‘管鮑之交’의 재해석

Abstract

Variety of ancient idioms on friendship exist depending on their back stories and contents. Of these, ‘the friendship of Guan Zhong and Bao Shu(管鮑之交)’ is a symbolic ancient idiom used to describe an ideal freindship and tells a story about Guan Zhong(管仲) and Bao Shu(鮑叔) during the Spring and Autumn Period in China. This specific ancient idiom makes its first appearance on literature through Liezi(列子) and was introduced more widely through 60 books of Historical Records(史記). On the other hand, this particular ancient idiom is accompanied by divided opinions on friendship between Guan Zhong and Bao Shu. It makes people to question the form of friendship existing between Guan Zhong and Bao Shu which seems difficult to comprehend for ordinary crowd and let them reconsider the concept of friendship. The wise sages from the history also quesitoned this very same question as ordinary people have making them to become skeptical about the existing generally accepted understanding of friendship and seek answers through the process of deep contemplation. However, it needs to be pointedout that despite many writers from the Traditional Period in China suggested varying interpretations on the friendship of Guan Zhong and Bao Shu(管鮑之交), all of these writers agreed that the friendship between these two individuals are ideal and strong. As their verdict, the story of friendship between Guan Zhong and Bao Shuy has been told as a symbolic case of friendship among ordinary people for almost 2,500 years. Thus, this paper sought to redefine the reasons behind the unanimous decisions reached by the writers from Traditional Period in China despite their doubts asbout the friendship of Guan Zhong and Bao Shu(管鮑之交) from the perspective of cultural politics. In order to carry out the investigation, the author selected Liezi(列子), 60 books of Historical Records(史記), th 16th and 19th of A History of the Various Kingdoms in the Eastern Zhou Dynasty Romance of the States of Eastern Zhou(東周列國志) as basic texts to carry out the study.