Joseon Tales

Korean Literature

Course 1 · Chapter 5 · Joseon Fiction and Performance

The best-known stories of Joseon exist in two forms at once: as novels on the page and as songs performed aloud. The sources say little about who wrote the first and a good deal, though hedged, about who sang and heard the second. This chapter looks at three famous tales, at pansori, and at how much of their history is known.

How this chapter was checked The facts come from Wikipedia's articles on The Tale of Hong Gildong (lead, plot, debates, legacy and notes), Chunhyangjeon (the lead and what the article says of the story's themes and dating), Pansori (lead, name, description, history, repertoire and UNESCO sections) and Kim Man-jung (lead, life and work, infobox). I read no primary text and no translation. The Chunhyangjeon article carries a 2023 tag saying it may need rewriting, and the Hong Gildong article is flagged as needing expansion. Where the articles hedge or disagree, I say so. The sentences marked as my reading are mine and unverified.

Hong Gildong

The article calls Hong Gildong jeon, often translated The Biography of Hong Gildong, "an iconic piece of Korean literature and culture". In outline, the hero is an illegitimate son of a nobleman with supernatural abilities, who steals from corrupt aristocrats. The article divides the plot in three parts:

Gildong grows up in the Hong family home, denied full status as a second-class son, and leaves after stopping an assassination attempt.
He leads an outlaw band, the Hwalbindang, robbing the wealthy until he is forced into exile.
He overthrows the king of Yul, becomes king himself and rules benevolently.

It is written in Hangul, though the article also mentions a Hanja text and a Middle Korean opening sentence. It says the critic Charles Montgomery called Gildong "the first truly 'Korean' main character", and that his name is used in Korea much as "John Doe" is in English.

Who wrote it, and when? The traditional author is the Joseon statesman Heo Gyun (1569 to 1618), on the strength of writings by his former student Yi Sik. The article says recent scholarship has questioned this: Professor Lee Yoon-suk argues it cannot be Heo Gyun's because it mentions later figures and institutions, and proposes Hwang Il Ho; Minsoo Kang argues the attribution rests on flawed scholarship, suggests an anonymous writer of secondary or commoner status, and dates the extant version to about the mid-nineteenth century or not long before. The article describes the period as the sixteenth or seventeenth century. It says "The original author of Hong Gildong remains an open question" and "Scholars are uncertain which, if any, is the original manuscript". It also mentions a dispute over whether this was the first novel written only in Hangul, but that section is empty, so the article does not settle the claim.

Chunhyangjeon

The Chunhyangjeon article calls it "one of the best known love stories and folk tales of Korea". It is based on the pansori Chunhyangga, "the most famous of the five surviving pansori tales". The author is unknown and the present form "took shape between 1694 and 1834". The plot, per the article:

Yi Mongryong, a magistrate's son, falls for Chunhyang, a gisaeng's daughter, and they marry.
He leaves to follow his father to the capital. Chunhyang waits faithfully.
The new magistrate, Byeon Hakdo, orders her to serve him as a gisaeng. She refuses and is imprisoned.
Mongryong passes the state examination, becomes a secret royal inspector and returns in disguise. He exposes Byeon at a birthday banquet and the lovers are reunited.

The article names two themes: class, since the story crosses social barriers, with the suggestion that common readers may have enjoyed seeing a powerful official punished; and fidelity, Chunhyang keeping her integrity under pressure, which it links to traditional Korean moral values. It does not describe individual versions, and says its text from "Main characters" onward is translated from Korean Wikipedia.

The Cloud Dream of the Nine

The Kim Man-jung article gives him as a Korean novelist, politician and Neo-Confucian scholar (1637 to 1692), from the yangban class, who passed the state civil service exam and rose to academic counsellor and minister under King Sukjong. He was exiled twice because of political factionalism. It names two novels: Record of Lady Sa's Southward Journey, described as a satirical take on the politics of his day and a rebuke of the king, and The Cloud Dream of the Nine, "one of the most prominent novels of traditional Korea", with "a highly Buddhist overtone", centred on the "travails of the hero". "It is said that Kim wrote" it during his second exile, a hedge on the timing. The article gives no plot summary, no Korean titles for either work and nothing on the language of the original, so I make no claim on whether it was first written in Chinese or Korean.

Pansori

The Pansori article describes it as "musical storytelling performed by a singer and a drummer". The drummer is the gosu, who plays a buk drum and drives the emotional rhythm; the article calls the singer changja.

Point	What the article says
Repertoire	12 original madang (song cycles) established in the eighteenth century; five still performed: Chunhyangga, Simcheongga, Heungbuga, Sugungga, Jeokbyeokga
Length	A full madang can take up to ten hours, so performers often present highlights
Origin	"thought to have originated in the late 17th century"; "unclear where" on the peninsula, though the Honam region became the main site of its development
Performers	Earliest were most likely shamans and street performers
Audience	Lower-class people at first; the upper classes are believed to have begun attending from the mid-eighteenth century, and the elite embraced it in the nineteenth century, which the article calls its golden age
Heritage	National Intangible Cultural Heritage No. 5 since 1964; registered by UNESCO on 7 November 2003

The article's text has no inline "citation needed" tags, but several sections are weakly sourced or hard to follow, including the shaman-songs theory, so I treat those as less certain. Chapter 1's article agreed on the count (five surviving texts from twelve madang).

What this says about readers and listeners

Chapter 3 asked who used Hangul and left the question open. These articles give a partial answer for stories, not for the script: a Hangul novel such as Hong Gildong is credited, by its modern critics, with a commoner-adjacent or anonymous author (one scholar's suggestion), while pansori reached lower-class audiences first and the elite later. My reading, not a claim in the sources: written fiction and sung fiction overlapped (Chunhyangga is both a pansori and, as Chunhyangjeon, a tale), so one story can have several authors and several dates, which is why the sources cannot give one.

Gaps in what I read I read no primary text and no translation, and I give no quotation from any of these works. The Kim Man-jung article does not cover the language of The Cloud Dream of the Nine, its plot or the Korean titles; I read nothing on Kumo sinhwa beyond the one line in Chapter 1, nor on Simcheongga, Heungbuga, Sugungga or Jeokbyeokga beyond their names, nor on the Joseon book trade, lending libraries or women readers. The Chunhyangjeon article names no specific film. The outline's list included Gu-unmong; the article I read uses The Cloud Dream of the Nine and I use that.

Exercises

Exercise 1

Summarise Hong Gildong in three parts, then give the traditional author and two arguments against that attribution. What does the article say about its date?

→ Solution

Exercise 2

Tell the plot of Chunhyangjeon in four steps, name its two themes, and explain the link between the tale and the pansori Chunhyangga. What does the article say about its author and date?

→ Solution

Exercise 3

Describe pansori: performers, instruments, repertoire, origin, audiences and heritage status. Name two points where the article hedges.

→ Solution

Quick Reference

Hong Gildong: illegitimate son turned outlaw then king; traditionally Heo Gyun (1569 to 1618); authorship and date open
Chunhyangjeon: based on the pansori Chunhyangga; present form between 1694 and 1834; class and fidelity
Kim Manjung: 1637 to 1692; The Cloud Dream of the Nine and Record of Lady Sa's Southward Journey
Pansori: singer (changja) and drummer (gosu); 12 madang, five performed; late 17th-century origin ("thought to"); UNESCO 2003
Check: authorship, dates and the language of each original

Next chapter: Enlightenment, Colonial Rule and Modern Poetry.