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A study on aesthetic elements and literary meaning of narratives in Seongsanbeulgok

  • Korean Language & Literature
  • 2016, (96), pp.83-104
  • Publisher : Korean Language & Literature
  • Research Area : Humanities > Korean Language and Literature
  • Published : March 31, 2016

KIM HYUNHWA 1

1충남대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

Seongsanbeulgok is a work containing its poet's lifelong experiences that came upon him in intense manner. It sang the beautiful nature of Seongsan and an hermit's life among mountains were and further, it unfolded, in profound way, its author's belief, the most humane attributes like credibility, insight into the perfect order of the world, pain felt in life and etc. This thesis based upon the foregoing studies on <Seongsanbeulgok> have compact access to the aesthetic elements of its narratives to recompose its literary meaning. The narratives its poet paid attention to was the very emotional works carving out a universal, idealistic world that anyone may have dreamed of at least once. What especially caught the current researcher's eyes was that the process, where real life and idealistic life conflict each other gives us something to ponder upon beyond ages. The narrative aesthetics of this work is shown in the following two elements. First, it show comparison and harmony between movement and stillness. In a literary work, things and space are a never-to-miss-out subject, by focusing on which, we can peep into the inner world of a poet. For instance, let's take a look at the narrative on autumn using the calmest space as its subject. It rather makes the most of mobile expressions to dynamically revive seasonal atmosphere or an hermit's life in the mountain that may ooze out depression, brokenheartedness, being locked in and estrangement. Mobile expressions such as "a crescent moon looms", "I float on a boat in the current", "fussing sound of pipes played by cowboys", "the moon gracefully rises above pine trees," are compared with an atmosphere as in Gwanghanjeon on Manhakcheonbong, an imaginary world where a dragon meet with cranes and Taoist hermit's figures like Lee Taebaek diving in to catch the moon so that realness may be added as it one saw a panoramic view. Second, it has an intentional remoteness of space. To Songgang, Seongsan was not merely a place where he led a Taoist life but space of real life full of agonies and frictions. His intentional reference of himself as a guest was because he know the guest who was a passer-by and must pass away someday was himself. The spatial remoteness he intentionally composed maximizes remoteness between real world and idealistic world through the expressions of "Humans' six months is autumn's three months here", "autumn's boats as if they sat on Gwanghanjeon, having jumped over the Milky Way", "winter views as if they were like Gyeongyogul, Eunsegye" and etc. Real views of Seongsan maximizes remoteness between real world and idealistic world. This was thoroughly intended by him. It's an idealistic life that happened to be realized as Doyeonmyeong did but a guest can't be a host. Spatial remoteness expanded from the earthly globe unto a Taoist world was a result of composing his internal agonies and sadness as they were. The literary meaning of this thought's aesthetic elements is pretty metaphorical. What could have been the genuine state of Songgang "engulfing wine due to agonies in his heart"? He was so close to wine throughout his life that he was called a crazy guest or drunken guest. Even in his <Seongsanbeulgok>, he did not hide himself engulfing wine. Since he was put aside from the political circle when he wrote this poem, there must have been quite a remoteness between himself and the world. Engulfing wine was a means to fill up the remoteness, which we can understand as his candid, hard-hitting response to the world. Though he left the political circle because he got sick of it, he did not sever himself from a Confucian scholar's life. He was looking forward to re-entering the circle someday. <Seongsanbeulgok> is a work implicitly pleading the then king to call him up again to the political circle. For him to come back to the circle which he voluntarily left needed certain cause. For this reason, he took drinking all the time as a literary means of his on one hand and he composed a narrative poem showing how much agony he had for the politics and real world on the other. This paradoxical pleading shines in the aesthetics of his creating an intentional remoteness of space, comparing how things were and harmonizing them.

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