The lives of popular literature in words and images: a Buddhist romance from early-modern Korea, Kuunmong

Keywords: Kuunmong
word and image
Nine Cloud Dream
folding screens
nineteenth century
calligraphy
Kim Manjung
Buddhist romance
early modern
animal symbolism
reception study
Korea
popularization
canonization
narrative painting
popular novels
sutra illustrations
eighteenth century
garden culture
intermedial relations

This research is a study of the reception of a popular narrative composed in seventeenth-century Korea. The novel Kuunmong 九雲夢, written in Chinese, or 구운몽, written in Korean, was produced in 1687-88 by Kim Manjung 金萬重 (1637 - 1692). The presence of two different language editions of Kuunmong is not exceptional. It was a common practice in the composition of Korean popular novels before the twentieth century when the Korean readership was divided into two, often discrete but not necessarily exclusive, groups based on their ability to read either the Chinese or the Korean text. The three Chinese characters as well as Korean in the title mean nine, cloud, and dream. The story has been rewritten, painted, embroidered on silk, and illustrated, while it has appeared in fifteen languages.
The main question of the thesis is why and how certain forms and contents of the Kuunmong story have been adopted in the context of visual reception of the novel. The main sources for the investigation are thirty-six Kuunmong folding screens (Appendix 1) made in Korea mostly before the twentieth century. Although the main analysis focuses on the visual reception of Kuunmong, the textual reception of the novel is discussed in relation to episodes that would complement the analysis of the visual reception. The textual reception of Kuunmong in the nineteenth century accompanied the diminishment of religious episodes and influenced the scene arrangements on the Kuunmong screens.
Kim Manjung’s original manuscript did not survive. All existing editions are anonymous re-compositions of the novel that demonstrate textual receptions of the story. For the purpose of linking text to visual image, seven significant texts will be evaluated: the oldest Korean edition at the Kyujanggak Royal Library, the most influential Chinese edition (1725) in the Chŏng Pyŏngsŏl private collection, the best lending library edition in the Korean language preserved at Ewha University (1907), and the oldest English translation (1922) by James Scarth Gale, as well as the 1803 Chinese edition and two nineteenth-century popularised Korean versions from Seoul and Chŏnju.
Chapter One (Kuunmong in context) addresses the general literary and social context where Kuunmong was composed and enjoyed in late Chosŏn. Chapter Two (Textual reception of Kuunmong) considers the textual reception of the novel and then goes on to evaluate the encounter scene at the beginning of the Kuunmong story and the poetry featured in three rendezvous scenes. The shift in the theme of the narrative is also discussed with popularised editions. Chapter Three (Popular illustrated literature) discusses the popular illustrated literature that influenced the visual narrative of Kuunmong before the thesis turns to the main concern, which is the visual reception of Kuunmong.
Chapter Four (Visual reception – Kuunmong folding screens) examines and analyses the visual reception of the novel by investigating thirty-six Kuunmong folding screens made in Korea in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries. A general explanation of folding-screen culture in Korea sets the context for a close reading of an image of the first encounter scene between the hero and the heroines. A close comparison of text with image reveals media differences in forming the narrative. Additionally, influences from contemporaneous book illustrations appear in the composition of domestic scenes, in particular, garden culture scenes.
Moving on from a consideration of composition to a consideration of content, Chapter Four also discusses Kuunmong folding screens as polychrome narrative paintings, because Kuunmong screens share symbolic commonalities with other, similar polychrome folding screens. Hunting and depictions of contests of the arts offer examples of symbolic messages that convey festive emotions. Likewise, religious emotions in the scene of awakening are discussed in relation to similar symbolic imagery found in the tradition of Buddhist art. Animal-themed elements in the depiction of animals associated with the South Sea Prince scenes are also visualised in a complex dynamic of narrative and symbolism.
Finally, Chapter Five (Intermedial considerations in the visual reception of Kuunmong) focuses on ways in which intermedial relations feature in the visual reception of Kuunmong. Intermedial relations refer to the relations the literary text Kuunmong makes with the visual medium of screens. Whereas text and visual media were closely linked, they diverged as popularisation proceeded. The Kuunmong imagery was produced for the royal household but later spread outside of the palace. The popularisation of Kuunmong folding screens was often accompanied by changes in the style and addition of elements of the composition, such as calligraphy. Popularised versions of Kuunmong screens tend to lose details in general, while the background of the story is domesticated. Calligraphy is examined as one example of intermedial relations that is made between the novel and the screen.