KJCKorea
Journal Central

This paper aims to analyze the underlying meanings of individual and separate stories appearing in <Hungnyong-ilgi>. <Hungnyong-ilgi> foretells war through unusual stories, which appeared as the hints of breaking war, and blames the politicians who could not catch the hints for being incompetent. In <Hungnyong-ilgi>, the narrator is exposed overtly and directly tells us the story in many cases. Although this kind of setting could have merits of conveying themes clearly, it reveals that <Hungnyong-ilgi> has not overcome factors of narratives(sulwha), so it could not be said to be a “novel”(sosul). 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”.

Hungnyong-ilgi, <Imjinrok>-Junsung, Imjinrok