A Study Of Ancient Utopia Literature In Korea

Utopia literature can be generated because human beings have, and prefer to pursue a free mind beyond social reality, it promotes people to deny reality, criticize the reality, and reform the reality. Due to the social interaction between human beings’imagination and the social reality, the social significance of Utopia literature lies in promoting the transformation of society from a traditional society to a modern society. Using the literary expression of social ideal, on the one hand the research of utopia literature can find the ideological development of a nation or a group. On the other hand, we can find the shortage of social reality and the reasons, the ways of improvement of social reality.Basing on the study in the early period of the south Korean scholars, this paper integrate the eastern and the western scholars’academic opinion about utopia literature, selected a theme about "social political system" or "country", "polis" in Korean classic utopian literature as an analysis object. According to the dominant philosophy of spirit, the classical Korean utopian literature can be divided into the three categories:founding myth, Taoism and Confucianism utopian literature. By comparing China and the western utopian literature at the same time, to analyze its analogy between each other.The founding myth "Dan-gun myth" is the first classical utopian themes of Korea. By analysis of the "Dan-gun myth", we can find the social production mode of ancient Korean and their life style, the relationship between heaven and man. We can also find that the deity characteristics of the god in Korea is similar with Yin Shang period of China. The complex image of the god and human in "Dan-gun myth" promoted a basic pattern for the divine right of kings in the later dynasties. It strongly contrasts with the Hebrew relationship between the God and human, that is a reflection of the different social basis and national groups based on psychology between the eastern and western. As a nation’s founding myth of Korea, "Dan-gun myth" mentioned a word of "Chao Xian", by the comparing of "Ji Zi Chao Xian", "Chao Xian" in the "Shan HaiJing"(the Classic of Mountains and Rivers), the "Niao tribe "(bird tribe) in "Shi Ji", and the traditional color preference between Korean nationality and Shang dynasty, this paper presume that the classic Korean nationality has some similarities with the Shang dynasty, and the ancient residents on the Korean peninsula, were likely moved from Henan, Hebei, Shandong areas during the 4000-4200 B.P., (around the early Xia dynasty in China), the migration was because of the climate variation,increasing precipitation and the flood, the residents who lived in low-lying area migrated to a higher land which located in the northeast and the Korean peninsula. When Dayu controlled the flood at the beginning of Xia dynasty, the migrants who moved to Korean peninsula from Henan, Hebei, Shandong was called "Niao tribe", Niao tribe became one part of the original inhabitants of the Korean peninsula.Korean Taoism utopia had relatively more literature works, that was because the Taoism was one of the main social thoughts before Li dynasty in Korea, it had widely influenced the history for a long time. At the same time, due to the influence of the mystery novels of China, it created a lot Taoism literature in Korea. The earliest Taoism utopia literature appeared in China, named "Daode Jing". The representative Korea Taoism utopia essays is the"Chenghak Dong Gi ", and derived the Mansu Dong, Busan, Taiping Dong etc. Except these, there were another utopian paradise island type, such as "Eedao Gi". Taoism utopia literatures have some common characteristics, such as its location is not easy to find, they have beautiful scenery, full of water and fertile, suitable for farming, abundant agricultural products, etc. It showed a small-scale, self-sufficient economy in agricultural society.Confucianism in ancient Korea had a long history, especially during the Li dynasty, it was the dominant social thought. The original Confucianism utopia was "Liji-LiYun" which was written by Confucius. The Confucian utopia was "Honggildong biography" and "Heseng biography".As an necessary supplement for Oriental utopian works, this paper introduced some classic western utopia works, including the "Bible"," The City of God", "Utopia", "Republic", "City of the Sun" and "New Atlantis".Through the comparison between "Bible" and the "Dan-gun myth", we can find that they built a pattern for their descendant. The "Bible" became the source of core values of western countries, such as individualism, rules of justice, law concept, protecting of weak groups etc."The City of god" was called as an other Bible, the author proposed two cities on the earth, one is for the God, another is for the secular. It became a source theory for the separation of church and state.In the "Republic", Plato presented his view about justice, when he was old, he put forward the rule by law. Plato and Confucius lived in the same historical period, but their social backgrounds was different. Plato’s Athens, which was in a period of infancy of civilization and commodity economy, merchandise trade requires that people on both sides fair dealing in accordance with the law. Confucius lived in a self-sufficient agricultural economy and society. Different working model had produced different philosophy, different philosophy became a basis thought for their later generations.Thomas More’s "utopia" is the most classic western utopia masterpiece, become a facsimile for the later generations to follow. Its "utopia" social reform covered economic, family, marriage, religion, war, or even working hours system, it had very detailed and informative presentations which were very thorough. "Utopia" and" Honggildong biography" were written in the similar age with considerable differences, these differences reflected the authors’thought. In comparison with each other, the eastern utopias was relatively conservative and closed. The root cause lies in the agricultural economy mode of and life style in the agricultural society.The common features of western utopia literature was based on religion, even as a secular utopia type, this shows that religious influence was enormous in the western countries. Strictly speaking, the Confucianism is not a religion, even though there are strict moral codes, but it does not have the characters of spontaneous, universality and repressive features as a religion should be have. By contrast with western utopian works, we can find that we lacked of something which should be have in a ideal society, that was fairness, justice rules, individualism, and religious beliefs since the beginning of history in Oriental societies. In contrast, in the eastern country, we focused on the rule of man, blood relationship, collective concept. Based on the results of the comparison, this paper puts forward the attitude to build an ideal society, we should keep an open mind, abandon unreasonable elements in the traditional ideas and absorb some western idea to fit for the development a society.