2014, Vol., No.30

A study on formation of Sino-Korean poetry

KIM EUNJEONG | 2014, (30) | pp.7~38 | number of Cited : 4

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Between Sokyo and Hyangga

Seo, Cheolwon | 2014, (30) | pp.39~62 | number of Cited : 2

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On the composition of The story of Choichiwon in the context of ritual for rain

Yi, Ji-Young | 2014, (30) | pp.63~87 | number of Cited : 3

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The Historical Function of the Trickster: A Study of the Clever Servant Tale

Charles La Shure | 2014, (30) | pp.89~112 | number of Cited : 3

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This paper examined the historical function of the trickster figure and the tales in which he appears. In particular, it attempted to provide an answer to the question of why seemingly negative tales were continuously handed down when they ran afoul of the ethical and moral value systems supported by the social order. It was in part a reaction to Jonathan Gotschall’s claim in The Storytelling Animal that narrative plays a morally supportive role, and in part an attempt to come to a deeper understanding of the trickster tale. I first discussed scholarly opinions in the West on the trickster’s dual or ambiguous nature and then introduced the concept of liminality as the trickster’s defining feature. This was followed by an examination of the trickster’s practicality, an examination that dealt with the question of what sort of evolutionary practicality could trickster tales have if they did not reinforce moral values and thereby also reinforce the social order. Native American tricksters and the Scandinavian trickster deity Loki were offered as examples, but the main focus of the discussion was the Korean tale of the clever servant who deceived his master. This tale can be seen as one that deals with class conflict, but there are other victim’s of the servant’s wiles besides the master: lower-class characters such as a common woman and a passerby down on his luck. This shows that the trickster here is not a lower-class hero who defies his upper-class master, but a liminal figure who seeks to bring down the entire social structure. This desire is an expression of the understanding that it is only possible to create a new world once the old world has been torn down. Finally, I also examined in brief some recorded tales and a novel that deal with the same themes and characters, showing how the trickster may be imagined differently depending on the author’s social values. Ultimately, the strong opposition to the social structure seen in tricksters in oral tales like that of the clever servant is a result of the historical function they play as pathfinders to the creation of a new world.

Urbanism in Korean Literature

Yang-Sook Lee | 2014, (30) | pp.113~138 | number of Cited : 6

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Urban-Humanities have focused on the city-life as the rapid progress of urbanization. In the field of urban literature the literary aspects of urbanism has been investigated. In literature urbanism generally has been understood in two ways. First, urbanism is recognized as everyday urban phenomenon or as modernity in a general sense. In this way, urban experiences itself and literary aspects produced from impact of it are emphasized. Second, urbanism refers to the urban characteristics as a form of capitalism that is spatially embodied, in a more restricted sense. In this sense, urban studies is a work that explores moving mechanisms of capitalism. Therefore, the study of urban literature researches aesthetic modernity which was born between the modern subject and the capitalistic, cultural urbanism. Urban humanities shares a critical mind referred to spacial, cultural and sensual turn with various fields of humanities. Among them, the most noteworthy “turn” in the field of literature is the sensual turn. In this paper, auditory and olfactory turn shown in modern Korean literature was reviewed and analyzed. Study of urban literature will be able to get help from study of literary modernity, cultural study in literature, landscape study of cultural geography, study of Seoul literature, locality study and so on. The same issue that the crises of humanities must be overcome is one of the characteristics in these studies. Theses methodologies have plenty of implications for the study of urban literature, none the less it will be undesirable to understand ‘turn’ as ‘alternative.’ If the ‘turn’ could be accepted as a expanding denotation and as a deeping the critical mind, the risks of conflicting with existing research will be removed. Interdisciplinary research and comparative literary studies will be helpful for understanding urbanization and standardization occurred in transnational scale. And it will also be helpful for building a post-modern urban culture and literature.

Accumulation of knowledge about Toyotomi Hideyoshi during Late Choson Period

Park SangWhi | 2014, (30) | pp.141~169 | number of Cited : 1

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This paper is a study on the process of awareness formation and knowledge accumulation about Toyotomi Hideyoshi in the records of literary scholars who had been to Japan as Korean emissaries. Within Choson, there was a very weak understanding about who was Hideyoshi. On the other hand, the Choson literary scholars who had been to Japan as emissaries and those literary writers who were living in Japan as prisoners very well knew about who was Hideyoshi and how did the Japanese perceive him. This paper diachronically investigated as to how the understanding about Hideyoshi was formed by examining ‘Sahangrok’ (diaries written by Korean emissaries to Japan) in time-line sequence. Firstly, this paper looked into the formation process of positive awareness about Hideyoshi. Above all, they recorded that there were Japanese who applauded the political contribution of Hideyoshi as he had united Japan and had a strict governance over it. It was discovered that after Hideyoshi died, the Japanese built a shrine for him and apotheosized him as a god. Also, the emissaries held in high esteem the political contribution of Hideyoshi and compared him with Xian YU; the first Qin Emperor. Secondly, this paper examined the negative understanding about Hideyoshi. The emissaries who experienced Japan during the reign of Toyotomi described that he was significantly a tyrant and that Japanese too hated him. They recorded that even during the Edo period, Japanese were still having resentment against the harsh political regime of Hideyoshi and Japanese themselves thought that Choson invasion by Hideyoshi was wrong because the Japanese subjects had also suffered pain due to it. Thirdly, this paper checked the knowledge accumulation process about Daibutsu temple that was built by Hideyoshi for setting up a huge Buddha statue. There is Mimi-zuka (The Ear Mound; a burial site of the nose and ears of Choson people cut during Choson invasion by Japan) just in front of this temple and in the year 1719, the emissaries rejected the Japanese proposal of holding a party at Daibutsu temple. After this incident, the emissaries minutely researched about what kind of place was Daibutsu temple. Won-Jung geo sharply pointed out the religious practice of Japan in which Shinto religious worship was carried at Daibutsu temple. There could be a considerable knowledge accumulation about Hideyoshi through the experiences of emissaries in Japan and accordingly, the perception about Japan also changed. Initially, the emissaries were seeing Hideyoshi as ‘An enemy with whom one cannot live under one sky’ but gradually as the knowledge about Hideyoshi increased, he was perceived with a comparatively colder approach.

The Hundred Rhymes Elegy Condoling with Jeongjo

Yeo, Woon-pil | 2014, (30) | pp.171~202 | number of Cited : 1