晦峯 河謙鎭의 ‘首尾吟’에 대한 小考

Abstract

Hoibong Ha Gyeom-jin was a Confucian scholar who was born at the end of Joseon and spent most of his life during Japanese rule. Studying under his master Myeonwoo Gwak Jong-seok, he developed interest in modern sciences and did researches on them. Instead of accepting modern sciences entirely, however, he newly interpreted Confucianism and tried to find values that would help to save the times in moral philosophy. Believing that "A country is subject to fall, but morality is not," he thought that a nation could be saved as long as its morality lived on. That is why he kept his wish for a nation whose morality would stand strong and tried to find the logic of saving the nation by rescuing moral philosophy during Japanese rule. It was such an earnest desire that motivated him to write 134 pieces of Sumieum. Sumieum is devoted to moral philosophy from beginning to end and presents the poet's determination to save the nation through moral philosophy, his criticisms of various theories that challenged Korean and Chinese moral philosophy and their origins, and his comments on heresy in the order. The poem also illuminated the values he tried to obtain through moral philosophy. His Sumieum was the only poem that borrowed rhymes from all the 134 pieces of So-ong's Sumieum after Wooam Song Shi-yeol and claims huge significance as a literary work that was a great finale to Chinese literature during Japanese rule during which it continued to deteriorate.