퇴계退溪와 성호星湖의 시학詩學

Abstract

This paper seeks to compare the Poetics of Toigye Yi Whang (退溪 李滉), the most prominent Neo-Confucian scholar of the 16th century, to that of Seongho Yi Ik(星湖李瀷), the most representative Neo-Confucian scholar of the 18th century. Furthermore, this paper examines how the reasoning behind the poetics of poets and scholars changed as the age of Neo-Confucianism transitioned into the age of the Realist School of Confucianism. In letters to his disciples, Toegye liked to cite poetry as a way of enlightening the junior scholars. Here, Toegye's poetry practiced wēn róu dūn hòu(溫柔敦厚)'s Shijiao (詩敎), which satirizes fault in a warm and intimate language as to not offend the other party. Seongho also often cited poetry in his letters to disciples, but unlike Toegye, Seongho enjoyed using textual criticism( 考據) for his own argument. Additionally, Seongho's poetics differed from that of Toegye in that Seongho valued Shijiao(世敎) while Toegye emphasized wēn róu dūn hòu's Shijioo. Seongho believed that the goal of literature is to straighten out chinese ethics(倫理綱常), Right and wrong(是非) through truth(眞) and excess(實); he observed objects in depth and explored their meaning and purpose as a measure for Shijioo. Scrutinizing objects and interpreting the intrinsic meaning in them extends the basic approach toward Neo-Confucianism to trivial objects in everyday life, and this idea was illustrated through figurative language.