歲時歌謠의 지향성과 농경문화적 의미

Abstract

Korean seasonal songs are constructed with a twelve part framework corresponding to the twelve months of the year and based on the seasonal customs for each month. Times and seasons are important elements of the songs. Researchers have been concerned mostly with structural characteristics, differences in origins and types, and main ideas. This article has written on the assumption that the creation and spread of seasonal songs is primarily based on agricultural culture. The purpose of the article is to demonstrate the directions and meanings from an agricultural perspective. What the purpose and direction of the songs are and when the important season and time are in the songs depends on the writers and singers’ class background and their experiences. The songs written by the learned are aimed at expanding knowledge and reproducing the national ideology of physiocracy (which means a doctrine in which farmers are regarded as essential parts of the country's wealth) under the influence of Confucian teachings from China. On the other hand, the songs that were sung by the people were created out of a need to express themselves and pray related to their daily agricultural life experiences. The two purposes and ideas 【Abstracts】 歲時歌謠의 지향성과 농경문화적 의미 317 have been developed over the course of generations based on literacy in the case of the scholars’ songs or orality in the case of the peasants’ songs. The twenty-four solar terms and festive days are related to the most important time in the seasonal songs because they are the materials that produce the meaning and demonstrate the circular conception of time based on the agriculture cycle. Seasonal songs written by the learned express a sense of physiocracy by focusing on the twenty-four solar terms that play a role in the farming calendar. Seasonal songs sung by the people express the people’s popular consciousness in pursuit of the harmony of work and rest by focusing on festive days.