ScholarWorks@숙명여자대학교

초록

This paper selects 11 self-chanting poems from Lee Saek's Gentleman Poetry that take the poet himself as the object of reflection as its primary sources. By conducting a detailed textual analysis of the poems in conjunction with the author's life background, it reveals that the role of the gentleman-personality in the author's life is primarily manifested in two aspects. First, although Lee Saek was in an officialdom full of temptations of fame and fortune, he pursued throughout his life the ideal of becoming a gentleman who regarded money as dirt. Six poems, including “My Past,” “Self-Chanting: The Master,” “Self-Lament,” “Self- Chanting: Figures,” “Self-Chanting: Chaos,” and “Self-Chanting: Fusang,” composed between the ages of 27 and 56, demonstrate that after three decades of trials, Lee Saek, through unwavering self-cultivation, ultimately achieved self-recognition of his gentleman-personality upon reaching the age of knowing destiny. Second, beyond the aspect of active cultivation of the gentleman-personality, in the state of the uncertainty during the period of his career slump, this personality also served as a spiritual pillar for his self-healing. Five poems, including “Three Self-Chanting Poems,” “Self-Chanting: The Gentleman,” “Self-Chanting: Heaven and Earth,” “Self- Reproach,” and “Self-Mockery,” written in his early fifties while bedridden due to illness, present the poet's spiritual world of constantly reflecting on and comforting himself through the gentlman-personality. These 11 self-chanting poems related to the gentleman showcase to later generations the image of a lofty and magnificent gentleman in the turbulent late Goryeo period. They also highlight the representative influence of the concept of the gentleman on literati of this era, constituting an important component of Lee Saek's literature on the gentleman.

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