The ideal of examining thoroughly the oral tradition of folk narratives being impossible to be realized, there need to be a happy mean which reaches toward the research as a whole through an analysis of every version in detail. Even considering the li...
The ideal of examining thoroughly the oral tradition of folk narratives being impossible to be realized, there need to be a happy mean which reaches toward the research as a whole through an analysis of every version in detail. Even considering the literary folk narrative, while comprehensively covering the data collected in a wide area, I think it is necessary to get a macroscopic perspective, discussing its aspects of variation and strata of meaning with respect to the recipient’s consciousness.
This study is to make clear the multiple features of orally transmitted Korean folk narratives by way of inquiring into the representative group of types of folk narratives in which myth, legends and folk tales are comprised.
Chapter III deals with the mythical type of Keumchuck, stories of a golden rule. Keumchuk I is the national myth relevant to the accession of royal kings, which exists not only as a folk narrative but also as a motif in many areas of arts, while undergoing various transformations and recurring throughout the Yi dynasty. At every crisis of the nation it has existed as a mythical system of confirming the justification of the dynasty and the homogeneity of the ruler and the royal family.
Whereas Keumchuk I has been transmitted through literary works, Keumchuk II by means of oral transmission has been a folk tale represents the advancement of the people. This type of stories about a form hand with a golden rule who revived the princesses of two nations and became the husband of both solves all of the problems of the characters through the exchange of life and wealth and emphasizes the values of material in life. Each of these two types forms its own stratum of meaning, deriving from the same source of Keumchukwon in Kyung-joo area and being varied to get the contrasting contents.
Chapter III contains the legendary type of Sonsoonmaea as of a good man and Changjamot as of a bad man. Sonsoonmaea is divided into the folk narrative in Samgoockyoossa and the oral tradition; these two materials with a very similar structure and yet with a different intention show their own strata of meaning. Compared to the fact that the orally transmitted story only has the stratum of filial piety as with the general piety stories, the folk narrative in Samgoockyoossa does not affirm the filial duty which was highly estimated by the ancestors as an absolute value. The filial support chosen by Sonsoon is converted in meaning by the toll of the bell excavated from the burial place and related to the original source of temple stories and expanded to the meaning of religious redemption. In Sonsoonmaea coexist the surface stratum of affirmation to the filial duty and the deep stratum of orientation to the essential awareness.
In Changjamot the surface stratum of meaning presents itself as the punishment on the vice of bad men. Furthermore, in ambivalent existential aspect of human beings is shown by the predicament of a daughter-in-law facing the two conflicting worlds of a monk and a rich man, discipline of absolute goodness and human desire respectively. And her turning away gets its meaning in the affirmation of human attributes by humanity itself.
The folk tale type in chapter IV is classified largely into the type of eccentric and that of mediocrity.
The type of eccentric is composed of ‘Myungeui’, stories of a skilled physician and ‘Poongsoo’, stories of the physiographic prediction of human fortune, and both of them have abundant literary folk narratives.
The former is the story of success and limitations revealed through the healing process by a noted doctor who subjugates the ailments of living men. Though it is presented in many aspects by way of various episodic combinations, the process has a common meaning, that the moral discipline is not the absolute value, as the first stratum, and that the health is acquired when the organism of human beings is in accordance with the revolution of cosmos, as the second stratum, and that among many things the human life seems the most valuable, as the third stratum.
Compared to the orally transmitted folk narrative mainly deals with the diseases of the people and their treatments, the literary folk narrative with the cases of an eminent doctor who cures kings and officials. In coping with the events, the one is likely to find its solution in the rational relationships of causality, whereas the other tends to result in the leap of correspondence with the cosmic dimension.
‘Poongsoodam’ is the type of stories about the bliss of posterity through the death of predecessor. And the dead ancestor, in turn, gets an eternal life through the prosperity of descendant. This situation can be understood in the backdrop of traditional family oriented society. Each story of Poongsoodam with cases of success and failure, of physiographic prediction of human fortune and of participants, forms its own stratum of meaning I a variety of way.
The orally transmitted folk narrative in main tells of the blessed grave site casually adopted. All of the literary folk narrative, on the other hand, is based on the requital of a favor and put its emphasis on the feature of eccentricity in the prospect of fortune.
The type of mediocrity is composed of ‘Aji’, stories of child’s wisdom and ‘Geowool’, stories of mirror showing adult’s ignorance.
The former is about the child who solves difficult problems on behalf of the adults in adversity. Here the commonsensical stratum which believes that any difficulty could be solved by intellectuals meets with the negation of the second stratum of meaning which goes through the disillusionment to admit that the affected intellectuals are in fact not any more wise than a little child from which the third stratum of meaning is derived, that is, the experienced knowledge is no better than the intuitive wisdom. These stories critically allude to the inability of intellectuals who is no longer to be creative.
‘Geowool’ stories are divided into two types, the one of serious themes with its source on the folk narrative in the Buddist scripture, and the other as a farcical form of variations.
By the help of a man with mysterious power, the characters’ disillusionment, the images reflected in the mirror are not the reality, is a step in the process of awareness from the discriminative knowledge to the intuitive wisdom.
The farcical type puts its emphasis on the obsession of characters who believe firmly in the reflected images of the mirror as the reality and exaggerates their chaotic states, and turns the situation into an absolute laughing matter.
The types of folk narrative in every genre discussed above are characterized as follows.
The mythical type breaks the narrow circle of myths to get its form in folktale and has variegated strata of meaning as well. It shows the possibility that the myth can be transferred to an open realm of folk tale when it losts its function as a myth.
In the legendary type, the ‘Sonsoonmaea’ legend of human shows no conspicuous difference in structure, though there seems some difference in meaning between the literature and the oral tradition and the ‘Changjamot’ legend of place exists only as a type without any variation as groups of type. It reflects the limits of legend as an explanation of evidences with a result of no diversity in meaning strata.
All of the folk tale type exists as a group of types which reflects the openness of folk tale. The phenomenon of folk tale developing into group of types reflects the situation of fervent discussion of various way of thinking among the participants.
Stories have many generic distinctions, but the substance flowing deep into them has a meaning in common. The structures of problems and their solution centered around the behavior of characters we summarized as follows; death/life, ailments/health, poverty/wealth, extinction/creation, defeat/bliss, experienced knowledge/ intuitive wisdom. In the course of converting the former negative values into the latter positive values, it is obvious that stories reveal, from the level of physical life even to that of spiritual life, the basic theme of their aspirations for life. This gets its concrete meaning through the participant’s experience of life and in site of a tremendous lag of time still, as its vital element, makes the folk narrative alive.