조선시대 비일상적 상상력－요괴 및 지옥 형상의 來源과 변모－

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the origins of Chosun people's imagination about monsters and hells. For that purpose, the investigator examined their imagination in the depictions of monsters and hells in literature and visual materials such as paintings and patterns. Traditional monsters have such characteristic features as “protruding eyes”, “large mouth” and “erect hair.” Their faces resemble the face of the goblin in the roof tile with a monster mask design since the period of Three Kingdom. The scary faces of monsters were highlighted in Chosun’s historical romances, since when those features settled down as the typical features of monsters. There was Sanhaegyeong of China at the root of Chosun people's imagination about exotic things and countries. Sanhaegyeong contains diverse bits of imagination of ancient Chinese people about unknown worlds including descriptions of giants, mermaids, and therianthropic creatures from distant countries. Their imagination led to the depiction of cruel and grotesque creatures in Taepyeonggwangi of China and historical romances of Chosun and stimulated the peripheral imagination of man. Buddhism satisfies people's anxious curiosity for a surrealistic world and judges bad deeds in reality through “hell.” Paintings of Ten Kings in Buddhism present various aspects of hell similar to those in all kinds of historical romances and stories of hell experience, making viewers shiver in fear. A closer look at them reveals that the pawn monsters and famished devils subject to extreme pain in hell gradually lose their grotesque features and become similar to humans towards the end of Joseon. It is unique to the latter half of Chosun, not being found in the paintings of hell in the former half of Chosun, China, and Japan. It is also connected to the trend of monsters and ghosts being expressed not very scary in literary materials.