Abstract

Does the Sinitic literati tradition operate with real metaphor, or only with metonymy? Does Confucianism lack transcendence in the sense of (a set of) ideas that allow a distancing of self from world and society, beyond politically motivated reclusion, or is it entirely bound to the normative power of the factual? As a contribution to tackling these conjoined questions, this article discusses the use of metaphor in two long songs (gasa) by 16th century Korean literati who certainly self-identified as Confucians: Song Sun’s “Myeonangjeongga” and Jeong Cheol’s “Gwandong byeolgok.” Through a study of figurative language in these two works, it is shown that true metaphoricity does take place, but more conspicuously and effectively at the level of extended metaphor than on the level of individual similes; and that a major effect of this metaphoricity is the creation of a sense of transcendence. By emphasizing the important place of the expression of transcendence as a liberating force in both poems, the paper makes an implicit argument concerning the religious dimension of Confucianism that an immanence-transcendence distinction, the code of religious language, is at work in Confucian texts, serving Confucian aims.