• Sijohaknonchong
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• v.20
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• pp.113-139
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• 2004

This article intends to illuminate how the men. leading agents in Saseol-sijo - musical performers. writers of lyrics, patrons. composers. compilers of Sijo anthologies, audience. etc. - In the Late Choson period, viewed or recognized women and how their understanding of women was reflected in the texts. Working with texts with the theme of 'Love,' this article starts with categorizing two types of love: the first type, 'lovelorn heart' focusing on unilateral pining for a single lover who is absent now and the second type. 'physical love' concentrating on bilateral sexual intercourse. In addition to the types of love, the gender of poetic speakers, distinct from real poets is vital to characterize the discourse of love. According to these two factors. texts in question fall into four groups: texts that a female speaker displays her lovelorn heart('Type 1'), those where she speaks about her sexual experiences('Type 2'), those where a male speaker sings his lovelorn heart('Type 3'), and those where he describes his sexual experiences('Type 4'). Of these. 'Type 2' and 'Type 3' are key to understanding of the men's view of women. With respect to the configuration of the theme of 'Love,' it should be noted that in Korean literary history, the nim or a 'sweetheart' had signified the totality of value or a perfect entity which makes one's life meaningful and that 'Type 1,' the pattern that a female subject expresses her love toward male min, had constituted a traditional way to convey the theme of 'Love.' In terms of this connotation of min. a remarkable increase of 'Type 3' implying the increase of male speakers, reveals the extent to which women, the male speakers' min, accomplished their entry into a 'sacred area' -the position of mm-in which only men had occupied; females are focused and centralized. This article considers this phenomenon as an exhibition of the upgrade of women's significance and weight in the Late Choson society and as an index of 'modernity.' Meanwhile, given that most of the Saseol-sijo poets are men, the emergence of the 'Type 2' texts in which male poets have female speakers disclose their sexual experiences, demonstrates a representative example that women are degraded to be a means of men's pleasure; for this situation gives men more pleasure than when male speakers reveal their sexual experiences. Not only 'Type 2,' but texts group which basically belongs to 'Type I' and conveys the theme of 'Loyalty' through the female voice by substituting rulers-subjects relation for men-women relation, also falls under the same case. For men employ female voice as a poetic device in order to stress the theme of 'Loyalty' This article regards this phenomenon as an index of 'pre-modernity,' in the sense that in a pre-modem society, specifically in Early Choson, male-oriented value system dominates, thereby alienating women. As it is well known, the Late Choson is marked by a transitional period from a pre-modem society to a modem society. Therefore the ambivalence of the premodern and the modem can be found mixed in every segment of the society. The dual aspects of the masculine view of women in Saseol-sijo constitutes one example. The significance of the Saseol-sijo in Korean literary history can be found in this phenomenon.