At the same time, looking at the genre of fantasy stories, we can see the presence of the authors and their excellent works in both the period and the history of Vietnamese - Korean lite
Trang 1VIETNAM ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES
INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL SCIENCES
KIM KIHYUN
CHARACTERS IN THE MEDIEVAL FANTASY STORIES
OF VIETNAM AND SOUTH KOREA WITH A
COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE
INFORMATION OF DOCTORAL THESIS
OF LITERATURE STUDIES
HA NOI - 2019
Trang 2The Study is completed at:
Faculty of Literature, Institute of Social Sciences, under Vietnam Academy
of Social Sciences
Full name of instructors: 1) Assoc., Prof., Ph.D Le Van Tan
2) Assoc., Prof., Ph.D Vu Thanh
Examiner 1: Prof., Ph.D Tran Dinh Su
Examiner 2: Assoc., Prof., Ph.D Truong Dang Dung
Examiner 3: Assoc., Prof., Ph.D Hoang Minh Luong
The Thesis shall be defended against the Academic Doctoral Defense Committee at the Academy of Social Sciences, No 477 Nguyen Trai, Thanh Xuan, Hanoi
At ……… hour ……… minute, …… …… , … 2019
The thesis can be found at the libraries of:
- Academy of Social Sciences,
- National Library of Vietnam, Hanoi
Trang 3INTRODUCTION
1 The urgency of the subject
1.1 It can be affirmed that the formation and development as well as the regression of
any literature study in the world alway have a close connection with its genres Thinking about the genre has long become a familiar approach of creators as well as researchers, theorists and literary critics The history of medieval literature of Vietnam and Korea (the Korean concept used by us here covers all of the old Korean peninsula, when there is no separation between two regions as today) is not outside of that rule For that reason, our
topic of Vietnam Literature Thesis: “Characters in the medieval fantasy stories of Vietnam
issues, the study of characters
1.2 In the picture of medieval literature of Vietnam and Korea, fantasy stories play
an important role with an abudant of complexities but also consist of many ideological contents as well as unique values and artistic experiences In the history of medieval literature of both countries, the genre of fantasy stories emerged very early in various historical, divine and genealogical records, and very quickly, it developed into an important character as a genre of medieval narrative At the same time, looking at the genre of fantasy stories, we can see the presence of the authors and their excellent works
in both the period and the history of Vietnamese - Korean literature.However, until today, there are many things to continue in various studies, researchs in the nominal definition, from the concept of genre to other related issues, especially those with comparative factors such as our research topic to find similarities and differences in the thinking of genre and about the character building of legendary figures in both countries.This is also an urgent reason that makes us determined to pursue this topic
1.3 In terms of origin, the genre of fantasy stories in the medieval literature of
Vietnam and Korea have a same foreign origin (China), but when being introduced into from many different sources, the authors of both countries have studied this genre in a flexible and creative approach, especially in a way that found a close and intimate connection with historical reality and many aspects of ethnic human beauty There will be many similarities in the way Vietnamese and Korean authors need to use to approach this genre and the art of character buiding, however the national colors, the way of thinking, the beauty of the country and people in both countries, through the genre, reflection and character buidling, also show many interesting differences This is still an unanswered question in many studies of fantasy stories, especially those with comparative factors by presenting the topic of character research in fantasy stories of Vietnam and Korea, we wish to have more clear and comprehensive assessments and judgments to the differences in the contributions of medieval literature authors of both countries in the development of this genre
1.4 Considering the thinking method of medieval art in general and the creating
method of fantasy stories in particular, we can see that character building is one of the most important issues.While character is the core issue, there are also the perspectives and artistic conceptions of people, ethnicity and the capacities of traditional and cultural elements in Vietnam and Korea Therefore, by studying the mediaval characters in the fantasy stories of Vietnam and Korea, our study shall use many character approachs to survey, evaluate, and thoroughly interpret the above issues
