퇴계 시의 공간 감성과 감성의 구조

Abstract

Toegye Yi Hwang’s poetry stands as a representative example of the harmony between Neo-Confucianism and literature. This paper classifies the spatial sensibilities in Toegye’s poems into four types—moral(Dao-learning), romantic, quotidian, and social—and analyzes his poetic spaces according to different stages of his life to clarify the characteristics of his emotional structure. In his early Yean study period, under the influence of his uncle Yi-woo(李堣), he mastered the principle of harmonizing literature and moral philosophy. During his mid-career in Seoul, he expressed his commitment to public affairs and compassion for the people. In his later years of seclusion in Yean, centered on Dosan Seowon, he devoted himself to Neo-Confucian scholarship and the education of disciples, contributing to the dissemination of Neo-Confucianism through the founding of academies and publishing activities. Toegye embodied various dimensions of sensibility in his works: the moral sensibility rooted in “reverence”(敬) and “heavenly principle”(天理); the romantic sensibility grounded in the legacy of Qu Yuan(屈原) and Li Bai(李白); the daily sensibility reflecting the concrete realities of everyday life; and the social sensibility expressing loyalty to the monarch and love for the people. The core of Toegye’s emotional structure lies in the high-level integration of moral and romantic sensibilities, founded upon his everyday sensibility. This synthesis is most vividly seen in the spatial setting of Dosan Seowon and in his plum-blossom poems. The Dosan Jabyong(陶山雜詠, Forty Themes, Ninety-two Poems) inherits the tradition of Zhu Xi’s Wuyi Zhengshe Jabyong(武夷精舍雜詠), singing of constancy amid change and change within the unchanging. Especially, the Maehwa Sichup(梅花詩帖, Seventy-two Themes, One Hundred and Seven Poems) pursues the world of purity and truth, embodying both romantic atmospherics and moral ideals. Toegye emphasized daily cultivation(日用工夫) and sought to manifest the Dao within ordinary life. Although social sensibility waned in his later years, he aspired toward the consummation of learning through seclusion at Dosan. Ultimately, through the aesthetic principle of ganbal-yungtong(感發融通), he pursued the unity of Heaven and humanity(天人合一) and the realization of one’s original nature(本然之性 體得), overcoming the traditional literary view that “indulgence in things hinders the will”(玩物喪志) and “writing harms the Dao”(文章害道), and thus achieving a successful poetic world embodying the unity of Dao and literature(道文一致).