Abstract

The present study examined the relation between enlightenment discourses and Sino-Korean literature during the modern enlightenment period. In the early 20th century, enlightenment intellects produced enlightenment discourses maintaining that the crisis of Chosun should be understood based on the world ruled by the logic of power, namely, the survival of the fittest and that modernization should be achieved to the level of world powers. As the enlightenment discourses were aware that Sino-Korean literature containing the medieval order should be cleared off in the urgent task of modernization, they steadily attempted the otherization of Sino-Korean literature along with attacking old civilization. Representative examples of such discourses are Korean Books in Daehan Maeil Sinbo, Kim Gap‐sun’s Corrupted Scholars, and Hwang Hee‐seong’s To Dr. Gyu‐hyeong Yeo. On the other hand, the producers of such enlightenment discourses containing the logic of otherizing Sino-Korean literature were in fact those who had learned the Sino-Korean literature of old civilization. While they insisted on decisive clearing off, they had to have a complicated feeling about Sino- Korean literature. In Love Comes from Habit and Stubbornness from Love, Lee Gi confessed that he had a subtle attachment to scholarly learning, and furthermore, in The Pleasure of Letters Yoon Hyo‐jeong criticized the climate of regarding scholarship as an obstacle and maintained that there was something obtainable from it. Enlightenment discourses in this period usually used Korean‐Chinese style, aiming at modern citizens, but in some special cases enlightenment discourses were carried in scientific sentences. Some examples are the learned sentences written by Byeon Yeong‐man and Yoo Gil‐jun, which attempted to include the intellects of old civilization in the category of modern citizens as the targets of enlightenment. They were different from enlightenment discourses that tried to otherize and exclude old civilization and Sino-Korean literature. In addition, there were people like Lee Sang‐ryong and Yoo In‐sik who attempted to enlighten learned intellects around directly. Enlightenment programs by Lee Sang‐ryong, etc. were faced with extremely violent resistance. It was because they looked down on Confucian scholars, who were proud of themselves as a leading class, as the subjects of enlightenment education. After all, the direction was set in a way of clearing off scholarship as a language of old civilization and the modern Korean style was settled as a language of new civilization. This is regarded as the general frame of the modern enlightenment period, but when we inquire deeper into the relation between enlightenment discourses and Sino-Korean literature, we can find examples that cannot be explained simply by dichotomous reasoning like ‘Sino-Korean literature of old civilization/Korean style of new civilization.’