Abstract

Against the backdrop of different texts from the collected writings of Kim Siseup (dharma-name Seoljam), this article offers an against-the-grain reading of Kim’s famous collection of strange tales Geumo sinhwa (New Tales of the Golden Turtle). It is hypothesized that Kim’s life as well as his fictional and non-fictional literature can be viewed in the tradition of earlier Chinese and Korean anti-Buddhist Neo-Confucian thinkers such as Cheng Hao, Zhu Xi, or Jeong Dojeon. Through close-reading and by discussing such issues as funerary rites, burial practices, “unhappy” Confucians, and the persuasive power of storytelling, the author aims to show that Geumo sinhwa may be understood as a piece of narrative anti-religious propaganda-fiction meant to dissuade a specific 1460s younger Korean Neo-Confucian readership from turning toward seemingly soothing religion, and as an agenda-driven work designed to thwart a revival of Buddhism on the state level.