『조선소설사』의 비판적 검토 -조선 후기 소설사를 중심으로-

Abstract

Kim Tae-jun(1905～1950)’s History of Joseon Novels(first edition, 1933; revised edition, 1939) is the first Korean history of novels. Kim Tae-jun wrote this book in a contradictory situation. He regarded the old novel as objects of disconnection, but he had to trace ‘long development of the old novel’. Thus he presented two requirements of ‘true novel’ for valuation of the old novel. First, the novel should be a national literature expressing the thoughts and feelings of its own people in its own language. Second, the novel should express a contemporary civic ideology which is related to a serious life problem. The three nodal points of the late Joseon novels were presented with representative works satisfying the two requirements. Hong Gil-dong- jeon in Imjin War and Byeongja Horan(Second Manchu invasion of Korea) period, Guunmong in King Sukjong period-"Golden Age" of Korean classical novel-, Park Ji-won's short stories in classical Chinese and Chunhyang- jeon in King Yeongjo & Jeongjo period was selected as representative works of the times. Kim Tae-joon exposed several contradictory perceptions during describing the history of novels. First, he took a flexible way to change the novel category based on the novel concept of the contemporary person, but after sticking to the first requirement, he could not grasp the value of the Korean novels in classical Chinese which could represent that period. Second, there was a case of evaluating the value of a work based on an arbitrary criterion irrelevant to two requirements presented by himself, without reading the meaning of the work accurately. Third, it was difficult to explain the status of other works that he considered as a masterpiece because of the simple understanding of the relationship between the stage of the development of material production and the history of literature. Despite some problems, History of Joseon Novels presented the principle of a classic novel-"We have to express the thoughts and emotions of the contemporary people about the life problem that closely coincides with the reality of the present day in a serious way". It provided the main value criterion for examining the development of history of novels in the late Joseon period.