively reveal the poetic sense by turning a variety of subjects into a poem while showing her pride as a female poet through mastering and sharing various feelings. This connects with the display of her poetic talent as an individual poet and her desire to express feelings, allowing us to break away from the previous view to regard her works as simple poetry studies and re-evaluate them. Based on a close study on her 247 Chinese poems, it came to light more vividly that the characteristic of Gigak’s poetry was boiled down to her attention to the trivial “daily life” and the pride for the poetry “composition” itself. Besides, the fact that she edited Chinese poems in the Hangul-phonetic method showed she cared to share with female audience, which is aligned with the daily enjoyment and the initiative in creative activities of female poets in the 19th century. We expect this to serve as an important reference in understanding the female poets of that time.

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