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영어

There are many ways to understand a school such as its academic contents, teacher-disciple relationship, regionality, and even political position. Aside from those paths that have been polished so far, this article attempts to understand Nammyeong School through ‘Seowon(書院)’. The possibility to understand Nammyeong School through Seowon can be found from the fact that during the latter period of Chosun, Seowon played roles as the regional base of that school. Like that, the school’s developmental process or activities were closely associated with Seowon. Thus, by figuring out in which period Seowon was built and how it was distributed by each of the schools or what figures were cultivated from it, we can understand the area of activities of a certain school and the characteristics shown in the developmental process. Therefore, the history of Seowon cannot be disregarded when we try to understand schools in the latter period of Chosun. Often, Nammyeong School is characterized by the tendency to understand and transmit the idea of respect (敬義) as Jo Sik (曹植)’s nuclear idea, few collections of works, very few records related with theoretical exploration, and the strong spirit of criticism on reality. Those features of Nammyeong School can be understood in association with the history of Seowon’s development in Nammyeong School, especially, the reason why Nammyeong School was not active about building Seowon, or the fact that the number of Seowon it had was far smaller than that of other schools. In particular, when we try to understand Nammyeong School through Seowon, we can find answers from Nammyeong School’s political status that was changed drastically after Injobanjeong and Musin Revolt (戊申亂) about the following questions: why were Seowon or Saaek Seowon intensively built before the 18th century, regionally, why could it not be freed from Gyeongsang woodo (慶尙右道) centering around the present Gyeongnam, why were all destroyed and abolished under Daewongun’s Command of Seowon Abolition completely, or why was the wide-range evil effect of repeated building less noticeable in Nammyeong School which can be easily found in other schools.