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Creation Methods and Tragic Romanticism Revealed in the Structure of Geumo-sinhwa

  • Journal of Humanities
  • 2010, (45), pp.101-123
  • Publisher : Institute for Humanities
  • Research Area : Humanities > Other Humanities
  • Received : January 22, 2010
  • Accepted : February 24, 2010

Kim, Chang-Hyun 1

1성균관대학교

Candidate

ABSTRACT

After showing Geumo-sinhwa(金鰲新話) is delicately structuralized based on the author’s deliberation and agony by exploring the overall structure of that great literary masterpiece, this paper attempts to show connecting an author and an interpretation of his or her works can reveal already settled aesthetic matter. Geumo-sinhwa adopting a graphic writing style called chuanqi(傳奇)tells its author’s own story. The reason this piece appears more tragic than the previous two and looser than the following two is that the author must have attempted to write so on purpose or intentionally put such the order to the stories when editing them. That is, this masterpiece constructs the system with Manboksa-jeopo-gi(萬福寺樗蒲記) relatively calmly singing fidelity and conquest, Yiseng-guijang-jeon(李生窺墻傳) showing intensive tragedy, Chwiyu-bubyeokjeonggi(醉遊浮碧亭記) putting the finishing touches by contemplating history and life, Namyeom-buju-ji(南炎浮洲志) unfolding the desire for warning to the world, and finally Yonggung-buyen-lok(龍宮赴宴錄) recognizing human beings’ being trivial and vanity of life. Featuring tragic romanticism as its aesthetic essence, this writing’s tragic intensity corresponds to the close adhesion level between two main characters of ‘natural character-supernatural character.’ Although hanging out for a short period, Yangsaeng and a female ghost share deep affection and reliance. Yisaeng and Choirang keep most intensely adhered relation going beyond the boundary of life and death. Hongsaeng and Taoist Fairy feel warm sympathy to each other though each belonging to a different world. While Baksaeng and the king of the next world are like-minded comrades who develop feelings toward the opposite sex, Hansaeng and a river god display the least close adhesion level although they respect each other. This close examination reveals a reverse structure of Freytag’s Pyramid with the steep front, a similar structure with other Korean tragedies extending catastrophe and internalizing tragic elements. Contrary to Freytag’s Pyramid structure of Western tragedy maximizing catastrophic effects through destroying individuals in the face of fate’s tremendous and outrageous power, Korean tragedy’s structure is based on the thoughts considering the world(universe-fate) and individuals in complementary cooperation further into being the one. Tragic and romantic elements tend to coexist in East Asian chuanqi(傳奇) because East Asian tragedies are rooted in a different philosophical ground from Western tragedies’. Especially, Geumosinhwa appears to internalize profound tragic elements into literary and philosophical ones to ease them off romantically.

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This paper was written with support from the National Research Foundation of Korea.
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