Trang 41.5 Being a Korean myself, I really love the people and country of Vietnam By
presenting this research topic, I hope to learn more about the literature of Vietnam in general and the history of mediaval literature of Vietnam, especially the genre of mediaval fantasy stories in particular (from the aspect of character) in comparison with the same genre in Korea Our study, in a way, is a message, a bridge for the sustainable friendship between the two countries in history as well as in the era of integration and globalization
2.2 Research tasks
Our thesis sets out the following research tasks: (1) Introduce an overview of the researchs on the genre of fantasy stories in general as well as the characters in this genre in particular in the medialval literature of Vietnam and Korea; (2) Conduct survey, statistics, classification and description of some types of characters in the mediaval fantasy stories of Vietnam and Korea; (3) Analyze and interpret the traditional and cultural aspects of Vietnam and Korea from the perspective of the types of characters in mediaval fantasy stories
3 Reseach objects and scope of the study
3.1 Research object
The research object of this thesis is the character in the mediaval fantasy stories of Vietnam and Korea under a comparative perspective
3.2 Scope of the study
Within the framework of a doctoral thesis according to regulations, based on the theory of fantasy stories in medieval literature of Vietnamese and Korean, the scope of our study shall be as follows:
* Mediaval fantasy stories of Vietnam in the following story series:
(1) Collection of Outstanding Figures of the Zen Garden (no name), consists of 21 fantasy stories (abbreviation: Thiền uyển tập anh ngữ lục); (2) Viet Realm (Ly Te Xuyen), consists of 40 fantasy stories (abbreviation:Việt điện u linh); (3) Selection of Strange Tales
in Linh Nam (Vu Quynh và Kiyu Phu), consists of 36 fantasy stories (Abbreviation: Thiền uyển tập anh ngữ lục); (4) Thanh Tong's Posthumous Manuscript (by Le Thanh Tong
according to legend), consists of 15 fantasy stories (abrreviation: Thánh Tông di thảo); (5)
Collection of Strange Tales (Nguyen Du), consists of 20 fantasy stories (abrreviation: Truyền kỳ mạn lục); (6) Literary Works of Vu Trinh (Vu Trinh), consists of 38 fantasy
stories (abrreviation: Lan Trì kiến văn lục); (7) New Genealogy of Legends (Doan Thi Diem), consists of 04 fantasy stories (abrreviation: Truyen ky tan pha); (8) Random
Record of Great Changes (Pham Dinh Ho and Nguyen An), consists of 40 fantasy stories
(abrreviation: Tang thương ngẫu lục); (9) Strange Record of Rumors (no name), consists
of 15 fantasy stories Total: 230 fantasy stories
* Mediaval fantasy stories of Korean in the following story series:
(1) Memorabilia of the Three Kingdoms (Il-yeon), consists of 86 fantasy stories; (2)
Musical Canon of Seong Hyeon (Seong Hyeon), consists of 12 fantasy stories ; (3)
Trang 5Collection of Strange Tales (no name), consists of 27 fantasy stories; (4) Tales of Mount Geumo (Kim Si-seup) consists of 05 fantasy stories (abrreviation: Kim Ngao tan thoai); (5) Strange Tales from a Korean Studio (Than Quang Han), consists of 04 fantasy stories; (6) Collection of Three Theories – China History (no name) consists of 09 fantasy stories
many other stories in Vietnam such as Veritable Records of Three Sages (no name), Dream
memoir of Southern Man (Ho Nguyen Trung), Quick Records in Spare Times (Vu Phuong
De), Random Records in the Rain (Pham Dinh Ho), Random Tales in the Mountain (collected by Dan Son), Poetry Stories of Hat Dong (Nguyen Thuong Hien), Mini
Collection of Legends (Pham Dinh Duc), etc, however, due to the capacity and framework
of this thesis, we do not include these works as reseach subjects
4 Methodology and research methods
To complete this study, we have used the following main research methods: (1) Literary
learning method and literary approach by genre; (2) Approach to literature from a cultural perspective; (3) Method of comparative literature In addition, in the process of implementing
the research topic, we also use a combination of other operations such as: Method of analyzing
literary works Statistical – classification method, structural – system method, etc
5 New contribution to the science of the thesis
5.1 Proposing the concept of medieval fantasy stories of Vietnam and Korea with
the criteria to identify works in the picture of medieval literature of the two countries
