Myeongyeopjihae

Myeongyeopjihae (蓂葉志諧) is a collection of folk tales compiled by King Sukjong of Joseon in 1678 by Hong Man-jong.¹ While Hong was living in seclusion near Mapo and Seogang because of illness,² he recorded the casual conversations of the villagers he heard, and its content consists mainly of satirical, didactic, and admonitory writing.³ It continues the tradition of joke collections (笑话集) that became established from the 15th century, and it is a "pure joke collection" that gathers only humorous stories.⁴ Each story has a four-character title, and 51 of the more than 80 stories have commentary attached, so it is regarded as a joke collection with an orderly structure.²

내용

The collection includes both folk-tale-like jokes, such as "Buljang Songgyeong" (夫妻訟鏡, "The Husband and Wife Dispute Over a Mirror"), in which a husband and wife and the father-in-law's magistrate cause a commotion by failing to recognize a mirror, and anecdotal jokes, such as "Taesu Buail" (墮水赴衙, "Falling into the Water and Going to the Office"), in which people fail to recognize the famous literary figure Hwang Sin (黃愼, 1560–1619) and compose poems with him in front of them. The anecdotal jokes are somewhat more numerous than the folk-tale-like ones, which shows something of the class characteristics of the recorder, Hong Mun-jong. In addition, Hong Man-jong's commentaries include not only moral and ethical perspectives but also humorous evaluations of the elements that provoke laughter, which shows that he tried to appreciate jokes as jokes.²

각주

Footnotes

1. 《글로벌 세계대백과사전》, 〈언어I·한국문학·논술 - 고려-조선의 문학 - 조선 후기 문학 - 한문학과 실학파 - 의유당 김씨 - 명엽지해〉 ↩

2. Ryu Jeong-wol (July 8, 2013). "명엽지해". 《한국민속문학사전》. National Folk Museum of Korea. Retrieved December 29, 2015. ↩ ↩² ↩³

3. "조선 성 풍속사 <제31화> - 고부(姑婦)갈등의 원인(?)". 일요서울. September 7, 2007. Retrieved November 29, 2009. ↩

4. Ryu Jeong-wol (2001). "『 명엽지해 』 평가에 대한 고찰 - 소화에서 시대 읽기 -". 《한국고전연구》 7: 181~182. ↩