This thesis will be a useful material for understanding Choi San‐doo and the three Honam masters who studied under Kim Goeng‐pil (1454‐1504), who is counted as one of major contributors to the blooming of Neo‐Confucianism in the Chosun Dynasty and rooted Taoism in this land, and taught famous scholars in those days including Kim In‐hoo (1510‐1560) and Ryu Hee‐choon (1513‐1577), and their only teacher and the originator of Honam Taoism Kim Goeng‐pil.
Neo‐Confucianism in the Chosun Dynasty is literature that recites landscape and nature and disciplines mind through perceiving things based on Chu Hsi Studies. It systematizes the Neo‐Confucian world view and its aesthetic consciousness associating cosmic providences with human nature, and names it ‘Neo‐Confucian aesthetics.’ The scholarship of Hanhwondang Kim Goeng‐pil, who is the originator of the Sarim faction in Chosun and spread the upright learning of Neo‐Confucian aesthetics pursuing the recital of human nature, was handed down to his disciples such as Cho Gwang‐jo and Choi San‐doo and led the implementation of ‘Tao.’As many scholars have already demonstrated, in discussing Pungryu literature in Honam during the 16th century, it is impossible to neglect historical facts and the relations of religious and philosophical influence regardless of whether its focus is forest garden, social gathering, or anything else.
This study also aimed to discuss Baekun Pungryu based on the historical facts of Honam literature in the 16th century and Taoist ideas pursued by Sarim scholars in those days. With regard to the reasons for the new name Baekun Pungryu, on the other hand, Pungryu literature of Honam (a term comprehending Jollanam‐do, Jollabuk‐do and Gwangju) in the early Chosun Dynasty can be divided into three parts, which are Gyesan Pungryu in the Damyang area, Taesan Pungryu in the Jollabuk‐do area, and the Baekun Pungryu in the east Jollanam‐do area, and this classification is considered desirable for reilluminating the development process of Sarim literature more closely.
We discussed first Baekun Pungryu, which was closest to Kim Goeng‐pil, the originator of Neo‐Confucianism in the Chosun Dynasty, and where Sinjae Choi San‐doo educated his disciples. The inclusion of the name of a nearby noted mountain in literary naming is considered a meaningful literary value in that when gangho (river and lake) poetry is included in Pungryu literature the combination of nature and artificiality in gangho poetry is managed in scenic spaces and forms a world.
In particular, the meaning of the new literary name Baekun Pungryu is enhanced by Choi San‐doo who was born in the outskirt of Mt. Baekun, the last vein of Honam, and refined his scholarship there as well as by the poetic, spiritual and academic association of people related to him.