담배 문화사의 시각으로 본 담배 假傳의 세계

Abstract

This paper analyses five stories from the Late Joseon period featuring tobacco as an anthropomorphic character and examines their significance. Until recently only three stories have been known to exist that feature tobacco as an anthropomorphic character. In this paper, I present two newly-discovered stories from the Late Joseon period, and one new discovery from the Japanese colonial period. Particularly significant among the newly-discovered stories is the story by Shin Hon, “Namsaengjeon” (The Story of Namsaeng), which precedes, by sixty years, the hitherto earliest-known anthropomorphic tobacco story, which is “Dampago-jeon” (The story of Dampago) by Yim sang-deok, written in 1705. I have also found anthropomorphic tobacco stories from Japan and China, “Sangsagun-jeon” (相思君傳) and “Eoseongsaeng-jeon” (菸先生傳), respectively. Based on these discoveries, this paper also makes comparative analysis of the stories from Korea, Japan, and China. The five Korean stories analyzed in this paper are divided into two groups. The first group consists of stories written by Shin Hon, Yi Hi-ro, and Yi Yeong-ok; in analyzing their work, I focus on their accounts of identifying how, or through what distribution process, tobacco became a popular item for personal consumption. The characteristic of the narratives in these stories is mainly historical. The other group consists of works by Yim Sang-deok and Yi Ok; in analyzing their work, I focus on the functional aspect of the pleasures of smoking tobacco as described in these works. The anthropomorphic tobacco stories from the Late Joseon era not only relate in an entertaining manner how tobacco spread across East Asia but also faithfully describe the rich contemporary cultures of tobacco smoking. I argue that the anthropomorphic tobacco stories, apart from being works of literature, complement historical data.