다산 정약용의 서간 연구

Abstract

ABSTRACT

A Study on Letters of Dasan Jeong Yag-Yong

Tak Hyun-Sook Advisor : Prof. Kim Jung-Ju,Ph.D. Department of Korean Language and Literature Graduate School of Chosun University

Dasan Jeong Yag-yong(丁若鏞, 1762〜1836) lived in days of turbulence in politics and thinking in the late Joseon period. He had a unstable and unpredictable life for ten years as a government clerk and lived as a guilty person at an exile in the prime of his life. After he was released from the exile, he was lonely, being monitored continuously even at his hometown. His life was very unlucky as an individual. However, his vicissitudinary experiences made him have a big dream and write about 500 books and literary works. Studies on his literature have been actively performed since 1970s, but they focused mainly on his poetry, hardly caring proses. Therefore, this study analysed his whole letters which occupy important positions among proses in volume or literary value. The study analysed his friendship and real aspects of the letters through composition and receivers of letters, characteristics and points of views shown in the letters, and descriptive characteristics through their literary styles. His 241 letters are collected in Yeosyudangjeonseo. They are categorized according to the order of collecting them as follows: 17 of donatory letters, 9 of family mottos, and 215 of letters. Among them, donatory letters and family mottos have different literary styles from letters. However, as colloquial styles and the first-person and the second-person pronouns were freely used for directives and persuasion, and forms of letters which receiver sender interact each other were maintained, they were categorized as sub-letters. Only 74 letters had definitive period of writing marked. Among 241, which were written during his exile, 12 were donatory letters to his pupils, 9 were family mottos for his two sons and 60 were letters. Among 60 letters, 17 were sent to his second eldest brother and 26 were sent to his two sons. 29 which were written after he was released from the exile were composed of 5 donatory letters and 24 letters. Dasan had friendships with 80 people through letters and according to the relations they were categorized into family, relatives, academic and political colleagues, pupils, Catholic people, and literary persons. Those who had relations with him before the exile were Catholic people that caused him to be exiled, people related to Chejegong( Si sector of Namin who are called to be che party), people related to Seongho Lee Ik as his teacher and four friends of Juklansisa. Dasan was isolated from the world during his exile. 63 of the 82 letters written during the exile were sent to family members and his pupils including two sons and Jeong Yak-jeon as his second eldest brother. In addition, 19 letters were sent to politicians, scholars, literary persons and monks, but only 6 received them. After he released from the exile, he had free academic relations with outstanding literary persons and corresponded with only a few friends. 131 letters written before he was exiled began from oppression of Catholic church. They were written for 10 years and 41 of them dealt with severe suffering and agony of the party strife. Some of them described conflicts caused by slander and criticism, and clarified his position to leave the opposition between parties even in his official reports. No less than 29 written before the exile described friendship with friends, and senior and junior scholars. Among them, 14 were sent to his four friends of Juklansisa describing greetings, missing, memories of the past, and sorrow of separation. His letters specify academic discussion, literary criticism, and right behaviors and attitude as scholars, which shows his integrity as a scholar and literary person. The letters written during the exile these letters excluding letters to his two sons and his second eldest brother are hot so many that they were sent to a monk and only 5 politicians ediscussed Buddhist scriptures with monks and worried about violent tyranny of the government officials servants. The letters to his two sons during the exile had the ways of the world and how to manage the universe as well as educational purposes. They showed his diverse interests and ideas, which are valuable in literature. 23 of the 77 themes described learning, reading and writing while the rest described true relationships between people and right order of the world. The letters sent to his brothers dealt with questions and what to be solved in equal basis. When 17 letters were categorized according to 35 themes, 18 themes were involved in learning. That is, the ones sent to his brother were mainly about onesacademic discussioninl, which presented Dasan directions on writing activities and motivated Yakjeon to write Jasaneobo. Dasan presented 17 donatory letters to his pupils, emphasizing that even scholars should contribute to development of the society, create income and live creative and development-oriented life. A total of 29 letters which were written after the exile are collected in Yeosyudangjeonseo. He had free academic discussion with scholars beyond parties through letters. They mainly dealt with literary criticism and published a few adapted works several years before he died. His senses of value shown in his letters are resented as follows: First, as benevolence should be followed by action, love people and then benevolence comes true. He emphasized practical ethics to his sons considering that virtues to practice for benevolence are filial piety, humility and generosity, which expands to social ethics. Second, equality of moral tendency is recognized, but different status system according to achievements or ability is inevitable. Third, for humans to develop and prosper according to natural reason, they should have creative spirit and energy of change refilled consistently and for the purpose, reading and experiences are important. Fourth, with a belief that all the people can be happy when home economy as well as national and social economy is stable, he was eager to realize the spirits of diligence and thrift. However, he emphasized that careful and valuable consumption is also as important as thrift in letters to his sons and pupils. Dasan's letters have diverse characteristics in composition or styles. To examine descriptive style of the donatory letters, they intended to objectify themes using a 3-stage argument of logical description, demonstration through cases and conclusion. They used a style of questioning and answering to highlight themes and attempt changes in connection of sentences. For the descriptive characteristics of family mottos, persuasion and directives were alternatively given to teach their children. He used similar characters and repetitive sentences to deliver consistent messages. He described his ideas or messages in the formal style or ignored a traditional style of letter according to receivers. Some of his letters were based on Chinese classics or represented his internal feeling and sensitivity freely like an essay. Sometimes he repeated words or used slangs to emphasize his warm heart, which promoted literary values of his letters.