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A study of the Biography of Yu Yŏn and related discourses in the late Chosŏn dynasty

  • Journal of Korean Literature
  • 2018, (38), pp.205-232
  • DOI : 10.52723/JKL.38.205
  • Publisher : The Society Of Korean Literature
  • Research Area : Humanities > Korean Language and Literature
  • Received : September 30, 2018
  • Accepted : November 10, 2018
  • Published : November 30, 2018

KIM Young Yeon 1

1서울대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

This article contrasts a narrative presented in the Biography of Yu Yŏn (hereafter the Biography) written by Yi Hangpok(1556～1618) with an argument of Yisaeng songwŏllok written by Kwŏn Tŭkki(1570～1622). The two texts draw two incompatible claims about who made a false accusation against an innocent man Yu Yŏn. This paper asks how and why Yi’s narrative, not Kwŏn’s argument, dominated the subsequent generations’ perception of the trial by investigating elite discourses produced in the later seventeenth and eighteenth century. The biography tells the story of Yu Yŏn, a man who was accused of killing his brother, was sentenced to death, and was executed. The narrative of the biography spots Yu’s brother-in-law Yi Ji as a man who engineered the false accusation and Yu’s death. In contrast, the Yisaeng songwŏllok raises diametrically opposite claim on the person who responsible for Yu’s death. Authors of the later generation who mentions the case display a wide range of views: one does not ask who is responsible for Yu’s death, one has no interest in determining the villain of the case. However, since the second half of the seventeenth century, most of the authors who remark Yu Yŏn’s case express similar ways of understanding the event: they acquiesce Yi’s perception on the case, wittingly or unwittingly. This survey shows that the Yi’s view on the case which dominated the perception of the later generation, including modern researchers, and that Yi's story became established as a collective memory after surviving a long process of contesting, forgetting, and reduction.

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