The Record of the Citadel of Sorrows: A case study in Joseon dynasty literature Orion Lethbridge This thesis was submitted for the degree of Master of Philosophy of the Australian National University November, 2016 © Copyright by Orion Lethbridge 2016 All Rights Reserved This thesis is my own work. All sources have been acknowledged. November 2016 Acknowledgements This research was made possible by the generous support of the MA Transnational Humanities in Korean Studies Scholarship, funded by the Korean Government (MOE) (AKS-2011-BAA-2106). I would like to extend my deepest thanks to my supervisors, Professor Hyaeweol Choi, Dr Mark Strange, and Dr Roald Maliangkay, for their patience, guidance, and unwavering support. Special thanks are due to Mark, whose painstaking attention to detail and generosity with time and effort were above and beyond the call of duty. I was very fortunate to have been able to participate in the ANU-Hanyang University postgraduate exchange program in Fall Semester 2014, and received invaluable support and language training during my time there. I am also grateful for the feedback that I received when I presented part of this project at the Worldwide Consortium of Korean Studies in June 2016. To Cathy Churchman, Nathan Woolley, Ruth Barraclough, Ksenia Chizhova, Dane Alston, and the many other academic mentors who responded with kindness and encouragement to my random questions, demands, and episodes of fear and doubt, and to countless friends and family members without whose support this would have been impossible: if I were to thank each of you individually, the content of the thesis itself would not fit between the covers, but my sincerest thanks to all of you. Very special thanks are due to Angela Junor, Jayse Hayes, and McCarthy, for all the right things at all the right times. Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to my partner Elizabeth Huxley, whose patience seems to know no bounds. Abstract The Record of the Citadel of Sorrows is attributed to the renowned literary figure Im Je (1549-87). Writing in the sixteenth century, against a bloody and dramatic backdrop of political turmoil, Im Je was a minor official of the Joseon government. He was well-known by contemporaries for his literary ability, but is widely regarded as a reclusive literary genius by modern scholars. The Record of the Citadel of Sorrows was the only work of prose fiction included in the first compilation of his collected works, and is often highlighted as one of the earliest examples of a Korean novel. This thesis considers the other side of that portrayal, examining the ways in which the text evolved from Literary Chinese precedents and Joseon literary culture, and providing the first fully annotated translation into English. The project is intended to serve as a framework for scholars wishing to engage more closely with Joseon literary heritage, and to provide specific insights into The Citadel, Im Je, and sixteenth-century literary culture. Contents Part One: Critical introduction to The Record of the Citadel of Sorrows ..............................1 Introduction .........................................................................................................................1 Chapter 1: Socio-political and literary influences on Im Je’s life and works ........... 19 Chapter 2: A textual tapestry: disentangling the threads of The Citadel ................... 61 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 105 Part Two: The Record of the Citadel of Sorrows .................................................................. 111 Bibliography ....................................................................................................................... 171 Appendix 1: The Record of the Citadel of Sorrows in Literary Chinese .......................... 189 Part One: Critical introduction to The Record of the Citadel of Sorrows Introduction The Record of the Citadel of Sorrows, Suseongji 愁城誌 (henceforth The Citadel), was composed by Im Je 林悌 (1549-87). As a Literary Chinese text from the Joseon dynasty, it is a strong example of how the Literary Chinese language community was not an essentially ‘Chinese’ entity. As a case study, The Citadel is a useful example of how the conventions of a wider community were adapted in local contexts. The text is commonly regarded as a stepping stone towards the modern Korean novel. The primary focus of this thesis is contesting that characterisation through critical analysis and thorough contextualisation, reframing the text as part of a literary culture that was already rich and complex. The Citadel has been translated into Korean several times. It was identified as a key work for Korean literature studies