연작가사 《승가》의 원형과 구조적 특징

Abstract

The purpose of the present essay lies in shedding new light on the structural characteristics and significance of the kasa sequence The Song of a Buddhist Nun (Sungga). As the first step in achieving this goal. the various existing versions of the sequence and the process of their transmission are examined in order to reconstruct the archetypal form of The Song of a Buddhist Nun. Consequently, this work is found originally to have been a kasa sequence of six poems "interchanged" between two protagonists, a male Confucian aristocrat (yangban) and a Buddhist nun. Although its basic theme, the love between the male aristocrat and the Buddhist nun, characterizes The Song of a Buddhist Nun as a cycle of love poems, this sequence assumes additional significance from its in-depth treatment of the contemporary social problem of class differences. Indeed. this work transcends the private level of love between a man and a woman and moves to the social level of relationships among the different classes, leading to debates and conflicts between the two protagonists. Within the context of the strictly hierarchical structure of Korean society under the Chosen Dynasty, the Buddhist nun's questions regarding the issue of social class take on the characteristics of objection and resistance to contemporary reality. The Song of a Buddhist Nun is valuable and significant also for its effective portrayal of such social characteristics through the poetic form of the sequence.