장한철 '표해록'의 다성성 연구

Abstract

Pyohaerok recorded experiences of drifting in the sea that Jang Han-cheol had from Jeju Island in 1771. He, along with 28 other people, left Jeju Island to take the state examination, but happened to stay at sea for 12 days facing high seas. Eventually, they ended up drifting to the Ryukyu Islands (Japan) and Cheongsando Island (Jeollanam-do, Korea). They safely returned to Jeju Island. The manuscript, currently stored in the Jeju National Museum, was designated as a Jeju Cultural Property in 2008 because of its historic value. Introduced to scholars in the 1960s, it was translated by Jeong Byeong-wook and published by Bumwoosa, a publishing company, in 1979.

The manuscript reveals diverse literary values. As sea literature, it records those who survived at sea. It is also travel literature offering encounters with civilizations unknown prior to that time; it is diary literature recording everything during the voyage. Lastly, it is documentary literature that records unique experiences at sea.

As such, this article examines the literary values of Pyohaerok, particularly in terms of polyphony. Drifting into uncertain time and space, the drift experience is characteristic of indeterminacy, non-termination, and uncertainty. It emphasizes creation and process rather than existence and outcome, revealing traits of polyphony. This article examines structures of time and space in Phohaerok, intension and extension of its main character ('I'), and simultaneous appearances of behaviors centered on both the past and the present.

It is difficult to differentiate specific time and space within Pyohaerok. The manuscript offers overlapping time and space in the voyage, which departed from Jeju Island on December 25, 1770 and returned on May 8, 1771 via Hosando Island and Cheongsando Island. It describes tensions and hope through which the past and the present intersect. The structure of spatial juxtaposition, lining island to island, reveals dire situations of people drifting at sea.

The discourse of 'I' also reveals polyphony that offers hope to people drifting at sea. Desperate to survive at sea, multiple voices in the manuscript sometimes collide against or converse with one another. The discourse of hope, here, is an example of intention while that of exaggeration and irrationality are examples of extension.

Behaviors centered on both the past and present appear in the manuscript. Behind past-centered behaviors are present-centered behaviors to overcome the existing crisis. Pyohaerok was been newly published recently, attracting renewed scholarly attention. Diverse interpretations, examinations, and comparisons of manuscripts stored in the Jeju National Museum and the National Museum of Korea will offer richer and deeper understandings of Pyohaerok. Future research will certainly help us explore new interpretations of Pyohaerok.