「陽園遺集」 國譯 硏究

Abstract

ABSTRACT

A Study on the translation of 「YangwonYujip」 - Focusing on (序)·Ki(記)·Je(題)·Bal(跋) -

Baek, Cheon. Advisor : Associate Prof Lee, Jongbeom. Major in Translation of Sino-Korean Classic School of Chosun University

In the modern era, Chosun(朝鮮) experienced constitutional crisis resulted by people’s complaints and continuous riots internally, as well as the appearance of foreign ships externally, with two invasions of the West, and Western power’s invasion of China, which made the people’s fear rise. In addition, as the ports opened up for the Western civilization, it seemed that Confucianism, which mentally supported the Chosun dynasty and controlled the society’s complaints, was not doing its job. The intellectual class in this period was divided by 3 groups depending on their seeking goals; keeping the traditions, being enlightened, or both Dongdoseogi(東道西器). Among these groups, Dongdoseogi was about keeping our tradition and selectively accepting Western thoughts and civilization for national prosperity, and ShinGiseon(申箕善) was the representative person of this group. Since the author was a person who practiced Dongdoseogi thought while he was consecutively working for the government, several researches was processed using his writings. In this argument, people tried to praise the author’s morality and writing skills, avoiding heavy topics, as well as peek inside to see his view of society, nation, and the world. First, we checked the characters in his collection of works in order to find out his Enlightenment momentum. When ShinGiseon came up to capital at 14, his mentor, ShinEungjo(申應朝) who was already successful with his studies and reputation, was fairly frank enough to be friends with ParkGyusu(朴珪壽). It seems that ShinGiseon, who asserted anti-Qing dynasty movements, may have changed his attitude from stubborn Moral sense theory to a more flexible and realistic position through his meeting with SeoEungsoon(徐應淳), who supported the idea of realistic acceptance. ParkGyusu, who was in charge of the construction of the royal palace, visited with other people and encouraged ShinGiseon when he heard that ShinGiseon was concentrating on his studies during chaos. He was bright enough in international situations to teach about Enlightenment movement with KimOkgyun(金玉均) and ParkYoungho(朴泳孝). Shin Giseon must have been influenced a lot by them through their interactions. This should have made his thought and position change to realistic acceptance of Enlightenment. The author does not state specifically about the cause and problems of Chosun’s poor reality and the necessity of Enlightenment but rather says broadly that Chosun’s politics, economy, education have become worse. And he says that the Western wealthy countries’ accomplishments came from practical studies and industry matching the reality. So his logic was that they needed to accept the Western culture in order to get out of the poor state and become a wealthy country. But there was no deep consideration about the process and background of being a modern society through Western industrial revolution. Also, there was no specific awareness of their neighbor Japan’s historic progress to Capitalism and modern society. Since he only pursued only their external modern accomplishments without any experience through on site visit, he had limited specifics about the method and procedure to practice Enlightenment. In addition, the author is saying that the cause of West’s wealthy power was the agreement between the government and the people as well as some people’s united leadership. This argument seems logical, but the agreement here is based on Confucian autocracy, and some people means intellectual officials with foreign study experience. This means that it had a gap from Gaehwa(開化) logic that leads to modern civil society. The author had thought that Japan had accepted the Western civilization and joined the Ranks of Powers based on the Emperor system. His saying of keeping the traditions means that the protection from any threats of Dongdo such as the West’s political policy and culture based on Christianity. In his position, it was resisting the immoral actions like ignite a fire of spiritual tablets in rites. He couldn’t accept this barbarian culture, which only pursued invasions and profits using military force in trading countries. Also, he thought that the West’s civil society institution was able to demolish feudal monarchy’s moral order based on Confucianism and that this was discrepant from the teachings of the wise. Therefore, he was not interested in their modern society’s process of growth and background because he had in mind of the Dongdo-centered system. For example, in 1908, he works as the president in Korea Academy that was established by Japan’s fund support. In this period, he should have evaluated Japan’s reality and tried to recover national sovereignty. Even though he was criticized by ShinChaeho(申采浩) as Japan's three faithful slave, there was no word that he had left the academy. Due to his misjudgment of state of affairs, his activities to preserve the Dongdo(東道) turned out to be Pro-Japanese. Let's look at the gap between the reality and Shin Giseon's awareness of the situation while he was pursuing a prosperous country through Dongdoseogi. First, it was his preconception. In the modern era, the relationship between Chosun and the West was not friendly. It seems that his image of the West was negative due to two invasions with depravity acts for their own benefits such as General Sherman's atrocity and exhumation of Namyeongun(南延君) grave. Second, he was unskilled in foreign state of affairs. He had neither data to find out the West’s true nature nor any real opportunity to visit the site. Thus, even though he modeled our modernization after Japan, lack of specific examples of Japan's accomplishment process and background as well as lack of the concept of Capitalism policy made him difficult to see the state of affairs properly. Third, his excessive black and white logic played a role. He saw that immoral background like invading the weak and forcing trades by the West was derived from Christianity. He considered that the policy and culture of the West based on Christianity was barbarian. Therefore, he fought hard to keep the moral society with just unlimited faith in foreign studies. For this reason, Dongdoseogi did not give deep interest into the process of the West being modern civil society but rather simply premised the acceptance of their civilization. As a result, his passion of pursuing a wealthy country based on moral society and his foreign perception had a limit from making Chosun a modern civil society.