The present study examined the classification of 『Suijeon』 Ilmuns and their genre characteristics. It purposed to prove that the basic characteristic of tales is in their supplementation of authentic history and to maintain that the basic characte...
The present study examined the classification of 『Suijeon』 Ilmuns and their genre characteristics. It purposed to prove that the basic characteristic of tales is in their supplementation of authentic history and to maintain that the basic characteristic of『Suijeon』 Ilmuns is also in its supplementation of authentic history. 『Suijeon』 Ilmuns dealt with surrealistic and unrealistic historical affairs that were not adequate to be included in authentic history.
『Suijeon 』 Ilmuns are largely classified into tales and romances, and tales were sub-divided again into mythological tales, Buddhist tales, historical figure tales and miscellaneous tales. Mythological tales include <Talhae>, a mythological tale about the foundation of a nation, and <Yeongoseo>, a tale explaining the origin of things. Buddhist tales include <Ado>, 「Wongwang」, 「Bogae」 and 「Howon」, which took the form of monks' biographies or Buddhist miracles. Historical figure tales present episodes related to historical figures. 「Seondeokyeowang」, 「J uktongminyeo」, 「Noonghwagu」, etc. belong to this type of tales. Miscellaneous tales include 「Jigwi」, 「Susapseoknam」 and 「Simhwayotap」, which describe various stories in the secular world. In addition, 「Choi, chiwon」 was classified as a romance novel.
The significance of『Suijeon』.Ilmuns in the history of novels, which shows the transitional form in the transformation from semi-historical narrations to romance novels, is that they provide a lead to the understanding of the development process of Korean romance novels. It is also remarkable that the tradition of narrating unrealistic contents originated from 『Suijeon』, a literature supplementary to authentic history. In addition, it was found true that Buddhism influenced the establishment of early romance novels.