5.2 Survey, catalog statistics 373 fantasy stories of the middle (Vietnam: 230
stories; Korea: 143 stories) from the stories of Vietnam and South Korea, including 03 virtual stories of Korea have not been translated into Vietnamese and introduced in
Vietnam (the total number of stories translated by us is 40 stories, these stories are
translated by us temporarily from the Korean version)
5.3 The thesis is the first scientific work to systematically set and research the
characters in the fantasy story of the medieval Vietnam and Korea under a comparative perspective Thereby, the issues of the concept of genre, basic character types, character problems and the expression of traditional cultural elements of two countries in the fantasy story of Vietnam and South Korea have been systematic interpretation, comprehensive
and satisfactory
6 The theoretical and practical significance of the thesis
- Meaning of reasoning: Interpretation in a relatively satisfactory way of the fantasy
series of medieval as well as having quite a comprehensive overview of the issue of character building in this genre, especially the relationship between work expressing the character of the fantasy story mediocre with reflecting the traditional cultural dimensions of the two countries, more or less there is the method of literary thinking of typical authors in
medieval Vietnamese literature and Korea
- Practical significance: From the concept of fantasy stories, the research topic of the thesis has relatively thorough surveys, statistics, analysis and explanations of character issues, the expression of character type, problem of character expression with the expression of traditional cultural elements to the art methods of building characters in fantasy stories of Vietnam and Korea
7 Structure of the thesis
In addition to the Introduction, Conclusion, List of the author's research works related
to the thesis topic, References, Appendix, the main content of the thesis is implemented on
Trang 6the following 4 chapters: - Chapter 1: Overview of research topic (18 pages, page 9 to page 26); - Chapter 2: A number of related theoretical issues and foundations of the fantasy genre of medieval Vietnam and Korea (33 pages, from pages 27 to 59); - Chapter 3: Characteristics of some types of characters in the fantasy period of Vietnam and South Korea (47 pages, from page 60 to page 106); - Chapter 4: The expression of cultural dimensions through the image of characters in the fantasy story of medieval Vietnam and
South Korea (40 pages, from page 107 to page 146)
Chapter 1 OVERVIEW OF RESEARCH SITUATION
In this section, we conceptualize the research of the medieval fantasy genre of Vietnam and Korea on two basic contents, which are researches on genre in general and in-depth research on human issues things in particular
1.1 The researches of the fantasy genre of medieval Vietnam and Korea
1.1.1 Studies of fantasy stories of medieval Vietnam
The medieval fantasy stories of Vietnam is a unique genre, has a history of formation, movement and development throughout the length of the history of national literature Therefore, right from the beginning, it has attracted a certain interest of contemporary scholars Evidence is the title title, canvas, comment of the grape houses immediately and after the work appears Of course, the visualization of fantasy stories as an independent literary genre has not been adequately addressed as its contribution to the national literary history Some scholars such as Vu Quynh, Kieu Phu, Ha Thien Han, Ngo Thi Hoang, Nguyen Hanh, Tin Nhu Thi, Tran Danh Luu, Le Quy Don, Phan Huy Chu, Nguyen Thuong Hien still keep their names forever along with stories like Linh Nam, Monk, The Apostle, the Legend of the Continent, Lan Literary Antithesis, Nam Ong Luc, The Meritorious Balance The titles of titles, canvases, introduction of the Confucianists
In fact, these are just qualities, contemplative contemplations of contemporaries or life after seeing some interesting works or human and social meanings that they are interested
