The primary purposes of this research are to identify the aim of compiling Ogyeong- Baegpyeon and infer the selecting criteria of the compliation through the contents analysis of the King Jungjo’s Ogyeong-Baegpyeon which are composed of the Shigyeong, the third volume of the Ogyeong-Baegpyeon.
Ogyeong-Baegpyeon is a compilation of an anthology which consists of 99 essential stories from Five Classics during the King Jungjo’s period. The King Jungjo’s anthology is compiled by Munchepanjung and his academic perspective on styles of writing, and it reflects these clear purposes of the anthology by including the word ‘Seon(選)’ in the names of each chapter in the anthology and providing exemplary sentences of various category with numbers that are multiple of ten. The Ogyeong- Baegpyeon is a literary work that suggests typical sentences in the study of Confucian classics.
As the third volume of the Ogyeong-Baegpyeon, the Shigyeong, it takes 67 percent of the Ogyeong-Baegpyeon. In addition, the Shigyeong has various themes over other volume. Due to these reasons, the Shigyeong is the most suitable part for studying the aim of the Ogyeong-Baegpyeon compilation and the selecting criteria which appear on it.
First, the Shigyeong mainly consists of 「Poong」(13.1 percent), 「Ah」(34.3 percent), and 「Song」(25 percent). The main themes of 「Poong」 are praise for emperor, satire on society, and portrayal of the sage king. The main themes of 「Ah」 are poems that are party songs, songs of friendship, sodier’s songs, and stories of great king. The theme of 「Song」 is historical and edifying poem describes biography of wise kings.
Next, they can be divided into six types of theme - humanity, affection, praise, biography, satire, formality. There were stories about one’s past (27 peice, 40 percent), ethics, and ritual. It represents the fact that King Jungjo had educational intention to emulate the sage king for readers and political intention to identify himself as a great king.
In addition, the facts that all the compiled stories are referenced in other the Confucian classics and various literature as original texts reflect that the king Jungjo compiled them as educational purpose reading samples.
In result, there are four criteria selecting which are applied in the Ogyeong- Baegpyeon third volume, the Shigyeong. First, literature pieces that can edify a person such as the Three Bonds and Five Relationships in Confucianism which describes moral starndard were selected. Second, the selected poems show the king Jungjo’s political ideology which aims for ‘scholar king’ theory and the age of Yao-Shun as a typical model of governing nation. Third, sages in Confucianism and their stories were selected in the compilation. Last, the King Jungjo selected poems which have fables and phases that are referenced in other the Confucian classics and various literature.
Therefore, Ogyeong-Baegpyeon is a not only the special 99 compilations of the Confucian classics which is selected by the King Jungjo, but also the king-edited book which reflects the political ideology of the king Jungjo which includes Munchepanjung. In addition, its educational purpose should not be ignored. Ogyeong-Baegpyeon is an important literature that helps understand the political and literary ideology of the king Jungjo, academic trends during late period of Chosun Dynasty, and educational history of the period.