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The Textual and Imaginary World of Ho Kyongbon (1563-1589) Young The Textual and Imaginary World of Ho Kyongbon (1563-1589) Young Kweon Department of East Asian Studies McGill University Montreal, Canada May 2003 A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Arts Universal Copyright © 2003 Young Kweon Acknowledgements My sincerest thanks go to my supervisor Professor Grace S. Fong for her guidance and invaluable comments on this thesis. I am greatly indebted to her for opening my eyes to the world of women's Classical Chinese literature. Without her time and efforts put into my study at McGill, it would have been impossible for me to finish this thesis. I am also honored and grateful to Professor Stephen Owen, who gave me insightful comments on Ho Kyongbon's poetry in the text reading session held at McGill University. His extensive knowledge on Tang poetry and scholarly interpretation of Ho's poetry expanded my understanding of it. My sincere thanks also go to Professor Yi Chang-u at Yongnam University for his encouragement and scholarly comments. He has been a model of a devoted and exceptional scholar to many of us who had a chance to know him. I would like to thank some of my fellow graduate students who took the graduate courses with me. Their comments in translating Ho Kyongbon's poems were indispensable. I am also extremely grateful to Jim Bonk who put so much effort into reading my thesis, carefully editing it. Without his help, my journey would have been prolonged. Finally, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my family members. My mother has been the most stanch supporter for my pursuit at McGill. Her devotion and encouragement has given me the strength to finish it. I also would like to thank my husband Eric for his presence and patience. I am truly grateful for his support and devotion. Abstract This thesis is a study of the Korean woman poet Ho Kyongbon (1563-1589) and her poetry. In it, I investigate Ho's two brothers' active involvement in her literary life, particularly her younger brother Ho Kyun's publication of her poetry collection, the Nansorhon chip and promotion of her literary works to Chinese scholars. I also examine late Ming and Qing anthologies which include Ho's poetry to disclose how late Ming and Qing scholars evaluated her poetry and represented her life. I argue that the attention these critics paid to Ho's literary works and talent reflected a blossoming of women's literary culture and a rapid growth in the anthologizing of women's poetry. I also undertake an analysis of Ho's poetry, with particular emphasis on the influence of Tang poetry on her poetic practice. This analysis is accompanied by a discussion of Ho's relationship to the "Tang revival movement" in which her two brothers were fervently engaged. This relationship provides a context through which to better understand not only Ho's particular interest in emulating Tang poetry, but also the very textual qualities of her poetry. Resume Cette these est une etude de la poetesse coreenne Ho Kyongbon et de sa poesie. J'examine, dans le cadre de cette recherche, le role actif de ses deux freres dans sa vie litteraire, particulierement celui de son frere cadet en ce qui a trait a la publication de ses poemes, le Nansorhon chip et la promotion de ses ceuvres litteraires aux erudits chinois. J'examine aussi les publications anthologiques de la fin de Ming et Qing qui ont inclus les poemes de Ho afin de determiner la facon dont ces erudits ont evalue et represente sa vie. Ma discussion cherche a demontrer que l'attention des critiques face a son ceuvre litteraire et son talent reflete un epanouissement d'une culture litteraire feminine et d'un accroissement rapide d'anthologies d'ceuvres provenant d'auteurs feminins. J'entreprends aussi une analyse de la poesie de Ho. Cette analyse porte une attention particuliere a l'influence de la poesie de Tang sur sa pratique litteraire et est accompagnee d'une discussion sur sa relation avec le «mouvement de renaissance Tang» dans lequel elle et ses freres etaient impliques fervemment. Cette these fournit un contexte dans lequel l'interet particulier de Ho a emuler la poesie Tang et les qualites litteraires de sa poesie peuvent mieux etre compris. Table of Contents Introduction 1 Chapter 1 The Literary Life of Ho Kyongbon 15 Chapter 2 The Publication of Nansorhon chip and the Influence of Ho Kyongbon's Poetry 33 Chapter 3 Textual Imitation in Ho Kyongbon's Poetry 64 Conclusion 106 Appendix 109 Notes 110 Bibliography 142 Introduction My thesis is a study of Ho Kyongbon jfrMHI: (pinyin: Xu Jingfan, style name Nansorhon fiJ!