Ok-So Gweon Seop is a sadaebu literature who lived during the 17th and the 18th century. He had a great background on studying that everyone would envy, but his life was not ran in a groove. He cannot find out a meeting point of compromise with the so...
Ok-So Gweon Seop is a sadaebu literature who lived during the 17th and the 18th century. He had a great background on studying that everyone would envy, but his life was not ran in a groove. He cannot find out a meeting point of compromise with the society on things what he thinks rightly. Besides, sorrows were occurred unceasingly in family. This situation and his stubborn nature drove out him to the outside. He couldn't be in accord with society, he had to do the sight to the mountains and rivers throughout his life. Then he expressed it diversely in the poem, the prose, and the paintings, on the course he followed for his life. Therefore the sansu prose he left is what shows his frustration.
It was general to appreciate the nature's beauty and improve upon one's virtue by traveling before Ok-So. And it was also common to put on the record the impressions. But the specific character is assume an aspect of variety according to the changes of the times and the authors. By 16th century, it was valued to realize the Neo-Confucian ideology and raise the spirit of the sentence with the moralists as the central figure. That is to say, the sansu literature clarified the meaning of itself in an extension of the realities. But coming in 17th century the official literatures did the sights actively expressing the love of the nature. Because the ups and downs were filled in their political life, they would satisfy their mind and body through traveling. Therefore the reality and the nature was placed an each position with separate.
In the late of 17th century, there is a change in the sansu literature. Before this period, the external factors were put intensely in the sansu literature like the expression of ideology and the comfort of mind and body. The authors started to express truly the beauty of the nature. The thought which "Let the beautiful thing be the beautiful one" was in. To continue the amusement and appreciate the nature, they leave the images positively though it is impossible to see in person. Now the sansu was coming to an space which produces the literature and possesses the art.
Ok-So holds the characteristics of the sansu literature in this period as well. Various characters of the period's sansu literature are found in his literary works. But his sansu literature is not a mere following other authors at that times. He reflects his frustration in the sansu prose like the「Haesanrok(海山錄)」and the「Monggi(夢記)」. It was not an exposing wrath but a positive aesthetic quest. He looks for the more beautiful site -he expressed '奇'- in spite of the rough place, and feels joy variously to the degree of the beauty. Through his unique feelings, he images newly everything that he come across in his journey. Even he records and images the impressions which he saw in his dream. Like this Ok-So's sansu literature displays the beauty of nature itself and ups to the level of the positive enjoyment toward the beauty.
After all, Ok-So's sansu prose is the precognition of the change in the situation that one's aesthetic quest is to be passive in the world of ideology. Furthermore it showed us the possibility that one's attitude of aesthetic can hold an individual position in spite of the literature trends at that times.