in When the literature research department began to form with a professional nature, the researchers of folk literature and medieval literature had a deeper interest and there were also researches and assessments of basic evaluation more about some episodes of typical fantasy stories such as Thanh Tong draft, Legend of the continent, Lan Literary Knowledge, The New Year's tradition Most works such as Vietnamese literature use weak [77], Draft history of Vietnamese literature [253], [254], [255], Vietnamese Literature of the Xth century - the first half of the eighteenth century [123], Vietnamese literature of the Middle Kingdom [167], [169], General episodes of Chinese characters (4 episodes) [187], Vietnamese periodical stories [26], Vietnamese prose medieval prose [162], Vietnamese medieval literature curriculum [279], [280] , Vietnamese medieval literature, research works [343], research and discuss some authors of medieval literature works in Vietnam [248], [250] until the articles, essays, theses, research topics on stories / prose narrative / narrative stories, some issues of the genre of fantasy stories in terms of content and art have been mentioned, although the level of depth is different
In the scope of examining the characteristics of the content and art of a work and a periodical volume, we can mention articles such as: "The complex structure of the narrative period in the Legend of the Continent "By Nguyen Kim Chau [18]," Understanding the tendency to compose in Nguyen Luu's continental transmission "[106] and" Guessing Nguyen Dat's identity and the time of composing the Green Legend "[109] by Nguyen
Trang 7Pham Hung, "Various issues related to the Sixth Century" of Kawamoto Kurive [119], "The story of Nam Xuong daughter (Literature 9, Episode 1)" by Nguyen Dang Na [165],
"Understanding the States of the United States of Grace" [171] and "The Shadow and Gaps
in Literature" [176] by Nguyen Nam, "Transmitting the continent and the expression of thought of Nguyen Du "[59] and" Experiencing the reclusive lifestyle of Nguyen Du through The Tale of the Tale of the First Fairy "[260] by Le Van Tan," Doan Thi Diem and Truyen Ky Tan Pha" by Bui Thi Thien Thai [262]
1.1.2 Studies on the Korean medieval fantasy stories in comparative correlation
to Vietnamese fantasy stories
Quite similar in many aspects with the genre of medieval fantasy stories in Vietnam, Korean medieval story genre also attracts the special attention of researchers of ancient literary in both countries Firstly, it is necessary to mention the position of the genre In Korean medieval history and literature books, teaching materials as well as Korean literature collection and synthesis books, the genre of fantasy stories is mentioned In
Korean literary history, the authors Komisook, Jungmin and Jung Byung Sui appreciate
the stories such as Memorabilia of the Three Kingdoms by Nhat Nhien, Historical record
of the Three Kingdoms by Kim Phu Thuc (the section of Biography) [134, 106] After the
sudden appearance of Kim Ngao tan thoai, the Korean fantasy story genre continues developing with many other prominent names such as Than Quang Han with Xí Trai ký dị, Quyền Tất with Chu Sinh truyệnn and Vi Kính thiên truyện, Triệu Vi Hàn with Thôi Trắc
truyện and some short stories as well as some other long single stories such as Chronicle
of love cavern or Chronicle of paradise cavern, etc However, in a genre of short story
such as Kim Ngao tan thoai, most researchers believe that Kim Si -Seup's story collection
is the highest peak that no other novelist after his times can achieve In Vietnam, there are articles and research works on Korean classical literature which present relatively plentifully the aspects of fantasy story genre The pure researches on Korean classical literature result from the demand to learn, study and teach Korean language and culture in Vietnam Here are a series of valuable books edited by Phan Thi Thu Hien and her team (Nguyen Thi Hien, Doan Le Giang, Tran Thi Bich Phuong, Vu Thi Thanh Tam, Dao Thi
My Khanh, Nguyen Thi Bich Hai, etc): 1) "Collection of Korean classical literature" [95], 2) "Development and identity of Korean classical literature" [93], 3) "Walking in the
land of Korean literature" ”[94], 4) “Female ghost’s love story in the East Asian mythical stories (China - Korea - Vietnam - Japan)” [92], 5) “Korean literature teaching material”
[91], etc As mentioned above, the genre of novel in general and novel series in particular developed relatively strongly in Korea in the medieval period and its contribution to the development of classical Korean literature was quite significant Therefore, according to the instructions of Toan Hue Khanh, some typical research projects should be mentioned
such as 1) Study on Korean classical novels by Ngô Linh Tích (Van Trieu Publishing House, 1986), 2) Study on Korean classical novels by Lý Tương Trạch (Xe-mun Publishung House), 3) Study on love novel composition by Trịnh Tông Đại (Van hoa khai sang Publishing House, 1990), 4) Formation of Korean novels by Chu Chung Diễn (Tập
