The Nature of “Kal-yŏk Chap-yŏng” and its Significance : Focusing on the writing principle and method of composition
Authors:   The Association of DaeDong-Hanmun, Jang Jin-Youp 
Published: January 2024

“Kal-yŏk Chap-yŏng (葛驛雜詠)” is a condensed piece of Sam-yŏn Kim Ch’anghŭp’s lifelong poetic practice, and can be seen as a representative work of Sam-yŏn’s literature and of the changes in Korean classical Chinese poetry in the 18th century. This study discusses the writing principle of the work and the method of composition in order to identify the core nature of “Kal-yŏk Chap-yŏng.” “Kal-yŏk Chap-yŏng” embraces various poetic materials, but a specific writing principle runs through it. In this article, I will refer to it as “investigation of things (格物窮理)” or “attaining knowledge through investigation of things (格物致知).” The writing principal of “Kal-yŏk Chap-yŏng,” that is, “attaining knowledge through investigation of things,” as a literary deed is fundamentally based on a concept from Neo- Confucianism, but has a concrete implication in relation to Kim Ch’anghŭp’s theory on literature which is represented as “Ch’ŏn-ki (天機, secret of nature)” theory. In other words, this expression refers to “the act of discovering the heavenly principles embodied in Ch’ŏn-ki” or “the act of discovering the reasoning of the world by observing things and thinking about their rightness and wrongness, and their truth and false.” In accordance with this writing principle, the works of “Kal-yŏk Chap-yŏng” can be divided into two categories: the expression of “the process or result of inquiry into the object of perception” and the illustration of “the subject of perception” as the premise that makes such an inquiry possible. The former is a direct result of the “investigation of things,” and the latter presents a “true poetic subject” who can practice the “investigation of things,” embodying the Ch’ŏn-ki of the subject.
In the following sections, I examine the aspects of creation of these works within each type. First, the poems that correspond to the embodiment of the perceiving subject were created in two ways. One is a poem that describes the image of the true self, manifested in a way that emphasizes the idealized image of the self in harmony and unity. The other is retrospection and reflection through the direct utterance of the poetic self. A retrospective look at life is part of establishing a true self, and a reflective attitude seeks the truthfulness of the perceiving subject. This materialization of the perceiving subject is a way of revealing the subject’s Ch’ŏn-ki, which adds credibility and weight to the utterance in “Kal-yŏk Chap-yŏng.” Next, I examine the types of works that show the process and results of perception or “investigation of things.” These works can be divided into three types: poems that explore reason through the observation of familiar objects, poems that discuss human history and the principles of the operation of the heavens and earth, and poems that criticize and denounce various problems in human affairs. The second type is closely associated with the world view of Yi (易) based on Sao Yong’s Image-numerology (象數學), and it is noteworthy that the barbarians’ domination of China was understood in terms of a “fateful” view of human history.
Kim Ch’anghŭp’s entire poetic world can be viewed as the aesthetic practice of his own ideas, philosophy, and poetic theory, and “Kal-yŏk Chap-yŏng” is the work in which he most actively and successfully combines his theory and practice. This is another important basis for placing Kal-yŏk Chap-yŏng” at the pinnacle of Sam-yŏn Kim Ch’anghŭp’s poetics.