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Traduction Année : 2022

The Master from Mountains and Fields.

Isabelle Sancho

Résumé

The Master from Mountains and Fields is a fully annotated translation of the prose texts from the “collected works” of Sŏ Kyŏngdŏk (1489-1546), an influential Confucian scholar from the early Chosŏn period (1392-1910). A native of Songdo (also known as Kaesŏng) in present-day North Korea, Sŏ has loomed large in the Korean cultural imagination and appeared as an exceptional sage and popular hero in numerous tales, dramas and films, yet his writings are little known outside the academic milieu. Also called Master Hwadam, Sŏ embodied an archetype of the secluded scholar who remains hidden in “mountains and forests” to devote himself to his studies. Held in esteem in both South and North Korea today (a notable exception in contemporary studies on Chosŏn Neo-Confucianism), Sŏ and his ideas about the Vital Energy are said to have influenced the great Korean Neo-Confucian debates of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries surrounding the psychophysiological origins of morality, as well as various non-orthodox intellectual trends in late Chosŏn. His thought is in fact fundamentaly rooted in the cosmology based on the exegesis of the Book of Changes and follows the teachings of various early Chinese Neo-Confucian thinkers, presenting a vivid example of the eclectic nature of ideas and intellectual trends coexisting within what is generically call Neo-Confucianism out of convenience. This volume presents the first English translation of all prose writings attributed to Sŏ and most of the peritexts from his posthumously published collection Hwadam chip. The work reflects the importance of literary compilations (munjip) in the intellectual history of Chosŏn and the complex process of the making of Confucian masters in Korea. Sŏ Kyŏngdŏk’s prose works are concise and diverse in nature, offering a glimpse at an author who thwarts stereotyping, alongside an introduction and annotations to provide further context. The lengthy endnotes that accompany each text make this a useful handbook for anybody interested in Chosŏn Korea and Confucianism, from students in East Asian and Korean studies to specialists in literary Chinese (hanmun) or East Asian intellectual history.
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Dates et versions

hal-03929836 , version 1 (09-01-2023)

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  • HAL Id : hal-03929836 , version 1

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Isabelle Sancho. The Master from Mountains and Fields.: Prose Writings of Hwadam, Sŏ Kyŏngdŏk.. 2022. ⟨hal-03929836⟩
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