văn đường xuất bản, 1987), etc In general, thanks to these research works, some issues on the influence origins, cultural-social-historical roots, some problems on ideological content and the art of novel series has been, though only initially, discussed From a research perspective of comparing the common issues of Korean fantasy stories/story series to that of Vietnam (through a specific story), the following articles should be
Trang 8mentioned: "The initial comparison of Thính văn dị lục of Vietnam and Sam Seol Gi (Thù
dị truyện - KimKi Hyun) of Korea” by Nguyen Thi Ngan [181], "Similarity in historical development of Vietnamese-Korean medieval literature" [234], "Comparion of Humanistic movement in Korean - Vietnamese literature in eighteenth and nineteenth centuries"
[235], " Similarity in Korean and Vietnamese novels of Zen masters before fourteenth
century" [233] by Nguyen Huu Son, "Extraordinary similarity in Vietnamese and Korean classical literature” by Doan Le Giang [69], “Comparion of New stories told while
trimming the wick by Qu You (China) and Geumo Sinhwa by Kim Si – Seup (Korea) and
Collection of Strange Tales by Nguyen Du (Vietnam) and the Cà tỳ tử by Arai Rey
(Japan)" by B Riptin [12], "Some similarities and differences betweeen two works:
Geumo Sinhwa (Korea) and Collection of Strange Tales (Vietnam)” by Le Dinh Chinh
[33] etc Through these studies, researchers have come up with overview assessments on the genre’s characteristics and historical-literary position of fantasy stories in the two countries throughout the general development of their literature Along with them, these are surveys to come up with some distinctions of common features and unique differences between Vietnamese and Korean fantasy story genre
1.2 Studies on characters in Vietnamese and Korean medieval fantasy story genre
Being the most important issue of the genre, characters and character-related issues are mentioned and mainstreamed by researches in their joint studies on literary works, story series or common issues of the genre In this subsection, for a convenient reference, we also
split it into two small sub-sections: 1) Studies on characters in Vietnamese medieval fantasy
stories and 2) Studies on characters in Korean medieval fantasy stories in comparative correlation with ones in in Vietnamese medieval fantasy stories
1.2.1 Studies on characters in Vietnamese medieval fantasy stories
In this direction, there are studies selecting a character in a story or in one/some
story episode Characters in stories and story series such as Truyện Hà Ô Lôi, Thánh
Tông di thảo, Collection of Strange Tales, Truyen ky tan pha, LGBT, etc are most
concerned Many typical studies by Le Si Thang and Ha Thuc Minh [295]; Bui Duy Tan [248]; Tran Dinh Su [241]; Tran Thi Bang Thanh, Bui Thi Thien Thai [265]; Tran Nho Thin [283], [284]; Dinh Thi Khang [120]; Nguyen Phong Nam [212], etc should be mentioned Some other researchers such as Hoang Huu Yen, Doan Le Giang, Nguyen Dang Na, Nguyen Pham Hung, La Nham Thin, Nguyen Huu Son, Doan Thi Thu Van, Dinh Phan Cam Van, Le Van Tan, Pham Van Hung, etc also provide some suggestion on characters and character-related contents and character formation organization in their overview works and studies on the genre of fantasy story/story serie as well as articles about characters in some given stories
1.2.2 Studies on characters in Korean medieval fantasy stories in comparative correlation with ones in in Vietnamese medieval fantasy stories
In the perspective of studying characters in Korean fantasy stories or studies comparing them with Vietnamese ones, from the Korean side, according to the
instructions of Toan Hue Khanh, there is no specialized work The Study of comparing the
Korean-Chinese-Vietnamese novel series through "Geumo Sinhwa", “New stories told while trimming the wick” and " Collection of Strange Tales" performed by Toan Hue
Khanh" [117] is a valuable work In Korean historical literature from ancient times to the
end of XIX century [134] and Korean classical literature [348], due to the unique feature
of the book, most the issues on characters in fantasy stories has not been mentioned In
Trang 9Korean literature teaching materials [91] and The development and identify of Korean classical literature [93], Phan Thi Thu Hien and her research team, when it comes to the
issue of characters in story series, just mainly refer to the character content, the art of character formation has not been mentioned consciously The main contribution from this perspective is a series of studies on comparing characters in the two episodes of the
famous story series Geumo Sinhwa and Collection of Strange Tales Some of the typical
