A Study Of Dreams In The "Three Kingdoms"

Korean "speaking" literature is an umbrella term including myths, leg ends and folktales and it reflects the cultural development of Korean peni nsula and the awareness evolution of Korean national culture. As a form of oral literature, the "speaking" literature itself is "narrative" in classical Korean literature.As is known to all, "dreams", as one of the psychological and physio logical phenomena of human beings, have developed into a unique literary form. Both the concept of dreams and dream literature of ancient Korean s fall into the category of culture created by human beings, which intertwi ne and overlap with each other in literary works of dreams. Combining dr earn concept and dream literature into the narrative literature and based on the analysis of classical Korean dream speaking in Memorabilia of Three Kingdoms, this dissertation attempts to explore the different types and nar rative structures of dream speaking in the book and the influence of drea m speaking on ancient Korean fictions.Among the materials from Memorabilia of Three Kingdoms referred t o by this dissertation,39 texts are found to be associated with "dream" s peaking, among which 32 are texts with narrative structures of dream spea king. Many of these texts are works with profound thoughts, deep enlighte nment, critical spirit and high artistry and thus are of great literary values.Records about researches on dreams can be found in works of history, philosophy, religion, literature, culture and folk customs. However, few bo oks and papers study dreams by combining dream speaking and ancient K orean fictions and most studies are superficial. Although there are active st udies on classical Korean dream speaking among ancient Korean narrative literature studies, researches on dream speaking in Memorabilia of Three K ingdoms are often confined to the philosophical discussions of dreams on pregnancy. It is apparent that a systematic study of dream speaking in Me morabilia of Three Kingdoms is needed since dream speaking works are mentioned only when works of dream literature are discussed.This dissertation is composed of two parts, namely, narrative structure s of dream speaking and its influences on later ancient Korean fictions. T he relationship between dream speaking and ancient Korean fictions is ded uced from the narrative structures of dream speaking, which is the central idea and core of this dissertation.Four chapters are included in this dissertation.In the part of Introduction, the research significance and purposes as well as the literature review are firstly discussed. Then the research questi ons are put forward in an attempt to find answers to them.Chapter One mainly explores the relationship between Memorabilia of Three Kingdoms and classical Korean speaking literature. First of all, the literary features of Memorabilia of Three Kingdoms are analyzed by inve stigating its compilation background and writer awareness. Secondly, by an alyzing classical Korean speaking literature and Memorabilia of Three Kin gdoms, the concept and characteristics of "dreaming speaking" are made cl ear, and by further defining the academic term "classical Korean speaking", different types and classification criteria of classical Korean speaking are elaborated and the literary value of Memorabilia of Three Kingdoms is poi nted out.Chapter Two discusses the classifications of dream speaking in Memor abilia of Three Kingdoms. It first sorts out the concept and categories of classical Korean dream speaking. Then it investigates different types of dre am speaking based on the previous studies on "dreams" and proposes the criteria for the further classification of dream speaking. Lasly, it divides t he classical Korean dream speaking into different types. In this dissertation, dream speaking is divided into "omen dreams" and "enlightenment dream s".Chapter Three probes the narrative structures and their significance of classical dream speaking in Memorabilia of Three Kingdoms. In this chap ter, the structure of Memorabilia of Three Kingdoms is firstly discussed. T hen a systematic analysis of the narrative structures of dream speaking in Memorabilia of Three Kingdoms is made in accordance with the classificat ion criteria mentioned in Chapter Two. Finally, based on the narrative stru ctures of dream speaking, this chapter further studies the characteristics of different types of narrative structures and the significance of dream speak ing in Memorabilia of Three Kingdoms.Chapter Four concentrates on the influence of dream speaking in Me morabilia of Three Kingdoms on the classical Korean fictions. It first anal yzes the "dream" theme of dream speaking in Memorabilia of Three King doms. Based on the analysis, it explores the process of absorbing the "dre am" theme into classical Korean fictions. By analyzing how classical Kore an speaking evolved into ancient fictions and how dream speaking develop ed into materials of ancient fictions, a detailed study on the ancient fictio ns’ inheritance of dream speaking in Memorabilia of Three Kingdoms is al so made.The last part of this dissertation is Conclusion, which summarizes the whole dissertation and points out the remaining problems and suggestions for further study.This study on classical dream speaking has some limitations because i t is restricted within the scope of Memorabilia of Three Kingdoms. It is h oped that a more comprehensive study on classical Korean dream speaking will be carried out in the future.