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The Central Issues and Prospective Consideration in the History of the 19th Century Novels

  • The Research of the Korean Classic
  • 2011, (23), pp.329-357
  • Publisher : The Research Of The Korean Classic
  • Research Area : Humanities > Korean Language and Literature > Korean Literature > Korean classic prose

Kyungmi Kim 1

1이화여자대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

This essay tries to show the central issues in the studies of the 19th century novels and then to consider the prospective way to see those novels. For this purpose, I firstly attempted to describe the map of the history of the 19th century novels with consideration of works, authors, reading publics and media. In the previous studies on the history of the 19th century novels, the issue of the authors' social status and their world-views in Korean classical novels in Chinese character had been mainly focussed. One exemplary study of this trend is found in the study on Oksooki, where the writer, Simneungsook 's status in his society and his world-view were focussed. The emergence of Korean classical novels written in Chinese character is significant in that it was a new phenomenon in the history of the 19th century novels. But in the aspect of popularity, it shows some limits. Therefore the historical meaning of Korean classical novels in Chinese character will be fully understood when they are studied with consideration of both the relation with other kinds of novels such as full length novels written in Korean language and hero novels, and the context where the lending novels or the bang-gak novels began to be circulated as a commodity. The prospective study of the history of the 19th century novels is expected to extend in an enlarged framework involving the consideration of the relationship among various kinds of novels such as Korean classical novels in Chinese character, full length novels written in Korean language, hero novels, Cheongi-soseol which focussed on love story, and Pansori novels, the relationship of authors, reading publics and media and the economic, political and social change in the 19th century.

Citation status

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

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