조선시대 서적유통과 매매의 문화적 가치

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

왜 조선의 지식인들은 그토록 책을 구입하려 한 것일까 과도할 정도로 서적 거래에 집착했던 조선 지식인의 매매 행위 속엔 ‘문명화의 대가’, 즉 고급문화의 당당한 구성원이 되기 위한 욕망 충족의 대가로서의 성격이 강하다. 이런 면에서 조선 시대의 독서문화란 비효율적이었다. 책의 거래 역시 전체 인구 대비 특정 소수 독자로 국한된 매매가 주를 이루었다. 그러니 장서가나 독서욕에 사로잡혀 있던 조선 지식인 집단이 택한 ？u？I 비용은 개인적으로 필수불가결한 선택이었을지 몰라도, 또는 사회적으로 문자 해독과 지위 상승을 가능케 했을지 몰라도 사회와 경제 발전 전반에 걸쳐 긍정적으로 작용했다고 말하기 어렵다.
조선시대 서적 유통과 매매의 문화적 가치와 의미는 이러하다. 첫째, 서적 매매 행위는 작가와 독자, 독자와 독자, 그리고 작가 및 독자와 중개업자 간 인격적 분리의 극복, 즉 인격적 의사소통을 가능케 했다. 둘째, 장소적 분리의 극복을 가능토록 해 주었다.셋째, 시간적 분리를 극복하는 역할을 수행했다. 그러나 책이 사용가치보다 교환가치를 지닌 대상으로 인식되었지만, 경제적 가치의 사회적 효용성이 문화적, 의식적 가치의 견고성을 무너뜨리고 다수의 삶의 질을 바꾸기엔 여전히 그 한계가 사회 전반에 노출되어 있었다.

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

People of all confucian society thought that commercial act like private book trade was under taboo in the Choseon dynasty. By the way, actually book's buying and selling was real life, and especially upper class readers didn't like selling books, but enjoyed buying them. It is ironical that main readers were under taboo in trading books, but they were generous to buy book itself. In the circumstance of not existing private bookstore until the 19th century, actual trade of numerous books was accomplished personally or by book-broker(Chaekkoi？？？~). Chaekkoi had been active from the 15th Century to the middle of 20th Century, they acted mainly as a substitute for bookstore. There were several ways to trade books, eg, 1) donation or a present, 2) purchasing books from owner, book-broker, bookstore, book market, and China. Book's buying and selling could be caused by vigorous using of coins in circulation in the late of Choseon dynasty.
There are some reasons that book owner had no choice but to sell books, being treated like treasure. For example, a poor person among the intellectual class ought to sell books 1) to buy a house for rent, 2) to cure a person of a disease, 3) conduct a funeral, though they were the upper classes and educated person. On the other hand, an educated person was attached to buy books for collection of books and studying and to develop local old-time school belonging to the Confucian shrine.
But book's purchase and distribution in the Choseon dynasty was not inefficient, because learning of knowledge by buying books didn't contribute to the growth of all society and the market economy, though only the upper classes acquired moral richness and self-realization. Cultural meaning and value of book trading was not only negative, even though system of reading book was not inefficient. Because there is cultural value of book's buying and selling like these : Buying and selling of books is able to do 1) overcome of moral separation between writer and reader, reader and reader, reader and book-brokers, 2) overcome of place-separation between city and a countryside, Choseon and China etc., 3) overcome of time separation between the past and the present, the matter for delivering and spreading of new knowledge from China to Choseon, 4) overcome of ideological separation.
Book's buying and selling in the Choseon dynasty is history of overcome of moral and ideological separation, but it also obviously has the limits of cultural and conscious stiffness.