Old Literature as Text for Building up Verstand

Abstract

This paper examined that classical literature is a valuable text that can building up Verstand just because it is old. The reasons for this are the following three. First, I wondered if the value of classical literature was coming to an end. Second, some pre-modern literature that does not have a status as classics may have excessive meaning. Third, it is difficult to prepare lectures at universities because the number of works with classical status is small among pre-modern literature. As a response to this, the following discussions were conducted in this paper. Chapter 1 established a justification for discussing the value of classical literature by diagnosing the reality of the decline in the status of classics. Chapter 2 focused on the problem of the value of classical literature. The actual appreciation results of Song Soon(宋純)’s Sijo work “Managing a Decade”(십년을 경영하여〜) were analyzed. The analysis results are as follows. The difference in the literary environment is involved in the temporal distance between the reader and the work. This results in differences in language texture. This difference has a characteristic that acts to make the reader understand the familiar concept formed in the good deed. Chapter 3 examines the meaning of the analysis results in Chapter 2 in Kant’s concept of Verstand. As a result of the review, it was found that the reader’s Verstand was built up in the process of appreciating classical works. The building up of Versatnd was caused by the reader’s efforts to understand the language of ‘Then, There, His/Her’ in order to reduce the distance from the language of work, ‘Now, Here, My’. The degree of Building up depends on the degree of effort. The following topics were demonstrated by the discussion of this paper. Classical literature is valuable as a text that can build up Verstand just because it is old. The reason is that classical literature works were produced in a different literary environment of ‘Then, There, His/Her’, which is far from the era of ‘Now, Here, My’ of the reader. The difference in language texture itself, which is caused by old age, is the foundation for building up Verstand so that the world can be viewed in various ways. As a result, the following three problems were solved. The first is the problem that researchers give excessive meaning to some pre-modern literature. The second is the difficulty of selecting works for instructors to lecture in the educational field. The third is anxiety about selecting. The perception of this value of classical literature will serve as an opportunity for the center of classical literature to shift somewhat to old literature.