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영어

This study examines the prose collection of 『Seoeoyugo』 and the life of Seoeo Kwon Sang-Shin(1759～1824), a distinguished bureaucrat and a writer during the late Chosun Dynasty period. It then analyses his earlier prose works and discusses its literary features. Having concentrated on writing literary works from his twenties to thirties, Kwon Sang-Shin halted prose-writing throughout his 13 years of government service, starting from October 1788 to 1801. After resuming literature-writing since 1801, he mainly focused on producing official writings such as appeals(上疏) and jinhyangmun(進香文). Thus, this research reviews his prose during his ‘initial’ period, by defining this term as his lifetime prior to serving as a government official. It can be speculated that the reason for the noticeable increase of his public writings, contrary to his previous active creation on literary works, attributes to the continuous death of his family members that eventually led to decline of his prose-writing. There are mainly three literary features in his early prose, using 『Seoeoyugo』. The first is ‘change of conception and pursuit of novelty'. , , and other works make existing perceptions unfamiliar, thereby show one’s differentiated thoughts in a persuasive way. The second is 'conformity to death and expression of grief', which is related to Kwon Sang-Shin's personal affairs. In and , where his viewpoint on death is shown, the attitude of accepting the death of a family member with expressions of deep sense of sorrow can be seen, unlike the general appearances of showing skeptical reactions toward Heaven’s will after the loss of one’s child, or denying the child’s death. In particular, , a piece he wrote after the death of his nine-year-old daughter, is a highly literary piece that concentrates the sorrow to the inscription at the end after narrating calmly on the benevolent and dutiful images of the daughter through several episodes. The third is 'pursuit of roughness and flatness and introduction of absurd theories'. Kwon Sang-Shin enjoyed landscape sightseeing throughout his life and left many works on the theme including, and , which show the proprietary characteristics that break from the formality of traditional essays on landscapes. In addition, there are works that on the one hand follows the tradition of essays on landscapes, but on the other hand show novel characteristics of essays on landscapes during this period. Such works include, , , , . In these works, rough walks are not avoided for the journey to search for eccentric yet magnificent sceneries. This goes in line with the tendency of landscape sightseeing in the late Chosun Dynasty, where sightseeing was desired to be differentiated from the previous generation literary persons. In addition, its characteristic can be found in that human affairs realized through the process of sightseeing are expressed through novel arguments. The former generation essays on landscapes perceived landscape as the object to which cultivated souls are indwelled, and expressed the political reality or personal deprivation through their discussions. In contrast, through small episodes during sightseeing, Kwon Sang-Shin originally narrated the enlightenment on the attitude and way of life including, reflection on vanity or chasing power.