Naslov
Language for Friendship: Brush-talks and Letters between Hong Taeyong and Han Literati

Autori
Gubić, Ivana

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Sažeci sa skupova, neobjavljeni rad, znanstveni

Skup
31st biennial AKSE Conference

Mjesto i datum
Kopenhagen, Danska, 22.06.2023. - 25.06.2023

Vrsta sudjelovanja
Predavanje

Vrsta recenzije
Međunarodna recenzija

Ključne riječi
Hong Taeyong ; Hangzhou literati ; letters ; friendship

Sažetak
Hong Taeyong, an 18th century Chosŏn literatus, travelled to Qing as a Chosŏn embassy member in an unofficial capacity. According to his travel records, the goal of his journey was to seek "like-minded" people, which he hoped to find in Han literati. His search proved successful as he indeed made acquaintance with and subsequently befriended three Hangzhou literati sojourning in Beijing at the time of his visit. The brush-talks that the four men engaged in during their several meetings in Beijing, as well as the letters that Hong exchanged with the literati upon his return to Chosŏn, became famed examples of a friendship that spanned borders, linguistic differences and competing worldviews, all while burdened with significant spatial, temporal and logistic challenges. What enabled such friendship in the first place, was the shared claim to Zhonghua (中 華) tradition, represented foremost through proficiency in Literary Sinitic and associated knowledge, by all of its participants. The goal of this presentation is to go beyond the "success story" that Hong's friendship with the Hangzhou literati is often viewed as in scholarship — above all proof that Chosŏn intellectuals were on par with their Han counterparts, and examine the following questions instead: How did Hong set this friendship in motion to begin with, considering his outsider status in Qing, as well as limitations associated with brush- talking itself? And, after zhiji (知己, "one who knows me") proclamations were finally made, how did conditions for and obligations of a friendship, as understood in the shared Zhonghua tradition, manifest themselves once this friendship acquired a purely epistolary form, now marked by hindsight and deliberation, but also scarceness of exchanged letters? Considering these questions could highlight those universalities shared by Qing and Chosŏn literati that remain unequivocal, even in a highly condensed space for expression.

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

Znanstvena područja
Filologija, Povijest

POVEZANOST RADA