Gaje ong Lee Gok's Acce ptance Patte rns of The Mencius in His Prose

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate Gajeong Lee Gok's acceptance patterns of The Mencius in his prose works. He quoted or altered phrases from The Mencius in various ways in many of his works, conveying the topic of his text clearly. He quoted phrases from The Mencius or added a new meaning to a phrase from the book in his poems, as well, to present his thoughts or topics effectively. Since the poem format allowed him to express his idea in short lines with a limited number of given phrases, he had to quote only essential meanings or shorten phrases from The Mencius in his poems. In his prose works, however, he faced no such limitations and enjoyed much more various forms of acceptance and alteration. The study shed light on the following aspects of his acceptance patterns of The Mencius : First, he urged the kings to reflect on their wrong perceptions of politics and asked the rulers to establish the rig ht social relations, quoting phrases from the scriptures. Making a distinction between the rule of right and the rule of might, he quoted phrases from The Mencius in mature ways. Secondly, his acceptance of vocabulary and speeches from the book usually happened in his works to send off a government official leaving for his new post or a man going on a journey. In his Wonsuhan, which is his essay-style work about the causes of droug hts, he developed his point that the temporary relief measures of the policies were useless by accepting Mencius' unique vocabulary and speech. Finally, he accepted Mencius' sentence and paragraph distinction and development process by taking his development methods in many of his works and altering them. He strengthened his topics and points by accepting the catechetical method, one of the major characteristics of The Mencius, and the quotation methods of the Odes and the Histories.