『소수록』 연구

Abstract

There are some researches on Sosurok, a collection of works about Ginyeos, but these previous researches focused on certain works in the collection rather than the entire collection to figure out its overall nature. In addition, they seem to have serious problems with the ways that they examined its nature. This study thus set out to investigate the exact nature of Sosurok. Chapter II examined the bibliographical characteristics of the collection and reviewed its creative backgrounds based on them. Haeju and Yanghandang are two places to pay attention to as its creative backgrounds. The investigator traced Yanghandang and found that it was Jikgoksanjang, a villa owned by Heungseon Daewongun in Yangju. It was thus estimated that the collection was compiled by individuals or a group of individuals that shared Haeju and Yanghandang in Yangju. This book is also characterized by its complex nature, including both poetry and prose works written both in Hangul and Chinese characters. Its compiler must have possessed the ability of revealing its complexity in a masterly manner. The investigator explored individuals or groups with the highest possibilities of possessing such an ability those days and made an assumption that "Seungpyeonggye" could be the answer. The study traced the identities of a hero in the capital city and Okso that appeared as debaters in Work 2 and found that they were members of Seungpyeonggye. The former must have had negative perceptions of Ginyeos, whereas the latter must have been Oksoseon, who was a famed Ginyeo in Haeju as a favorite of Heungseon Daewongun and object of Ahn Min-yeong's love. The compiler seems to have been a member of Seungpyeonggye and had positive perceptions of Ginyeos unlike the hero in the capital city. Chapter III looked into the nature of Sosurok as a collection of miscellaneous records and also genre-entangling collection. Its overall composition tells that it is a collection of 14 miscellaneous works in various formats including biographies of Ginyeos, essays in the letter format, Gasas in the letter format, Shijos, and Homyeonggis. Of the 14 individual works, Work 1 titled <영명긔명션이라> was reviewed as it revealed the book's nature as a collection of miscellaneous works best. The results show that a majority of the works in the collection had a mixture of different styles within a text and exhibited a hybrid nature based on the mixture of different genres. These findings suggest that Sosurok is characterized by its nature as a collection of miscellaneous works both at the overall level encompassing all of 14 works and at the individual work level. The study then examined the characteristics of the collection in the acceptance of love stories and found that it usually cited Korean and Chinese love stories related to Ginyeos as its authentic precedents. Of these love stories, some have not been cited often in the history of Korean literature. and in Geumgogigwan, for instance, were cited repeatedly in many works of the collection and utilized very actively as a narrative principle of composing a story beyond a simple figure of speech. Finally, the study examined the characteristics of Sosurok in description methods and expressive characteristics and found that some unique expressions, which had not been used in the history of Korean literature and were found only in Sosurok, appeared in many of its works repeatedly. There were a lot of similar compositions and expressions between the works in the collection, and even 21 Shijos in the collection shared similar forms and sentiments. Based on these discussions and results, the study demonstrated clearly that Sosurok was compiled by a single person. When the entire collection is reviewed from this perspective, it appears that its 14 works are in a structure of "narrative-main story-closing story" like a single book and oriented toward a single topic of advocating the existential value of Ginyeos. The compiler put together the 14 works based on a consistent structure and topic in organic relations, thus serving more than the roles of a mere ghostwriter to tell stories about Ginyeos for their authors. By taking advantage of the speaker's words and a narrative in each of the works earnestly sometimes and subtly other times, the compiler insisted that the negative perceptions of and biases against Ginyeos shared by a majority of people should be replaced with positive ones. Chapter IV examined the significance of Sosurok in the history of Korean literature. Its significance in the literature history stems from its position as the only collection of miscellaneous works in Hangul to inherit the tradition of Pilgis and Paeseols as collections of miscellaneous works in Chinese characters in the previous generation. It is also significant as a work of brothel literature depicting the entertainment culture of the middle and late 19th century and the unique sentiment of the people that enjoyed it.