This study aims to re-examine the nature of Jeongeup as a movement played at court banquets by taking “내,” a sentence-ending poetic word used in the work, as an adverb instead of a personal pronoun. A look at the history of research on the work shows that “내” was regarded as a first- or third-person pronoun, but there were different opinions before Korea took back its independence. Kim Tae-jun suggested that “내” could not be fixed as a personal pronoun, and Lee Hee-seung interpreted this poetic word as an adverb. Both as an archaic word and a modern word, the adverb “내” is a synonym for “내내,” which means all the time, and holds the meaning of “continuation” such as always, continuously, and unceasingly. “내” is freely used in words, con- structions, and sentences and functions to emphasize the meaning of wish, apprehension, or conviction in respective contexts.
Jeongeup was a story about the Mangbu Rock in the Jeongeup area and changed into a piece of court music after being introduced into the court of Baekje. This song was later transmitted as a movement played at banquets for Jeongjae Changsa at the royal courts of Goryeo and Joseon. In Joseon, the song maintained its life force into the second half of the dynasty after it was registered in a court music book(Akhakguebeom) and a law book(Gyeonggukdaejeon) and overcame a crisis of being replaced. Its transmission was driven by a universal bond of sympathy for a woman's anxious waiting and its correspondence with chastity, one of the Confucian norms.
Jeongeup can be divided into two parts in terms of tunes and three in terms of meanings. In the former case, it is divided into the Jeongang and Hugang passages. In the latter case, it is divided into three parts on the basis of “어긔야” at three places. For each semantic unit, its poetic concept unfolds into the speaker's wish, conjecture, and apprehension for her beloved. There are no specific subjects of speech or poetic objects in the work except for the moon, but one can guess them based on additional records attached to it.
Considering the acceptance patterns of Jeongeup at court banquets, the first column represents “the moon, the speaker, and the speaker's wish” with “the monarch, the people of benefits, and respect and trust for the monarch,” respectively. They all harmonize with each other, singing about how the monarch is blessed. The second column likens the “ife and daily lives of people” o “he author, Jinde, and the walk of her beloved,” urging the monarch to perceive reality and wake up to it. The third column depicts the “present consolation for the life of people and their gloomy future” with “노코시라” and “가논 ,” anticipating exemplary administration from the monarch.
As a movement played at court banquets, Jeongeup holds its significance in three ways. First, it holds metrical stability through reverberations and gram- matical markers. The second “아으 다롱디리” guarantees the completeness of each passage. “어긔야 어됴리” performs the function of striking balance and distinguishing between tunes and texts by making a knot over three semantic paragraphs. “어긔야” connects the preceding and following lines and creates lingering poetic imagery through sentence-closing endings. “–시-” in all the predicates ensures poetic unity. “全” and “즌ᄃᆡ” of the second column, “다” and “가논 ᄃᆡ” of the third column, and “노피곰,” “머리곰,” “녀러-,” “드-,” “노코-” and “졈그-” of each paragraph ensure harmony and unity between tunes and texts, in poetic structures, and between reverberations and poetic words through correspondences and rhyming couplets. Secondly, Jeongeup shows independent sublimation as a movement played at court banquets. As this song was introduced into the court as a Jeongjae Changsa, the sentiment of waiting became a song of chastity and was reduced to Buwuibugang. People's prayers for their monarch were reduced to Gun- wuisingang. At the same time, the song has descriptions of people's difficult lives at its base and induces affection for people and exemplary administration from the monarch so that he would not turn his back on their difficult lives. Finally, “내” of Jeongeup performs poetic and banquet functions to press the people and their monarch to awaken consistently. It reminded people of the realization that life would be full of joys, sorrows, and perils till the end and the monarch of his duty to take care of his people as their ruler. These findings suggest that “내” is a banquet marker to finish poetic concepts in the final lines and to urge the monarch to awaken constently as a ruler.