조선시대 감정론의 추이와 감정의 문화 규약 - 사대부의 글쓰기를 중심으로 -

Abstract

This research examines the discourse construction surrounding emotions, metaphysical theories of emotions, and cultural grammars about emotions through analyzing prose genres written in Chinese characters by Joseon literati from the 15th to the 19th centuries. Research on the discourses of emotions sheds new light on understanding the effects of traditional cultural roles in Korea. Synchronically, this research can suggest a foundation to develop research comparing the difference between Eonmun writings like novels and Chinese script writings with regard to emotions like “metaphysical discourses of emotions.” As a methodology, this research adopted a multidisciplinary approach between literature, history, and philosophy. First, this research analyzed daily genres like letters or biographical genres. With letters, the literati shared private emotional intimacy and formed a sympathetic bond, but they seldom used their emotional rhetoric freely. This repression of emotional rhetoric resulted from the dominant idea that the cultivated elite should control their emotions. Exceptions to this emotional repression involved mourning the death of family members or when expressing filial duties and royalty toward the king and the dynasty. Second, this research discovered that metaphysical discourses were typically divided in two parts: “Liki-ron (discourse)” and “Sadanchiljeong-ron.” These projects inter-link the “mind-nature-emotion” framework of Liki. By doing so, they were connected with cultivation discourses, a main topic of Confucianism. Such formulaic ideas gradually evolved in consideration of the complex emotional workings of daily life, not as a typical and logical emotional response and effect. Third, such phenomena were related to the change in writing patterns amongst Joseon literati after the 18th century, which were regarded as “Jeong (情),” a natural feeling and essence of literature. The writers began to observe their feelings and emotions alone and to describe them in detail. This was the new facade of the individual and also served as a new vision of human beings as an emotional subject. By comparing emotional representations written in Eonmun genres like the novel and letter, this research can contribute a new vision of the history of emotional discourses and cultural manners of human beings’ feelings during the pre-modern period.