articles should be mentioned such as: 1) "Comparing the type of “people in paradise” in
Vietnamese literature with The nine cloud dream (Korea)" [229]; 2) "Similarity in the
Korean and Vietnamese Zen monks before the XV century" [233] by Nguyen Huu Son; 3)
"The character of female in Geumo Sinhwa and Collection of Strange Tales" by Luu Thi Hong Viet [323]; 3) “Dream - Imagination and desire for love in New stories told while
trimming the wick, Geumo Sinhwa, Collection of Strange Tales và Tales of moonlight and rain” by Nguyen Thi Mai Lien [148]; 4) “Some similarities and differences between the
two works : Geumo Sinhwa (Korea) và Collection of Strange Tales (Việt Nam)” by Le
Dinh Chinh [33], etc Through the above-mentioned studies, most of the researcher comes
up with a common view about many similarities in the reflection and the art of character formation Vietnamese-Korean story series, although the space, time and the độ đậm nhạt của ý vị in characters in each country are different
Sub-conclusion of Chapter 1
In general, it can be affirmed that the studies and articles on Vietnamese and Korean medieval fantasy stories are quite plentiful with many aspects of the genre such as the origin of the fantasy story concept; the features and characteristics of fantasy stories; the aspects of ideological content, cultural-religious elements in the reflection content of the genre; the art characteristics of the genre, particularly ones on the use of fantasy elements, the interweaving
of fantasy elements with real ones, etc have been suggested from single studies to organized and long-term works Concerning the central issue of the thesis - the issue of characters in the two countries’ fantasy stories, the researches are still rare, particularly the comprehensive and systematic comparative ones This is the task set out and initially resolved
well-in this thesis The great well-inspiration for me, a Korean person, to choose this topic is, on most aspects of the genre, including the issue of character expression, the type relationship of the
literature of the two countries Vietnam and Korea in the middle ages are "mostly similar with
unconsiderable difference" as mentioned by researches Of course, the specific representation
in each country and by each author, in each story episode have their own interesting characteristics
Chapter 2 SOME RELATED THEORETICAL ISSUES AND THE BASIS CONSTITUTING THE GENRE OF VIETNAMESE AND KOREAN MEDIEVAL FANTASY STORIES 2.1 Some related theoretical issues
2.1.1 General theoretical basis
2.1.1 1 Theory of literary character
Literary characters are "specific people described in literary works Literary characters may have their own names ( ) or do not ( ) Literary character is an artistic unit đầy tính ước lệ, it cannot be identified with real people in life” [79, p.202] Whether the character is a humanized one or a historical figure to be reflected, he or she bears the characteristics of the human notion of the writer Through the character, the writer expresses his reflection and thoughts about people, life and the status of his era Through
Trang 10characters, we can also understand the reflection of social realities, the ideology of the era and the reality of elements in the traditional cultural structure of each nation Therefore,
by profoundly studying characters, we will have surveys and descriptions of the combination of Vietnamese-Korean traditional cultural elements in their medieval fantasy stories
2.1.1.2 Theory of literary genre
In the medieval literature of Eastern countries in general, of East Asian countries, and of Vietnam and Korea in particular, the system of genres is relatively plentiful with the process of formation, reception as well as constantly changing and moving at the same time with the movement and development of the literary history of each nation The genre
is a form factor that is more formal and coherent than other elements of the whole body,
so it seems to be "obsolete" in the process of changing and developing
2.1.2 Conception of fantastic things and the genre of fantasy story
2.1.2.1 The concept of fantastic things
First of all, in terms of letters, fantasy (in English: fantastic; in Chinese: 奇; in
Korean: 기발하다) consist of two components which need to be clarified including
strangeness and imagination Basically, researchers agree that: the fantastic things refer to
the supernatural things (supernatural; 초자연적인); the impossible things (impossible; 불가능하다) In terms of words, in Vietnamese, strange means unusual, imaginary means
unreal A fantastic thing is a strange, unreal thing which cannot be seen in reality Thus, a
