UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles The Life and Works of Yi Ok A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Asian Languages and Cultures by Youme Kim 2014 © Copyright by Youme Kim 2014 ABSTRACT OF DISSERTATION The Life and Works of Yi Ok by Youme Kim Doctor of Philosophy in Asian Languages and Cultures University of California, Los Angeles, 2014 Professor Peter H. Lee, Chair My dissertation examines premodern Korean literature of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, focusing on the role of the literati in the development of popular literature and culture in late Chosŏn Korea. In particular, I consider the significance of the literary works of the prominent Chosŏn literatus Yi Ok as a case study to reexamine the cultural diversities of the literary field at this time. Yi Ok was an iconoclast whose controversial writings violated Neo-Confucian literary norms, even compelling King Chŏngjo (r. 1776– 1800) to establish a policy prohibiting the Chosŏn literati from writing in Yi’s style. In examining Yi’s unconventional stories, such as those about morally defeated members of the literati, lower-class people, and ghosts and transcendents, my dissertation challenges prevalent ideas about premodern Korean literati; they are often perceived as Confucian moralists whose writings, themes, and subject matter are limited to didactic moral lessons ii in the service of upholding the Confucian social order. My dissertation demonstrates that the theme of secular desires and the use of colloquial language were popular among politically marginalized members of the literati. It shows the existence of a much more expansive characteristic of the Chosŏn literati culture at large, which impacted the development of fiction in late Chosŏn. iii The dissertation of Youme Kim is approved. Andrea S. Goldman Richard E. Strassberg Peter H. Lee, Committee Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2014 iv Table of Contents Acknowledgements vi Vita vii Chapter 1. Introduction 1 Chapter 2. Yi Ok and King Chŏngjo’s Literary Policy 16 Chapter 3. Yi Ok’s Life and Writings 54 Chapter 4. Yi Ok’s Views of Literature 77 Chapter 5. The Lives by Yi Ok 102 Chapter 6. Conclusion 188 Appendix 193 Bibliography 229 v Acknowledgements My deepest gratitude to my advisor, Professor Peter H. Lee, for his guidance and instruction; to Professors John B. Duncan, Richard E. Strassberg, Andrea S. Goldman, and Christopher P. Hanscom for their careful and patient academic advice; Professors Hayong Chŏng and Hyesun Lee, for their support and inspiration; to my parents, Jaedong Kim and Jongbok Do, and my brother Yuil, for their strong support and love for me; Hannah Lim for thorough reading and suggestions for my drafts; and finally my colleagues and friends in Korean Studies both at UCLA and Ewha University, including Seungah Lee, Mickey Hong, and Janet Lee. The research and writing of this dissertation were made possible with the generous support of the UCLA Graduate Division, Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, Center for Korean Studies and the Korea Foundation. vi Vita 1998-2002 B.A. Ewha University, Seoul, Korea, Korean Language & Literature 2002-2004 M.A. Ewha University, Seoul, Korea, Korean Language & Literature 2005-2013 Doctoral Student in Asian Languages and Literatures University of California, Los Angeles Publications and Presentations Youme Kim. “The Unconventional in Neo-Confucian Writing: Yi Ok (1760-1812).” North American Workshop on Korean Literature, Columbia University, 2013. ---. “Chosŏn Literati’s Reviews of Confucian Classics and Chinese Popular Literature.” Paper presented at the Association for Asian Studies Annual Conference, San Diego, 2013. ---. “Yi Ok (1760−1813), a Korean Writer on the Margins.” Paper presented at the Association for Asian Studies Annual Conference, Toronto, 2012. ---. “The Unconventionality of Yi Ok’s Biographies.” Paper Presented at the Yonsei University—UCLA Conference, UCLA, 2012 . ---. “Literary Representation of Women in the Biographies of Faithful Women.” Paper Presented at the Association for Asian Studies Annual Conference, Atlanta, 2008. ---. “The Literary Description of ‘Susŏngji’ (Record of Guarding the Palace).” Paper presented at the Premodern Korean Fiction Studies, Winter Conference, Seoul, Korea. Published in Hanguk kojŏn yŏngu (Research on Korean Classics) 10 (2004): 123-156. vii Chapter 1 Introduction The literati, guided by Neo-Confucian principles, were expected to cultivate themselves according to Confucian morals and uphold social order as a ruling class through their writings. During the late Chosŏn period, however, works of fiction were created by literati writers, and the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries have largely been regarded as