A Study Of The Ancient Palace In Korea

Korean classical Gong Ci, an indispensible part of literary theme of Korean Chinese poetry, describes the tabooed emotional world of females in feudalistic imperial harem and mysterious palace life of monarch and palace maids. Through study on literary theme of Korean Chinese poetry which is not familiar to the ordinary people, we can comprehensively know about the overall feature of Korean Gong Ci works and its aesthetic expression, rich artistic connotations and unique national character.This paper is divided into two parts, namely prologue and main body, at former of which the concept of Korea Gong Ci is firstly explained and the difference in expression content between the core meaning and Gong Ci works in meaning of edge. Besides, the inclusion relation of palace grievance and Gong Ci is clarified, so that the concept and content of Gong Ci becomes further explicit. Then the research objective and status of this paper is discussed. In addition, the research scope and methods are also narrated, which lays foundation for conclusion of the main body, which is divided into five parts as below:Part one, development stage and background of Korean Gong Ci. It’s originally created from the latter half of Goryeo Dynasty and thrived in Korean Dynasty. However, seen from the policies and development status of social politics, religion and culture in the first half of Goryeo Dynasty, it’s initially laid foundation for Gong Ci theme of Korean Chinese poetry. Therefore, the first half phase of Goryeo Dynasty belongs to the foundation phase of Gong Ci literary creation. However, the literary work of Gong Ci was gradually created along with the attentions of literati in Goryeo Dynasty to poetry themes and methods of the Tang Dynasty. Through discussion in this paper, the Korean earliest Gong Ci work should belong to the poem of Li Renlao and the earliest work with two characters "Gong Ci" talked about the topic should belong to the poem of Jin Liangjing "Gong Ci". Though there was few Gong Ci works, its poetic topic, style and theme possessed the characteristics of Gong Ci works, which represented the very beginning of the literary creation of Korean Gong Ci, namely the initial stage of Korean Gong Ci literature. Along with the stable prosperity and development of social politics, economy and culture in Korean Dyansty, banquet serial versifying among the ruler and his ministers in Korean palace was gradually frequently performed. A lot of materials for Gong Ci works were grasped by Chinese poets and literati, thus there were famous poetical works emerging one by one. The poetic themes were expanded by contrast of that in the earlier stage. Besides, there were numerous famous civilian officials and Chinese poets in terms of writer, thus reaching the peak of creation in quantity. In consequence, this stage belonged to the thriving period of Korean Gong Ci literature.Part two, theme type and orientation of Korean Gong Ci. Korean Gong Ci work was spread over various literary classics. After collection and sorting of Gong Ci works scattered in various classics, they were overall sorted and classified according to the difference in theme type and orientation of these Gong Ci works. Seen form the theme type, Korean Gong Ci could be generally divided into three categories. Firstly, speaking of the theme describing the content about the sadness and happiness of palace maids, it indicated the concept in broad sense and covered all females living in feudalistic imperial harem while "sadness and happiness" covered joy, anger, sadness and happiness in emotional world of the queen, concubines and maids in feudalistic palace. In this part of Gong Ci works, an image of fleshy and lifelike or happy or sad or lonely or lost palace maid was shaped. In the meantime, we also knew about the suffering and happiness experienced by females of different identities and at different statuses in feudalistic harem. Thus, the literary value and the significance in reference lying behind were self-evident. Secondly, speaking of the themes eulogizing and admonishing the Confucian ethics that the monarch and queens possessed or should possess, the moral items of ideal-type monarch and queens and their images required by Confucian ethics at that time were described in Korean Gong Ci works through the way of praise or satire narration. Thirdly, speaking of the theme describing the life in palace, the routine life and customs in palace were described in poems of this theme. From this perspective, it could be said that Korean Gong Ci works not only depicted a vivid and subtle picture of palace life but also further recorded "Sesigi of Palace" which was similar to "Dongguk Sesigi" but also appeared unique.Part Ⅲ, aesthetic expression and artistic achievement of Korean Gong Ci. Literature was closely associated with aesthetics and even Gong Ci literature. Firstly, Korean Gong Ci expressed the beauty of building stereoscopic poetic language in terms of its aesthetic expression. For example, the repeated reiterative locution was used in many poems to enhance the expression of their faggoty grievance, thus the work was endowed with certain sense of rhythm and artistic atmosphere. Besides, the stereoscopic impression and sense of depth was enriched and the contrast and brightness of the theme expressed by the work was enhanced through application of changing space exchange. Secondly, diversified measures were adopted for image expression and representation of Korean Gong Ci literature. For example, the implication behind the natural image was used to set off and express the theme to be described by the author in his mind so that better artistic effect on image expression of Gong Ci work could be obtained, or the rich historical connotations behind humanity and literary quotations were used to deepen the width