명통(冥通)의 상상력, 죽음과 불사의 대화 －<주씨명통기(周氏冥通記)>와 <설공찬전>을 중심으로－

Abstract

The 'mortality' and the 'immortality' is an everlasting theme of human beings and their relation is a topic of the Taoist thinking and imagination. The Taoism has been interested in a desire for the longevity and immortality, and there are a lot of scriptures narrating such a desire in <Dojang>, a collection of the Taoist scriptures. In the early Taoist scriptures, <Jussimyeongtonggi(周氏冥通記)> is the successful work in narrating such a craving. 『Jussimyeongtonggi』 is based on the empathic exchanges(感通) of the character Jujaryang with the Taoist officials (仙官) of the afterlife(夢界) in the dreamy world(夢界), an unrealistic space of the reality. Empathic exchanges as the point of encountering this life with afterlife, the living and the dead, human and Taoist hermit have a variation of the possession by a spirit in the later literature. <Seolgongchanjeon(薛公瓚傳)> by Chae Su is the work narrating the experience of possession, a specific form of empathic exchanges. <Seolgongchanjeon> was called <Seolgongchanhwanhonjeon> too but here Hwanhon has an example different from the general. The reason why is that spirit of the dead does not come back to the real world as it is. Besides, <Seolgongchanjeon> is not a ghost narrative. Also the reason why is that possession narrative adopted by this work as a central frame keeps its distance from a ghost narrative for getting rid of personal resentment. Seolgongchan's possession plays a role in making family members of this world identify the existence of the next world and both worlds encounter. It is regarded that the Taoism puts emphasis on a real life compared with other religions. The Taoist view of life and death, prolonging a real life and delaying the death, imagined another narrative related to the death unstoppable by human power and the world after the death. It is a 'story about the warning-purposed afterlife'. Land purchase records of Royal Tomb of King Muryeong provide us with a cue on how those days' people structured a narrative of the warning-purposed afterlife. Records on the warning-purposed afterlife show that they constructed the afterlife through narrative mirroring of space and order of the human world. A novel archetype that <Jussimyeongtonggi> contains is also organized by narrative mirroring of this world. Besides, the tradition of the Taoist narrative is tied with the narrative of reality. The representative is a narrative of worship of and respect for women. <Seolgongchanjeon> also presumes the view of the next world and as a method for realizing it, uses mirroring of a narrative of this world. Furthermore, in a mirroring process of the narrative of this world, it embraces the Taoist tradition of the narrative that equates humanity of the weak/female with that of the strong/male and maximizes their values. In <Jussimyeongtonggi> and <Seolgongchanjeon>, imagination of Myeongtong realized by empathic exchanges and possession by a spirit offers information on the next world, through structuration, constructs and enhances the imaginary fiction as the narrative knowledge. Such imagination of Myeongtong has desire for continuity and expansion of realistic relations.