남용익의 <讀史詩長篇三百二十五韻>에 대하여

Abstract

This paper presents an investigation into Nam Yong-ik's Doksasijangpyeon- sambaekisipowoon(讀史詩長篇三百二十五韻), which is a long masterpiece comprised of total 325 Woons, 650 Gus, and 4550 letters. It chronologically depicts the history of China from ancient times to early Qing throughout its rise and fall. Nam was motivated to create this work by his interest in history. He also intended to encourage good and punish evil. Witnessing the reality of the central plains of China being taken over by Qing considered as barbarians, he presumably wished to get consolation for the present from the repeating nature of history. In terms of content, this work is characterized by historical awareness based on Confucian ideas and thinking, which is verified his praising Confucian figures and excluding the heresy, stating that Shu Han by Liu Bei inherited the legitimacy of Han, revealing his consciousness of revering the kings and excluding the barbarians throughout the work, and criticizing tyrants including Qin Shi Huang and Emperor Yang of Sui. The work was then examined in expressive methods. As for its sentence styles, the work repeated Praise(褒) and Censure(貶), regulated the distance, and used the technique of creating and relaxing tension in order to avoid monotonous and dull quality that could be found in long poems. Describing history during a transition period, he placed a "stanza" connecting an old era with a new one to ensure a natural flow. As for his use of poetic words in the work, he intentionally used letters expressing emotions such as ‘哀(sad)’, ‘恨(resentful)’, and ‘傷(hurt)’ to show his criticism effectively. In his work, the author let the dead speak in their own voices to depict history vividly with a sense of realism or used animal expressions and ancient events related to animal frequently in a bid to increase the expressive effects of failure, fall or its sign. In the use of phrase, he made active use of advantages of seven-character poem form which would not be expressed in a phrase of five characters. This work holds significance by proposing one of various approaches to historiography and having impacts on writers and scholars in the latter part of Joseon through the transmission of Nam's historical awareness. It is, however, too long and presents too many historical events in such a compressed manner, which means that it is difficult to understand its content and get a glimpse of it. As a result, poems written in this style were not transmitted to later generations, which is a limitation of the work.