This study aims to investigate Sego (世稿) that was published during the Joseon Dynasty, thereby intending to summarize the flow and publication of Sego at the time. Sego refers to the anthology of a family that typically consists of the posthumous ...
This study aims to investigate Sego (世稿) that was published during the Joseon Dynasty, thereby intending to summarize the flow and publication of Sego at the time. Sego refers to the anthology of a family that typically consists of the posthumous works and writings of more than two members of a family. From the perspective of containing the writings of multiple persons from a family. it is the highly utilized data covering the entire domain of a study from an individual to a family. Thus far, studies on Sego have been used for the reference data in the literature of individuals or the families as well as in the study on academic orientation, or as the data for a comprehensive study including the collections of writings. There have also been studies on Sego itself, but most of the studies mainly referred to the writings contained in Sego. Since there are not many studies conducted on Sego itself, this study intends to explore the patterns and characteristics of Sego that have been complied and published during the Joseon Dynasty based on the data investigated.
Before exploring the patterns in the compilation and publication of Sego, the fundamental domains typically used in Sego such as the names of books, the nomenclature for books, the composition and nature of books were first examined. Just as Byuljib (別集: a collection of works of an individual) has various other names, Sego also uses various words other than the ‘Sego’ to represent the Sego type books. There were as many ways in the nomenclature as the various names of books. It was possible to identify the composition and nature of the books based on the relationship between the type of books included and their authors.
The patterns and publications of Sego were explored by dividing them into editions and times. The methods employed in the publication of Sego include woodblock, wood typography, and metal typography. Of the existing Sego, the largest number is a woodblock type, followed by wood typography, and then metal typography showed the least. The period was categorized into the early, mid, and late periods based on the amount of compilation and publication in Segos. In the early period, the number of compilations and publications was small, however as time passed, the numbers increased and the average number of people who listed the works in Sego also increased.