|$T- [Lanxuexuan]; 1563-1589), the most well-known woman writer in Korean literary history. Ho lived in the Choson dynasty §Bft£ (1392-1910), during the reign of King Sonjo (r. 1567-1608). She was born into a prominent scholarly family and, unlike most women of the time, was educated to read and write Classical Chinese. As a result of her devotion to the study of poetry and the Chinese classics, she became erudite and, over her short lifetime, produced a considerable amount of Classical Chinese poetry and prose. After her death, Ho Kyongbon's younger brother, Ho Kyun fr"$S (style name Kyosan ^clJj; 1569-1618) collected and edited her works and presented them to a group of Chinese official envoys visiting Choson.' These official envoys brought her works back to China and made them available to Chinese scholars.2 As her literary works began to receive favorable attention and recognition in China, a number of prominent Ming and Qing scholars included her poems and essays in their poetry and prose anthologies and, in their commentaries, praised Ho for her brilliant literary talent. Following this very positive reception in China, the collection of Ho's poetry was published in Korea under the title ofNansorhon chip jifjigffljl (Collected Works of Nansorhon).3 Because of her significant position in Korean literary history, both Ho Kyongbon's life and her literary works have been the topic of numerous critical studies by Korean scholars. In order to understand the focus and perspectives of these studies and to locate my own study within current scholarship, I will summarize below some of the most important recent critical studies of Ho's life and works. In the 1960s and 1970s, a substantial number of critical studies on Ho Kyongbon's life and poetry were produced. Some of these studies focused particularly on Ho Kyongbon's life. Mun Kyong-hyon's article, "Ho Nansorhon yongu" (Research on Ho Nansorhon), is among the most important. In this article, Mun attempts to explore Ho Kyongbon's lineage and to give information on important family members who directly or indirectly influenced her literary activities. Mun's article not only provides the reader with a deeper historical understanding of Ho Kyongbon's life and family background, but also helps the reader to understand Ho's literary works within a historical and familial context. In his analysis of Ho Kyongbon's poetry, Mun argues that Ho Kyongbon's poetry is characterized by distinctive feminine qualities that could not be attributed to her brother, Ho Kyun.4 This argument undermines the rumors crediting Ho Kyun with the authorship of Ho Kyongbon's poems. Mun further argues that Ho Kyongbon's works are distinctively sorrowful and sensitive because of her unhappy married life. He goes on to claim that Ho Kyongbon's poems "Boudoir Lament" §§£§, "Song of Colouring Nails with Touch-me-not Balsam" ^JHJE1UI7£1K, and "Crying for My Children" y^- are archetypical examples of female poetry.5 While he offers some useful information, Mun's analysis is problematic for two reasons. First, he provides no exploration of the poetic tradition behind the styles and themes of Ho Kyongbon's poems. Instead, he simply analyzes her poems as biographical sources. Second, his statement that Ho's poetry is "archetypical female poetry" (Kor. chonhyongjoginyosong si) is debatable. The concepts of "masculinity" and "femininity," just as the definition of "gender" itself, are socially constructed and vary throughout different cultures, historical periods, and social groups. Mun Kyong-hyon, however, uses "female" as an absolute category, making the rather broad assertion that Ho Kyongbon's poems can be taken as representative of the poetry of women. While Mun's article focuses on Ho's life, some scholars focus instead on those of Ho Kyongbon's poems that deal with Daoist themes. Yi Chong-un, in his doctoral dissertation entitled "Han'guk munhaksang ui Togyo sasang yongu" (Research on Daoist Thought in Korean Literature), demonstrates how Ho Kyongbon's poetry was closely linked to Korean Daoism and its poetic expressions of immortality. Focusing on Ho Kyongbon's eighty-seven "Lyrics of Wandering Immortals" jfilfllllSJ, he provides critical commentary from a Korean Daoist perspective. In the conclusion of his dissertation, he places Ho Kyongbon's poetry among the best of Korean Daoist literature.6 His study, while excellent in its discussion of the religious aspects of Ho's poetry, lacks an analysis of the textual characteristics which came from Ho's emulation of specific Chinese poets such as Guo Pu %^ (276-324) and Li Bai ^Q (701-762). Kim Sok-ha's "Ho Ch'o-hui ui 'Yusonsa' e nat'anan 'son' hyongsang" (The Image of Immortalities in Ho Kyongbon's "Lyrics of Wandering Immortals") is also a study of Ho Kyongbon's Daoist poems. His focus, however, is on the analysis of the concept of son f[i] (immortal or immortality) manifested in Ho Kyongbon's poems.
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