江․山의 超越的 性格과 文學的 大衆性

Abstract

This study aims at searching the transcendence and literary popularity of rivers and mountains in the Korean literary works. Popularity has a long tradition and it gained acceptance in the old novel of Chosun Dynasy and became a literary convention. In the oriental narrative literature, rivers and mountains related to the transcendence or transcendental existence mean that they have a kind of literary convention and the function of literary code at the same time. We can recognize the function of literary code more clearly in the old novels. Rivers and mountains were not the general places but the historical places that the transcendental existence appeared. Therefore, their historical and social meaning have a part in readers’ interpretation. For example, the numinous mountain appeared when the characters prayed for giving birth to a boy, even though the general mountain was enough to have a function. Mostly, the hero went through various hardships were killed at the mountains that they had a loyal retainers’ soul. The transcendental existence of Korean old novels appeared in the most famous rivers and mountains. It has a literary popularity on the point of that the well-known rivers and mountains gave birth to the transcendental existence repeatedly.