한글편지에 반영된 옛 대전의 생활문화Ⅰ- 송준길․송규렴가 편지를 중심으로

Abstract

This paper looked at the fragments of living culture of Daejeon in the late Choseon age by studying the letters written in Korean sent by the houses of Jun-Kil Song and Kyu-Ryum Song. A total of 164 letters including 40 letters of ‘Seonseeondok’ of Dongchundangga and 124 letters of Jeoweoldangga written from the early 17th century to the late 18th century were used in our study. The letters were written and delivered between married couples, from mothers to their songs and daughters, from married daughters to their home, from mother-in-laws to son-in-laws, from grandfathers to grandsons, from grandmothers to grandsons, from aunts to nephews, and from masters to slaves. The letters included not only greeting words, but also the disease of houses and curing process, housekeeping, working as a government employee, disputes and resentments, children education, marriages, managing wealth, and accepting materials. There was no big subjects like academic disputes among schools and loyalty in the letters written in Korean although these subjects were usually in the letters written in Chinese characters mainly written by men. However, we could meet the image of living of those who lived in a house. The contents of the letters were classified into following five fields; 1) reading books and education, 2) diseases and how to cure them, 3) receiving materials, 4) coming of age, marriage, funeral, and ancestral rites, and 5) marriage life. The characteristics of the letters in Korean are as follows; 1) love and communication among family members, and curing process, 2) dynamic situation at that time, 3) literary expressions, 4) female and male names that are not recorded in a genealogy, and 5) flexible culture combined Confucianism and Buddhism, and 6) old names and ways of speaking in the Hoseo region. The two houses of Jun-Kil Song and Kyu-Ryum Song were noble houses representing Daejeon. Hence, their letters showed us only how noble people lived. However, the letters had significant meaning showing culture of Daejeon in the late Choseon in detail because it is so difficult to find out the letters written by ordinary people.