매월당 김시습의 노년시

Abstract

The present study examines the characteristics of the poems composed by Gim Si-seup (1435-93; pen name: Maewoldang) in his elderly years based on a problematics of the literary forms of old age. From the time of his 48th year, when he put of a Buddhist monk’s robe and started to wander around the country, to his death at the age of 58, this period is his full-fledged old age, and the Sino-Korean poems created during this period can be seen as his poems of old age. His poems of old age are included mainly in the Daily Record of the Myeongju Region (Myeongju Illok) and the Daily Record of the Gwandong Region (Gwandong Illok). Gim’s poems of old age demonstrate well his physical, existential, and mental state in old age. The most noteworthy aspect of his last-year poems is his serious and deep-seated discord with the world. Although poems composed in his youth and middle age do reveal discord with the world as well, many other of his earlier poems express detachment or Buddhist enlightenment also. In his old age, however, works on the “contradictions of [his] circumstances” (sinse mosun) and his discord with the world take up a far greater proportion. Moreover, the degree of such discord is far more intense. While squarely facing his situation―old, infirm, ill, and impoverished―Gim never succumbed to it. He stood against the world until the end of his life despite his worn and weary body and did not seek to end the discord. This is confirmed well, above all, in “A Composition on My Portrait” (Jasajinchan). It can be seen as showing his unique aspect as an intellectual. The sole hope that Gim did not relinquish in the hopeless situation of his old age was that people’s lives would improve. This can be seen as yet another notable aspect of his poems of old age.