KJCKorea
Journal Central

<Hungnyong-ilgi> is a kososul written on the background of Imjinwaeran. So it has been classified as a variant of <Imjinrok>. It is a quite established theory that <Imjinrok> is consisted of five branches, each showing different stories. But <Hungnyong-ilgi> contains a different story which cannot be classified to any of five branches. It is common and usual for a work with a different story to be considered not as a variant but as a independent work. <Imjinrok> is named not on one particular work which has a consistent and homogeneous story, but rather on a whole set of five branches. So, the stories in five branches can be called the variants of <Imjinrok>. Furthermore, <Imjinrok>, containing five different branches, should be correctly called "<imjinrok>-Junsung(傳承:handing-down)". Although <Hungnyong-ilgi> contains a different story from five branches, it includes a partly same content as the variants of <Imjinrok>. So it is absurd to classify <Hungnyong-ilgi> as a totally different and irrelevant work from <Imjinrok>. So I suggest <Hungnyong-ilgi> should be classified not as a variant of <Imjinrok> but as a variant of "<Imjinrok>-Junsung".

Imjinwaeran, Imjinrok