Study on the Acceptance Pattern of BaiLiang style in Early Chosŏn

Abstract

This article analyzes the concept of the BaiLiang style, a literary style derived from a literary genre called BaiLiang poem, known as the origin of the heptasyllabic and stanzaic poem, while examining how it was accepted and developed in Korea. The BaiLiang poem is a stanzaic poem collaboratively written by the Wu Emperor of the Han Dynasty and his twenty-five subjects. After that, poets began to produce heptasyllabic poems, leading to the formation of the genre, BaiLiang style. It stands to reason that not only Chinese authors but also Korean literati wrote and enjoyed the BaiLiang style. Since Choi Chi-won composed the <智證和尙碑銘>, several Korean writers during the Koryŏ and Chosŏn Dynasties produced poems with the BaiLiang style. In China, the stanzaic poems were continuously produced collaboratively by Emperors and their subjects from the time of the Wu Emperor's reign to the Qing dynasty. On the contrary, the BaiLiang style by individual poets was more significant in Korean literature.