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The study on Mokeun Lee Saek's poems about flowers - the case study of ume poems, chrysanthemums poems and lotus poems

  • Journal of Korean Literature
  • 2008, 17(17), pp.201-220
  • Publisher : The Society Of Korean Literature
  • Research Area : Humanities > Korean Language and Literature

JIN HONGMEI 1

1서울대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

Lee Saek(1328~1396), who wrote the most poems among the poets in Goryeo dynasty, left 70 poems about flowers. He lived through Goryeo and Josen Dynasty. In Lee Saek's poems, not only purely describe the flowers poise, but also mainly emphasize the characteristics of the writer's life. From admiring the flowers to the composing the poems about flowers, brings a sense of elegance to Lee Saek's works. His chrysanthemum poems focus on Tao YuanMing's immersion with chrysanthemums' image. The chrysanthemums are used as a symbol representing Tao. The chrysanthemums struggle between reality and ideal, which represented the pursuing of the ideal human principle. In Lee Saek's poems, the lotus is pure and white, representing righteousness. In contrast to the ume and chrysanthemums poems, the composition of the lotus poems was done during chatting, dining and drinking with friends. When drinking with friends with similar interests, admiring lotus blossoms was enjoyed greatly by the writer. Lee Saek's focus was on describing the exterior appearances of the flowers, rather than on describing the symbolic spirit of these flowers represented. Therefore, in his poems about flowers, it is extremely rare to maintain singular representation for each flower. In other words, in his poems about flowers, he leaned more towards these flowers' spiritual symbol than the flowers' beauty. This is due to the fact that Lee Seak included human nature's principles into the poems about flowers. Of course, the principle of human nature was not the only thing Lee Saek considered when he admired flowers. Some poems were composed based on daily life, these poems, though they bored influences from foremen, can be expressed in a freer fashion to a large extent.

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