명청교체기 조선 지식인의 대청의식 일고찰 — 無何堂 洪柱元의 「燕行錄」을 중심으로 —

Abstract

The present study aims to look into how Joseon’s intellectuals viewed the Qing Dynasty by examining Moohadang Hong Joowon’s travel poems to China. Hong experienced the Manchu Invasion of Joseon and the transitional period between the Ming and the Qing Dynasty, and also had been to China four times as an official envoy during the transitional years when the Qing Dynasty was yet to settle down as a state. The transitional period between the Ming and the Qing Dynasty provided a crucial turning point which drastically changed the dynamics of entire northeast Asia. Nevertheless, there are fewer studies on the travel essays of this period, compared to those on the travel essays written in the 18th century. Because travel essays to China, which were first written in the mid-17th century, when the Qing Dynasty gained control of most of mainland China, continued to exist for the following 200 years, it is well worth examining and studying those of the earlier period. Hong’s resentment against Qing is manifested in a plethora of expressions in his travel poems. He did not acknowledge the legitimacy of the Qing Dynasty in an indignant tone or direct criticism against them. In some poems, he showed, using metaphors, his humiliation as an envoy to the government of the barbarian invaders. He, in the meantime, was hoping in vain to see the Ming Dynasty whose survivors remained in a lessened state called “South Ming” reviving again. And he was strongly deploring the political tide of the time. The present study, however, is restricting its scope on the travel poems of Hong Joowon, thus comprehensive knowledge on how Joseon’s intellectuals viewed the Qing Dynasty is to be acquired only after the comparison of Hong’s travel poems with the contemporary travel essays or poems.