조선조 후기 문예공간에서 성적 욕망의 빛과 그늘 -예교, 금기와 위반의 拮抗과 그 辨證法-

Abstract

Confucian moral ideology of the Choson Dynasty(1392-1910) committed to the suppression of human desires through rites and education waged a precarious struggle against them. Thus, the imposers of the moral prohibitions conceded to their violation, as shown in the institutions of concubines and female entertainers for male patriarchs. In late Choson, some literary and artistic works increasingly brought matters of sexuality and desire into light from shadowyconcealment. Moreover, the diplomatic missions to the Qing court and the Tokugawa bakfu opened ways to import a variety of foreign literary and artistic works, which stimulated violation of the moral prohibitions based on Confucian rites and education. Thus, spring pictures (ch’unhwa/ shunga) and erotic novels in circulationundermined the walls of moral prohibitions, even leading to subversion of these prohibitions. Confucian ideologies and values of the time were dealt blows by explicit depictions of hitherto hidden physical parts and erotic love. This paper emphasizes that such single dimensional frame of reference that ascribes sexual desire to modernity, repression to patriarchalsystem, and rites and education to the Choson Dynasty, is problematic in illustrating the sexuality and its discourse in the Choson era. Instead, we may be closer to realities of the Choson sexuality and its discourse by revealing many layers of the conflict between the moral prohibitions on the one hand, and their violations on the other.