Yi Ok Bong is widely known as one of the top female Chinese poem writer together with Heo Nanseolheon for her outstanding works though few are left. As a consequence result, her works have got a wide popularity in the past and present among which two ...
Yi Ok Bong is widely known as one of the top female Chinese poem writer together with Heo Nanseolheon for her outstanding works though few are left. As a consequence result, her works have got a wide popularity in the past and present among which two or three have been included in Sino-Korean textbooks. Many popular books that introduce Chinese poems selected her works without fail some of which became classics. However, it is strange to see that even though Yi Ok Bong attracted wide popularity few comprehensive researches on her life and works have been made. Moreover, it is more than serious to see that although the issue of authenticity against 4 poems allegedly attributed to her works was raised, the basic prerequisite research before the full-scale study to verify the authenticity has not been made yet. In other words, she has been popularized and became a legend before an earnest research was carried out. The author found out an unexpected fact in the process of reviewing her poems from the perspective of history of studies. It is that 17 which take almost half of the 40 works are surely not hers or probably not hers. Moreover, the problem gets worse when some representing works of hers are contained in that list. Therefore, we have come across an embarrassing situation to began a study on Chinese poems of Yi Ok Bong while excluding these 17 poems.