신광현이 편찬한 『委衖瑣聞』의 내용과 특징

Abstract

This study newly excavated Shin Gwang-hyeon’s Wihangswaemun, which has been known to be lost, and examined its contents and characteristics. Shin Gwang‐hyeon (1813‐1869 or later) was a middle‐class literary man (閭巷 文人) who was active in Seoul in the 19th century. It is not clear whether Shin Gwang‐hyeon’s ancestors were literati (士大夫) or middle people/petty officials (中人/書吏) but he associated with the group of contemporary middle people and petty officials and attained fame as a poet in the sphere of middle‐class culture. He worked as a private secretary (記室 or 冊室) assisting influential men such as Jo Man‐yeong until the middle of his 30s, but he gradually declined after the death of Jo Man‐yeong in 1846 and was absorbed in self‐indulgent writing until the end of his life. The newly excavated Wihangswaemun contains a total of 132 articles, and each article was written freely without a separate title. The compilation date of Wihangswaemun is believed to be between 1858 and 1862. Wihangswaemun has the characteristics of both essay (筆記) and folk tale (野談), and the characteristics are largely summarized into three. First, Wihangswaemun bears the nature of a journal of folk customs in the 19th century that captured people’s lives from many different angles. Second, many of the stories in Wihangswaemun are unusual strange stories (奇異譚). It is particularly unique that a number of strange stories in the book use birds, animals, and plants as their materials. Third, various types of narratives including ordinary folk tales and Sino‐Korean short novels are present together in Wihangswaemun.