KJCKorea
Journal Central

The life of Mae-Chon can be divided into 3 periods. First period is by 1886 before he moved to Gurye Mansoodong, second is from 1886 to 1902 when he built Guansil in Gurye Mansoodong and lived in seclusion, and the last is from 1902 when he moved from Gurye Mansoodong to Wolgok where there is Mae-Chon Temple to 1910 when he wrote a <Jeolmyungsi>(death poetry) and committed suicide. Depending upon this three periods, Mae-Chon's sense of race and history is distinct from each other and his literary works show considerable change. Especially, it is significant work to inquire closely into the view of nature in <Wonsiksiboyoung> which shows the boundary between the second period that he cognized the world as a traditional Confucianist and third period that he accepted the recognition of modern intellectual. Even though Mae-Chon's view of nature in <Wonsiksiboyoung> is not free from the ethical view of nature, <Wonsiksiboyoung> shows modernity which is not in other Chinese poetry and it has a sprout as a ecological poetry. It shows definite distinction from his other poetries. It could be ascertained that this distinction appeared both in the formal aspect and in the thematic aspect. It seems that this is caused by the change of his view of nature. It is not a coincidence but the change of his cognition that he accepted Boo(a Chinese poetic genre) and Young(compose of recite a poem) which he didn't applied in his other poetries and gave salience to the characteristics of epic and prose and he accepted a lot of modern element in the expression and the selection of the subject matter. Consequently, <Wonsiksiboyoung> which as a nature poetry, deviated form traditional nature poetry is on the boundary of tradition and modern. This is the reason that <Wonsiksiboyoung> has definite distinction from Mae-Chon's other literary works. The political discussion on <Wonsiksiboyoung> will provide a clue to the process that Mae-Chon's sense as a writer evolved.

Mae-Chon, Wonsiksiboyoung, Guansil, Mansoodong, Wolgok, view of nature, nature poetry