The purpose of this study is to survey the existing studies about heroic novel which had been constituted the center of 18 and 19 centuries novel. And also the purpose of this study is to show the prejudice of the studies of the heroic novel which is focused on the discourse about the works rather than the work itself. Especially the object which I tried to handle is the argumental discourses about the identity, category, sub-type, and narrative structure of the heroic novel.
The prejudice of the existing studies, I think, is above all the idea that the character of heroic novel is typical, so they can see easily 'the whole' from 'the part', or it can be divided into several sub-types because it was produced in a large quantities. Without concrete investigation about the whole volume of the heroic novel works, the studies have been observed only some famous works, so they missed the extension of the heroic novel which conversed with neighboring novel like family novel, domestic novel, or pansori novel. They interpreted narrative pattern as one of the diverse variants of biographical pattern of the heroic novel, and discuss only some works of the major heroic novels.
But now, I think, we must readjust the category and objects in a broad prospective and have more interests on the inductive study about the individual works or a minor of sub-types. And we need to establish more diverse narrative structure models rather than only one master plot. I think it is the time that we need the studies which advance step by step rather than doing 'comprehensively' or 'all at once', being free from the prejudice produced by the attachment to the typical heroic novel.