Social Science

The late Chosŏn dynasty
was a period where its traditional lifestyle underwent a transformation due to
social and economic changes. Although significant studies have been conducted thus
far regarding the direction and meaning of these social changes in the period, scholars
have not been able to identify details about how the outcome of the social
changes manifested themselves in people’s everyday life and culture of the time.
Therefore, this book aims to examine how the intellectuals of the time reacted
to social changes and attempted to create a new culture.

The
range of intellectuals in the late Chosŏn period includes a newer group of
intellectuals who represented a collective desire for a new society not only of
nobleman(yangban), but also of
middle class(chungin), noble woman
(female yangban), and the general
public. This was the result of a historical situation in which arts and
knowledge once considered an exclusive property of yangban were being extended to marginalized groups like the chungin and female yangban. These intellectuals in this new group not only revealed
their changes in perspective and their life through their writing, they also were
able to innovate new ideas in their study of literature and the arts.

This book is an examination of a local yangban’s
personal and religious lives. It contains descriptions of how music had
accompanied society’s changes and the yangban’s reaction to these
changes through the records kept by the intellectuals mentioned above. Hence, this
book illustrates the various cultural awakenings of various lower status
groups. It shows the chungin’s interest
in culture at the time and their perception of the world as an emergent object for
literature; it shows changes in women’s lives as reflected in female yangban’s writing; and it shows the various
lifestyles of these new intellectuals who represented ideals of a new,
desirable society for the general public.