본문 바로가기
  • Home

A Consideration on the ‘Messy Life’ of Simaqian and the 'Honorable Death' of Quyuan

  • 인문논총
  • 2014, 34(), pp.53-78
  • Publisher : Institute for Human studies, Kyungnam University
  • Research Area : Humanities > Other Humanities
  • Published : June 30, 2014

Lee Hwang Jin 1

1단국대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

This paper reviewed messy life (苟活), a life selected by Simaqian(司馬遷) at a moment of crisis and adversity in life, and "honorable death" (死節), which is the death selected by Quyuan(屈原), whileconsidering the right duties of life and death possessed by Simaqian and Quyuan. While extendingfrom an analysis of Simaqian and Quyuan, the paper conducted a comparative review of Gouqian(句踐) and Sunbin(孫臏) together, who like Simaqian selected to walk on the path of "messy life" andcompared and reviewed Quyuan with Boyi Shuqi(伯夷叔齊) and Jiezitui(介子推), who like himselected to walk on the path of "honorable death" . Great men who selected “messy life" are peoplewho lived a pitiful life and justified this in order to accomplish what they thought of as their greatcause or goal, whereas great men who selected “honorable death” are people who selected to die inorder to keep their integrity and retain their righteousness to what they thought. That is, they are incommon in that they all realized the “good cause of living and dying” and “right duties in living anddying”, and thereby they selected what they thought more important and more valuable; however,there is a difference in that for some the selection was the path of “messy life” , while for others theselection was the path of “honorable death” .

Citation status

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