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This study examines the perception of reality and the spatiality of hyangchon (local village) represented in the poetry of Jukgukheon Kim Sang-jik. It aims to establish an integrated reading that penetrates his poetic works and to contribute to the understanding of the multiplicity (多岐性) of Honam literati poetry in the late Joseon period. In previous studies, Kim Sang-jik has been understood as an ideological defender who pursued the establishment of familial order in terms of edification, while simultaneously being evaluated as a figure who failed to immerse himself in gangho (nature) due to a lack of Confucian ideological justification for his seclusion. To overcome this contradictory perspective, this paper re-examines the creative context of Gyejasa and analyzes Ipsanga, which was produced within the magnetic field of gangho poetry. As a result, it was confirmed that the creative contexts of both works share a critical awareness of moral crisis and ideological practice as a local literati. For Kim Sang-jik, hyangchon did not merely mean a secular space opposing gangho, but rather a ‘dynamic space’ oscillating between ideological crisis and the establishment of morality depending on realistic conditions. In Gyejasa, hyangchon is a space of gwinong (returning to farming) that hinders anbinnakdo (living comfortably in poverty and taking pleasure in the Way), yet it was also a space of edification that enhanced the academic solidarity and ideological cohesion of the literati in the Bunhyang area beyond his own family. Furthermore, the seclusion to Mt. Palgong in Jangsu, as depicted in Ipsanga, was the result of an ideological practice against the conflicts of right and wrong within the hyangchon society. Accordingly, gangho appeared not as an ideological imaginary space isolated from the secular world, but as a space of ‘georyu’ (leaving and staying), where departure (去) and remaining (留) coexist as an extension of Jangseong Bunhyang, where the critical awareness of morality was realized. Thus, the poetry of Kim Sang-jik, a member of a humble literati family with no prospects for officialdom, demonstrates that the spatiality of hyangchon—more strictly, the negative perception of hyangchon—is not limited merely to the issue of worldly conduct resulting from the desire and frustration of participating in central politics. The literary historical significance is confirmed in that the spatiality of hyangchon represented in Kim Sang-jik’s poetry substantiates how the poetry of late Joseon Honam literati served as a literary premise for realizing diverse layers of thematic consciousness according to the realistic contexts within the local village and family.

Cho U-in (曺友仁, 1561–1625) was a literary scholar from Yecheon in Gyeongsang Province and a disciple of Jo Mok (Wolcheon). Gifted with exceptional poetic talent from an early age, he made significant contributions to both classical Chinese poetry and the Korean gasa tradition. During the reign of King Gwanghaegun, he composed poems and prose criticizing the Daebuk (Greater Northerners) faction, which led to his persecution in a literary inquisition sihwa(詩禍). Together with Gwon Pil, he is regarded as one of the representative victims of literary persecution in the mid-Joseon period. He also maintained extensive literary relationships that transcended factional, regional, and social boundaries, forming particularly close intellectual and literary friendships with Yi Sik and Yu Huigyeong. In addition, he demonstrated a strong concern for national affairs by proposing the establishment of a military defense post at Joryeong in response to the security crisis following the Imjin War. Through his allegorical prose Daegaecheonseol (大開川說), he sharply satirized the corruption and abuse of power by the Gwanghaegun regime and the Daebuk faction. Overall, Cho U-in was a socially engaged writer who used poetry and allegory to criticize political realities and fulfill the moral responsibilities of a Confucian intellectual. His literary works are characterized by a profound social consciousness and a powerful spirit of satire

This study examines the compositional features and thematic orientation of Kim U-rak’s (金宇洛, 1854–1933) Haedo Gyogeosa (〈ᄒᆡ도교거사〉) and seeks to elucidate its significance in Korean literary history. Haedo Gyogeosa is a long-form gasa that brings Kim U-rak’s upbringing, marriage, family life, and exile to Manchuria together within a single narrative. The narrative of Haedo Gyogeosa undergoes a marked transition at the point of exile. The first half of the work focuses on individuals and interpersonal relationships, whereas the second half centers on spatial movement and events. By portraying her family memebers through distinct forms of address and descriptive epithets, Kim represents the family not simply as a group bound by blood but as a relational order in which ritual propriety and reverence, affection and care, and responsibility and succession are put into practice. Kim provides a realistic account of the grief of leaving her homeland, the hardships of long-distance travel, cold and illness, separation from her family, and the harsh conditions of settlement. Yet she does not allow these hardships to culminate in a narrative of despair. She records the hospitality extended by those she encounters in unfamiliar places, finds consolation in the birth of the jongson, the grandson who would carry on the main family line, and in the future of her descendants, and explores the possibility of sustaining life. The structure in which painful realities intersect with an affirmative outlook reveals Kim’s understanding of exile as a process of reorganizing and carrying forward the lives of the family and the community. The significance of Haedo Gyogeosa in Korean literary history lies in its reconstruction of the historical events of Japan’s annexation of Korea in 1910 and the subsequent exile to Manchuria through Kim U-rak’s own life and perspective. The work integrates a woman’s life, the history of a family, a national crisis, and the continuity of a community within a single narrative, representing exile as a process of sustaining life while preserving a relational order.