魏晉南北朝 志怪小說 속 ‘仙境’ 이미지와 예술적 성취― 仙境 유람 유형 志怪小說을 중심으로 ―

Abstract

‘Fairyland’ is one of important materials of Zhi-guai Novels in Wei-Jin and the Southern and Northern Dynasties. ‘Fairyland’, which is one of Oriental names for Utopia, reflects the aspirations of the ancient Chinese for Utopian society according to the specific circumstances of each era. So, this article conducted analysis on how social psychology of the people in Wei-Jin and the Southern and Northern Dynasties at a turbulent period had been represented through Fairyland at Zhi-guai Novels - typical literary genre of this era - and then reviewed its artistic accomplishment. ‘Fairyland’ - space separated from reality - could be the original form of mankind’s Utopia. Given that aspirations for Utopia generally come from people’s dissatisfaction with reality or their pursuit of wealthy lives, strong aspiration for Utopia means that conflicts with reality and people’s uneasy psychology rising from sociopolitical chaos were severe as such. Prosperity of Taoism influenced the occurrence of many Fairyland-excursion stories. Since the Eastern Han Dynasty, there was a popular belief that discipline to morally cultivate oneself and become a Taoist hermit would make not only king, noblemen and Taoist believers but also ordinary people as the Taoist hermit. In line with expansion of the Taoist culture to ordinary people, the status of Fairyland changed to a place where everybody could approach, like a famed mountain instead of a remote site like Kun lun Mountain and those living in the Fairyland were envisaged as normal people living in the reality. Thus, Zhi-guai Novels in Wei-Jin and the Southern and Northern Dynasties, which were depicted variously in the form of ‘Entry into Fairyland - life at Fairyland - return to the earthly life’, could have reflected all of the social trends and people’s mentality at the time. Utopia can be said as a literary expression of people’s aspiration and perception of ideal space, and Zhi-guai Novels then continued to represent people’s aspiration and wishes using space called Fairyland and so its artistic accomplishment might be high.