in Kim Taejun’s 金台俊 (1905-49) 1933 volume the History of the Joseon Novel (Joseon soseolsa 朝鮮小説史). Since Kim’s volume, The Citadel has been considered one of the earliest novels (soseol 小説) in the history of Korean literature, along with texts such as The Tale of Hong Gildong (Hong Gildong jeon 洪吉童傳), frequently attributed to Heo Gyun 許筠 (1569–1618), A Nine Cloud Dream (Guunmong 九雲夢), by Kim Manjung 金萬重 (1637–1692), and the anonymous Tale of Unyeong (Unyeong jeon 雲英傳). The description of The Citadel as an early novel requires closer consideration. One criticism of twentieth-century Korean literature studies is the tendency to 1 overemphasise a sense of ‘visible continuity’ between premodern and modern literature.1 This tendency is particularly evident in classifying texts as novels. The Citadel was selected for Im Je’s collected works by his relatives and friends in the early seventeenth century, but it has not been studied in terms of contemporary aesthetic or intellectual values. Rather, in studies such as Kim Kwangsun’s Celestial Lord novels,2 Heo Won Gi’s ‘The significance of mind and nature theories in “Celestial lord novels”’,3 Kim Hyeon Yang’s ‘Suseongji and its implications for transition in the history of novel in the late sixteenth century’,4 and Lee Min Heui’s ‘”Celestial Lord biographies”: the standards and naming of the genre, centring on a comparison of The Tale of Master Malt and The Record of the Citadel of Sorrows’, the most central concerns have been that of the novel and genre.5 Most English anthologies of Korean literature similarly note The Citadel as an early example of a Korean novel. The issue is that applying categories from modern literature studies on premodern works includes certain underlying assumptions about literature—for instance, the primacy of the novel as a literary form. In turn, this restricts what can be learned from the text. In her argument that literature studies is culturally bound to its Western origins, Rey Chow highlighted the novel as a particular example of Western European models and concepts forming the basis of assumed knowledge in modern 1 Hŭnggyu Kim and Robert Fouser, Understanding Korean literature (Armonk, N.Y: M.E. Sharpe, 1997). 196. 2 Kim Kwang-sun, Cheongun soseol (Seoul: Goryeo Daehakgyo Minjok Munhwa Yeonguso, 1996). 3 Heo Won Gi, "Cheongun soseol-ui simseongronjeok uimi," Gososeol yeongu 11 (2001). 4 Kim Hyeon Yang, "16-segi huban soseolsa jeonhwan ui jinghu wa Suseongji," Gojeon munhak yeongu 24 (2003). 5 Lee Min Heui, "Cheongunjeon jangreu gyujeong mit myeongmyeong-e gwanhan je-eon: Guksunjeon mit Suseongji wa ui bigyoreul jungsimeuro," Munhak gyoyukhak 42 (2013). 2 academia. To illustrate her point, she noted the nearly invariable use of ‘a national or ethnic qualifier’ to describe any novel produced outside of Western Europe.6 Similarly, Gregory Evon observed that ‘Korean literature as it is now conceived was a twentieth-century creation,’ emerging along with many other national literatures.7 Likewise, as noted by the Sinologist Glen Dudbridge, ‘genre categories are overlaid on transmitted works, read into them after the event, by the editors, publishers and cultural arbiters of later times.’8 Fortunately, as noted by Bassnett and Lefevere, cultural equivalence has slowly given way to an acknowledgement that ‘the textual and conceptual grids of other civilisations should not be reduced to those of the West’ and that there is a need to refer to ‘the cultural capital of other civilisations which preserves at least part of their own nature’.9 In this sense, The Citadel should not be reduced to a novel, but explored in relation to the literary culture that produced it. In From Historicity to Fictionality: The Chinese Poetics of Narrative, contesting the generalised use of the term ‘novel’ across different periods of Chinese literary history, Hsiao-peng Lu pointed out the fairly organic transition from historiographical to fictional writing.10 Due to the similarities between the literary cultures of premodern China and Korea, this understanding of 6 Rey Chow, "The Old/New Question of Comparison in Literary Studies: A Post-European Perspective," English Literary History 72.2 (2004). 295. 7 Gregory N. Evon, "Chinese Contexts, Korean Realities: the Politics of Literary Genre in Late- Choson Korea (1725-1863)," East Asian History 32/33 (2008). 57. 8 Glen Dudbridge, Books, tales and vernacular culture: selected papers on China (Boston; Leiden: Brill, 2005). 10. 9 Susan Bassnett and André Lefevere, Constructing cultures: essays on literary translation (Clevedon, Philadelphia: Multilingual Matters, 1998). 11. 10 Hsiao-peng Lu, From historicity to fictionality: the Chinese poetics of narrative (Stanford: Stanford University