the golden age of fiction (sosŏl) in Chosŏn Korea. The writers adopted existing literary genres such as chŏn (biography), rok (account), or ki (record) to write works of fiction. The literary genre that shows the most prominent affinity to fiction is biography. Many works in a biography form are regarded as “fiction” among contemporary Korean scholars.1 Examples of early Chosŏn fiction in the biography form include “Yisaeng kyujang chŏn” (Student Yi peers over the wall)2 by Kim Sisŭp (1435−1493) and Hong Kiltong chŏn (Tale of Hong Kiltong)3 by Hŏ Kyun (1569−1618). The biography category reveals a gradual evolution into fiction, with its tendency to merge on fiction 1 The commonly adopted English translation of “sosŏl” is “fiction.” This term, however, seems ambiguous because Chosŏn literati, especially in the early Chosŏn period, adopted the term to indicate various secondary genres of literature including literary criticism, miscellany including works of fiction, and philosophical and other discursive writings. It is largely in the late Chosŏn period that “sosŏl” referred to “fiction.” I will use the term “fiction” to indicate literary works generally considered as “fiction” by Korean scholars. 2 The story is about the love between a talented student, Yi, and a beautiful girl, Ch’ŏe. When she is killed by the Red Turbans, she fulfills her love as a ghost wife. 3 It concerns Hong Kiltong, the secondary son of Minister Hong and a maidservant, Ch’unsŏm. Kiltong refuses to live a humiliating life as a secondary son and uses military tactics as the leader of bandits by stealing the ill-gotten wealth of evil officials. 1 and history.4 Sheldon Lu argues for the case of a transition from history to fiction in Chinese narrative saying that Chinese biography is situated between history and fiction: A noticeable generic intersection between history and fiction at this point is the Chinese biography, a literary form first established in official historiography. It later becomes an important genre of fiction. Fiction writers often take pains to imitate the rhetoric of the historian and to adopt narrative devices that evoke an aura of historicity and factuality in a biography. The T’ang fiction biography often describes the transgression of identities and prescribed roles, mixes the natural and the supernatural, and depicts the individual in crisis, at the threshold of two orders of reality.5 The genre of fiction that developed in late Chosŏn partly from biography shares similarities with Chinese biography. Given this, among Yi Ok’s total of twenty-five biographies and some one hundred pieces of literary miscellany,6 I focus upon the biographies for two reasons; they show the long tradition of historiographical writing and reveal their gradual evolution into a fiction genre as literati writers combined history and fiction. A brief review on the biography section of the Shiji (Records of the Grand Historian), by Sima Qian (135−86 B.C.), serves as the model of form and style for traditional Korean biography. Sima’s format is composed of an introduction, main body, and epilogue. The introduction identifies the main character(s) and provides details about each character’s background and occupation. The main body addresses the sequence of events. The anecdotes contained therein are selected by the writer according to the historiographical principle of praise and blame 褒貶. In 4 “Biography itself is a mixed form, having always a tendency to merge on the one side with fiction and on the other side with history.” Judith H. Anderson, Biographical Truth: The Representation of Historical Persons in Tudor- Stuart Writing (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984), 69. 5 Lu, Shledon Hsiao-peng. From Historicity to Fictionality: The Chinese Poetics of Narrative (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994), 7-8. 6 I follow Wu Peiyu’s definition of literary miscellany to indicate casual writings of premodern Korea. For Chinese miscellaneous works, I use the term “casual writing.” Please see footnote 24 in Chapter 2 for details. “Miscellany is a convenient repository of random jottings, anecdotes, or observations, sometimes grouped together under specific headings, but sometimes without any scheme or structure.” Peiyi Wu, The Confucian’s Progress: Autobiographical Writing in Traditional China (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990), 196. 2 the epilogue, usually marked by a heading such as “I say” or “in appraisal we say,” the writer adds the appraisal of life or explains his or her sources. A comment in a biography often fulfills a didactic purpose by urging readers to follow his authoritative interpretation of the story. One of the important styles that brings biography closer to fictional narrative is the annal- biography