Disadvantages of the Korean classical novel "The Legend of Chunhyang"

Shortcomings of the Korean classical novel "The Legend of Chunhyang"

"The Legend of Chunhyang" is one of the best classical masterpieces in North Korea. It is a collective creation of the people based on folklore. It was created around It was not until the eighteenth century that it was processed and compiled into a book. Through the twists and turns of the love story between Chunxiang, the daughter of a geisha, and Li Menglong, the son of Hanlin, the novel praises the innocent love between young men and women, and shows their brave spirit of not being afraid of adultery and daring to break through the feudal hierarchy and the concept of family status; At the same time, it also exposed the corruption and cruelty of the bureaucratic aristocracy, and had a very clear anti-feudal fighting spirit. The novel has achieved considerable success.

Although "The Legend of Chunxiang" is a masterpiece, there are still some shortcomings in this masterpiece from thought to art.

"The Legend of Chunxiang" appeared at the end of feudal society. Although it has an obvious progressive tendency in ideological content, it is still limited by the times. There is no way to escape the barriers of feudal thought. This is mainly reflected in its beautification of the feudal society of the Li Dynasty. It describes the Sujong Dynasty as a "peaceful and prosperous age" where "the country is peaceful and the people are safe". In "Farmer's Song" there are also verses such as "The world is peaceful and the saintly king is virtuous", which makes the meaning of praising virtue more obvious. This limitation of the work is due to the fact that although the author opposed the tyrannical feudal bureaucracy, he did not oppose the feudal system itself. The author pins his good hope of eliminating the dark phenomenon on the sageness of the monarch and the virtuousness of the generals. Moreover, the final union of the hero and heroine was achieved with the help of the king's power. In addition, the work also promotes religious concepts such as "good will be rewarded with good and evil will be punished with evil" and "after all hardships, happiness will come". The protagonist Chunxiang also shows strong feudal concepts and superstitious colors. All of these weaken the positive significance of the work to a certain extent.

The main artistic shortcoming of "The Legend of Chunxiang" is that it is divorced from character creation and over-exaggerated plot development. For example, the book describes several washerwomen who have nothing to do with the progress of the plot as being the same as the incarnations of the Eight Fairies in "Nine Clouds Dream", and regrets that there is no "Yang Shaoyou" to marry them. This description is unnecessary. It's obviously superfluous. Unfortunately this situation is not unique. In addition, in order to cater to the interests of the listeners and enhance the performance of the story, "The Legend of Chunxiang" quotes many Chinese poems and allusions, which is determined by the characteristics of the rap script. But as a novel, too many verses and allusions are quoted, which is determined by the characteristics of the rap script. However, as a novel, too many quotations of poems and allusions seem to be piled up, and sometimes even feel far-fetched, which affects the authenticity of the characters in the work.

Of course, we cannot find fault with an eighteenth-century classical work. The shortcomings in the work are outweighed by the shortcomings of the entire work. The reason why "The Legend of Chunxiang" is still a household name in North Korea today and is well known to women and children also illustrates this point.