「소현성록」의 소설어: 한글문체의 형성과 해석의 순환 구조

Abstract

This study analyzes “Sohyeonseongrok”, a seventeenth century Korean vernacular novel, to clarify the stylistic formation and hermeneutic circulation of what it terms the “language of the novel” (sosŏlŏ). The novel’s language is not merely a vehicle for trans mitting narrative content but a medium in which ethical assump tions and affective dynamics intersect to organize thought. Employing Paul Ricoeur’s threefold mimesis (Mimesis III–III), the study interprets how the text’s ethical and cultural presuppositions (Mimesis I) are configured into narrative structures (Mimesis II) and subsequently reconstituted through readers’ interpretive engagement (Mimesis III). Through this circular process, “Sohyeonseongrok” reveals the capacity of Korean vernacular prose to mediate moral reflection, affective expression, and the social practices of reading. Chapter 1 examines the “strategic language of the novel,” focusing on the ways Confucian ethics and heroic narrative patterns are reorganized into vernacular scenes and speech acts that rearticulate patriarchal order. Chapter 2 explores the novel’s autonomous stylistic dimension, highlighting the emergence of “surplus affect” that exposes the rigidity and contradictions embedded in moral discourse. Chapter 3 traces how these linguistic and affective structures circulated within seventeenth-century reading communities, shaping the interpretive horizons of later Korean fiction. Overall, the study argues that the “language of the novel” in “Sohyeonseongrok” exemplifies how late Joseon prose internalized dominant ethical norms while simultaneously generating new modes of emotional experience and interpretive practice, thereby contributing to the broader evolution of Korean narrative culture.