『삼국사기』와 『삼국유사』: 역사와 문학의 만남

Abstract

All the academic disciplines pursue truth. Whereas history discloses truth by narrating fact, literature does it by narrating fiction. Which door is, however, the bigger one leading toward truth? In his Poetics, Aristotle asserted a poem telling 'the possible' is a bigger door than a history telling 'the actual'. He believed that poem told about the general, whereas history told about the particular. Aristotle's ranking of literature and history is reversed in the historiographical tradition. For example, Samguksagi as a historical narrative is considered to be closer to truth than Samgukyusa as a literature narrative. In the West, history has grown out of fiction, whereas the opposite development has been the case in the East Asia. The modern realism which identifies fact with truth, however, shut down the door to truth through fiction both in the East and the West. Instead, a genre like historical novel in which literature imitates history was born under the Modern realistic grammar. The rise of faction in the Postmodern era means the disintegration of the Modern realistic grammar which holds fact alone to be true. In this context, this article pursues to understand fact and fiction respectively as a narrative of reality and dream, not as an equation of truth and falsehood, by comparing Samguksagi and Samgukyusa. Following the Postmodern grammar, Samguksagi is a historical narrative, whereas Samgukyusa is a faction.