조현명 시에 나타난 ‘탕평’ 관련 의식 연구

Abstract

This study set out to investigate the Tangpyung awareness and its propulsion background of Jo Hyeon-myeong(1691-1752), a politician and literary man during the reign of King Yeongjo, and the patterns of his "Tangpyung"-related awareness being embodied in his poems. Jo was one of the core figures that pushed the Tangpyung policy forward, going up the career ladder from Ijo Panseo to Yeonguijeong during the reign of King Yeongjo. His family joined the Soron at the time of Noron-Soron divergence, but they formed relations with families in the Noron line based on marriage and friendship. He had profound exchanges with literary men in the Kim Chang-hyeop and Kim Chang-heup group of the Noron line and maintained a position of "the same nature between human beings and things" argued by the Noron Nakron line. These aspects of his helped him formed ideological fellowship with Noron figures(especially the literary men of the Nakron line) and became a part of the backgrounds behind which he was able to perform as the right man for the "Tangpyung" policy to overcome confrontations and strike balance between Noron and Soron. In addition, he did not discriminate the nature of things against the human nature, engaged in unreserved communication with people from the middle class including Hong Se-tae and Jeong Nae-gyo, and took interest in Wang Yang-ming. These had something to do with his consciousness of overcoming confrontation and discrimination and promoting coexistence. His "Tangpyung"-related poems are divided into political and non-political aspects. In the political aspects, he kept the clear consciousness of "Tangpyung" in the early days of his political career, spoke about his position and difficulty of not being able to push Tangpyung forward after his appointment as Ijo Panseo fell, and refused to retire to push Tangpyung forward despite the criticisms in the process. In the non-political aspects, he had the consciousness of "fairness," "equality" and "coexistence" in various situations of dealing with people, things, and ideas. He proposed to give up the superiority-inferiority dispute and recognize each other in trivial quarrels with his friends and exhibited goodwill to the "equality" idea of Buddhism. Furthermore, he admired the coexistence of different types of chrysanthemum, insisted that there should be no superiority between literary and military men, and suggested in local suits that fair division would be right. His consciousness of "balance" and "coexistence" was extended to broad areas beyond the political arena and exposes an aspect of the Soron intellectuals in the former half of the 18th century who rejected discrimination, confrontation, and dispute and sought after harmony and coexistence.