Changkang Kim Taek-young (1850~1927) chose asylum, leaving declining Joseon dynasty. After defecting to China, interacting with men of repute, he did writing work. So, he drew attention from both Korea and China. But, among studies on this activity, t...
Changkang Kim Taek-young (1850~1927) chose asylum, leaving declining Joseon dynasty. After defecting to China, interacting with men of repute, he did writing work. So, he drew attention from both Korea and China. But, among studies on this activity, there is a case that this was prescribed as lopsided receiving relation in the style that he changed into a philosophe who tried to seek exit of modernization, getting a lesson from a Chinese literary man or uniting Western civilization and Confucian spirit. This writing was intended to show these suggestions are deflective through Su-seo written by Kim Taek-young. Kim left 24 pieces of Su-seo, and these are overwhelmingly lots of quantities among all writers in Joseon. Originally, Su-seo is a kind of colloquial writing which was popular in the Jiangnan Region in Ming China where commerce developed; however, overcoming the limit of Eungsu letters by Gui You-guang, it was given literary life. Since Kim was absorbed in Gui You-guang as much as he was called “son of Jincheon(震川)”, Kim was influenced a lot by Gui in creation of Su-seo. By the way, after looking into the features of Kim’s writing, though there are similar points with Su-seo of Gui You-guang like reflecting reality and inner consciousness of Kim’s time, showing a fond look on second-class citizens such as merchants, women, etc., and standing out characters and events through anecdotes; by collecting arguments centered on narration, like presenting his writing intention or containing serious and strict contents in his simple and natural writing style, his own features that were not found out in Su-seo of Gui You-guang could be checked. Also, Kim criticized strongly Zeng Guo-fan who denigrated Su-seo of Gui You-guang. In the basis of Kim’s logic, there were an attitude that literature is not subordinate to learning and a creation theory that made “superb spirit(神韻)” and “superb taste(神味)” of Shiji(史記) as a standard. In fact, these were things that Joseon’s literary circles brought up consecutively, so the fact that Kim Taek-young evaluated Gui You-guang highly can be understood in this traditional extension. Kim did not touch Gui You-guang by dividing time and space called 19th century Joseon dynasty, and also he was not a philosophe who got rid of feudal class concepts and went forward into modern era. Though he was influenced by Chinese free learning characteristics during his exile in China, he did not break off Confucianism and showed a look to deny Western new sciences. If we look at academic and literary features of Kim Taek-young objectively, it is suitable that all factors of both Korea and China which influenced the formation of his study and literature should be considered evenly.