and depth of the content expressed by the poem. Further, the majesty of palace pavilion and monarch were set off through some immobilized letter symbols so that the whole piece of work was of brilliant atmosphere of palace, etc. Ultimately, the poetic style of Korean Gong Ci always manifested the beauty of being separated from Chinese poem and literary world. The word "separation" was referred to the sentence:"the beautiful women who are off the soul are separated from her body and spirit, and very slim. Hereupon, the beauty of the poet’s isolation could be comprehended" in "Annotation to Tang Poetry" written by Huang Shucan in Qing Dynasty. When Chinese poetic literary world revealed "Zong Song" style in later phase of Goryeo Dynasty and former phase of Korean Dynasty, Gong Ci works possessed the representation style of the poems of Tang Dynasty. When Chinese poetic literary world began opening up poetry of the Tang Dynasty afterwards, Gong Ci literature was manifested as an artistic beauty of "Mixed advocation of Tang and Song Poetry".Fourthly, national character of Korean Gong Ci creation. Some unique styles and features of the nationality manifested in Korean Gong Ci creation were mainly discussed in this chapter. Firstly, speaking of the implicit presentation of Korean Gong Ci works, through in-depth analysis on concrete works of Korean Gong Ci, the author found that many poems were superficially narrative, but indeed expressed the emotions. The sadness, envy or other emotions of the protagonist in the bottom hear were expressed through superficial narration. Further, the characteristics of grievance that the representations of Korean nationality were manifested. Through analysis on these representations of these poems, it could be divided into three different ways, including "there is no love in life but the one available", "speak haltingly or ambiguously and fail to cope with it" and "the whole part that could be speculated from the observed part". In the first way, the whole poem didn’t reveal one word "love" or describe the scenery or narrate story, but what it genuinely expressed was one word "love". It seems that is not related to love superficially. However, the love was expressed through each word and sentence deeply. The second way indicated that the sadness of heroin in poem was not manifested in the work. However, the resentment of a seemingly irrelevant image in the poem through it was used to express the complaint accumulated in the heart of heroin. The third way indicated that the emotion to be expressed was reveled in the place of a key word though it seemed that the whole poem had not content for overall expressing the emotion in Korean Gong Ci. Due to the reveal of a key word, the whole poem turned into expression of emotion from narration. Thus, its poetic purpose met radical changes. Secondly, Korean Gong Ci manifested the characteristic of remarkably strengthened narrative factors, which concretely manifested by two aspects such as:the increase in narrative works manifested by the theme of the work; and that in series of poem form works of continued chapters. As for Gong Ci creation way of continued-chapter poem, it accounted for a large proportion into that of Korean Gong Ci. However, many of poems dealt with narrative content. As for the reason why Korean Gong Ci expressed such powerful narrative factor, the author assumed that there were three reasons such as:inevitable result brought by mature style of Gong Ci; the result under the influence of historical background of Gong Ci creation; the one resulted from the theme chosen by the author.Fifthly, association between Korean and Chinese Gong Ci. Korean Gong Ci was created and developed under the influences of Chinese Gong Ci and mainly the Gong Ci in the Tang Dynasty. Therefore, certain inherent relationship and inner association was manifested between the both. Firstly, through analysis on Korean Gong Ci works, the author supposed that Korean Gong Ci was referred to the content of Chinese Gong Ci in many aspects such as:theme, style, name of people and land, thus manifesting the inherent relationship with Chinese Gong Ci. Speaking of historical stories, Korean Gong Ci writers also showed their emphasis and love for this factor. The common literary quotations in Gong Ci of the Tang Dynasty frequently emerged in Korean Gong Ci. Even the details about the matching of image and stories in Chinese Gong Ci also could be found in Korean Gong Ci. However, Korean Gong Ci writers didn’t simply mechanically imitate the application of these historical stories. They paid attentions to the ingenious and indirect use of these historical stories to create poems, some even obtained better expression effect than that in Gong Ci of Tang Dynasty. Secondly, speaking of description of image of palace women, Korean Gong Ci manifested attentions to and depiction of female image with comprehensively different statuses and identities by contrast of Gong Ci of Tang Dynasty. Even the image of "lesbian" palace women that was not mentioned in Gong Ci of Tang Dynasty was described in Korean Gong Ci. Thus, its literary value and significance was undoubtedly great. In the end, the image of monarch described in Korean Gong Ci was different from that in Gong Ci of China’s Tang Dynasty, which further laid emphasis on attentions to and representation of contents such as:monarch’s seeking pleasure while Korean Gong Ci further laid emphasis on shaping ideal-type monarch image meeting the requirements of Confucian ethics. To sum up, it could be found that Korean Gong Ci turned out to meet brilliant flower that was different from China with self-aesthetic consciousness, national characteristic and its artistic achievements in Korean Peninsula though it was a one of Chinese poetic themes gradually developing and thriving under the influence of Chinese Gong Ci.