율곡시에 나타난 산수유람 체험의 형상화 방식과 지향

Abstract

Yul-gok Yi Yi(1536-1584), a leading author proficient in both literary and philosophy of the time, is well known for his intrinsic philosophical ideas based on a theory called “Monistic Ju-ki-ron(主氣論)” which had extensive impact to shift the viewpoints on the literature to focus on the existential modality and values of literature itself. Yi Yi’s mentions on literature reveals that he had recognized the close correlation between morality(道) and literature(文) and had endeavored to define their relationship. Among the diverse vocabularies that Yulkok made uses of to explain the relationship between morality and literature, ‘Mun-yi-hyung-do(文以形道)’ is notable for being the original vocabulary he proposed. ‘Mun-yi- hyung-do’ means the innate ‘Li’(truth, character) of an object can be shown by intactly embodying the phenomenon and not through notional depiction. To Yi Yi, the landscape became an object in which morality was embodied and ‘observed’. Having enjoyed landscape sightseeing in all his life, Yi Yi left poems about his sightseeing experience, and those reveal the purpose and contents of sightseeing well. The purpose was to find ‘the origin of truthfulness’ and certainly it could not be obtained through a cursory tour. The sightseeing experience required patience and enough time for ‘Li’ to mature. That means to say it was an effort to fulfill oneself by recovering ‘Ya-ki’(night energy) in the time of patience. However, in no single line Yul-gok had directly mentioned his desire to find ‘Li’, rather he chose to speak about the process of accomplishing it in serenely descriptive tone. What he truly pursued in landscape poems was not to discover and fully acquire the innate nature of the earth and sky, but to equally polish up the disposition of individual existence given through the innate nature of each. As he argued in ‘Ki-bal-li-seung-il-do-sul’(氣發理乘一途說), he believed that if the disposition of individualis is realized through landscape, the nature of the earth and sky is acquired itself. The Method and Pursuit to Embody Landscape Sightseeing Experience Revealed in Yul-gok’s Poetry would be more clearly distinguished if compared with other authors of the time.