張經世의 「遊仙詞」 고찰

Abstract

A human being begins to dream of life opposite to reality when suf- fering disappointment or meeting with contradiction in reality. Freedom of escaping from a bridle of reality comes to be dreamt. A bowl, which is good for containing a poet's such thought, is Yuseonsi(遊仙詩). Creation of Yuseonsi(遊仙詩), which has material as Seongye(仙界) or ‘Hsien(仙)' Thought, is shown in literary men intermittently from Silla. However, the literary circles in Joseon for the 16th and 17th century began to be absorbed in creation of Yuseonsi(遊仙詩), thereby having been amplified the creation of Yuseonsi. Among writers who created Yuseonsi in this period, Jang Gyeong-se's <Yuseonsa(遊仙詞)> was examined. Jang Gyeong-se's work, which composed by borrowing rhythm in 87 Su(s) of <Yuseonsa> by Heo Nanseolheon(許蘭雪軒), is depicting his unique Yuseonsi poem different from Heo Nanseolheon even with using the same vocabulary. As Jang Gyeong-se's Yuseonsi(遊仙詩) is a work that was composed during the period of Gwanghaegun(光海君), it is what was written at his age of 65 while he retired to hermitage in hometown. As clarified in a preface of a prose collection, Jang Gyeong-se's Yuseonsa(遊仙詞) is containing the same meaning as Do Yeon-myeong's <Doksangaegyeong(讀山海經)>. A writer, who suffered the political uprising period due to Gwanghaegun(光海君), contemplates reality by reciting the Hsien(仙) world as for criticism and nothingness for reality, and is overcoming the inner anguish. Jang Gyeong-se's Yuseonsi(遊仙詩) in this way can be said to be the content-based characteristic that is different from other contemporary writers' Yuseonsi.