literary work with fantastic elements is the one in which there is supernatural, strange, fantasy, illusory elements in the formation of story plot, characters or themes, certain ideology or inspiration, etc
2.1.2.2 The conception of fantasy story genre
The genre of fantasy story is a part of the fantasy literature in general Fantasy literature includes the literary creations containing fantastic, ghostly and strange elements or unreal events, people, etc Fantasy stories are a form of self-narrative (narrative) literature which uses fantasy elements in organizing the work (one or all of the elements) from building structure, artistic plot, choices for character formation, other events, happenings, circumstances, etc., which contains the properties and nature of the fantastic thing
2.1.2.3 Proposal of the concept of Vietnamese and Korean medieval fantasy stories Fantasy story genre is a kind of medieval narrative prose which is included in
fantasy literature in small or medium scale (in terms of page number), with narrative content and/or relatively complete plot; Characters are formed and reflected in the mode
of thinking containing fantastic elements The issues of life reality and the people of two nations are represented in works through the use of fantastic things, associated with the method of organizing the structure, plot, types/ kinds of characters, events, circumstances and strange, unusual and extraordinary motif, etc Medieval fantasy stories are associated with fiction and imagination, representing and affirming the sense of autonomy and self- awareness in artistic creation of medieval writers in Vietnam and Korea
2.2 The basis forming the genre of Vietnamese and Korean fantasy stories
2.1.1 Historical and social basis
In this section, we generalize the main characteristics of the social and history basis
of Vietnam and Korea during the middle age as the prerequisites for creating demand and the appearance of the first forms of medieval fantasy story genre The historical and social
Trang 11context of Vietnam and Korea in the middle age has become a material to reflect and also provide motivation for the formation and development to the peak of the fantasy story genre of the two contries
2.1.2 Cultural and literary basis
2.1.2.1 Influence by folk literature
The imprint of folk literature in medieval prose in general, in Vietnamese and Korean fantasy story genre in particular is an absolute proof of its influence on writing literature From motifs, folk plot to the types/kinds of characters; from the thinking aspect, from the conception of spiritual and supernatural things, puting soul into all things, etc to the ideological aspect, the folk philosophy of "One good turn deserves another", "good wins ugly,"justice defeats evils"," Good people will be rewarded, bad guys are punished", fortune and misfortune, karma, types of happy ending, folk optimistic spirit, etc have been selectively received and adapted into complete stories which combining real – unreal things, reality - romance, gradually bearing the imprint of author 's style and presenting deep philosophies and ideas of human life
2.1.2.2 Influence by the ideology of Buddhism, Laozi - Zhuangzi and Confucianism a) Influence by Buddhism’s ideology
The Buddhism’s conception of the world, impermanent, uncertain and illusory life;
the doctrine of reincarnation, rebirth, and karma; the ability to reach the "nirvana" or the realm of bliss in a world different to the mundane world, etc has had a profound influence
on the worldview and the outlook on life of the writers who wrote Vietnamese and Korean medieval fantasy stories Inevitably, the cultural aspects, spiritual life, the representation
of Buddhism’s ideology have deeply penetrated into many aspects of the content and the form of many fantasy stories/story series of the two countries
b) Influence by Laozi – Zhuangzi ideology
Besides Buddhism, Laozi - Zhuangzi’s ideology was one of the most influencing ideologies in the religious life, belief and spiritual life of Vietnamese and Korean people Founded by Laozi and then Zhuangzi, Laozi – Zhuangzi’s classic system is quite concise, condensed with highly unspoken implication that it is uneasy for subsequent generations
to comprehend There are three most important aspects of the Laozi - Zhuangzi doctrine
acquired by medieval writers including: 1) The conception of the universe and all things, 2) The conception of humanity and 3) Theory of nonaction and of course, the influence
degree on each writer, each fantasy story or eposide is different
c) Influence by Confucianism ideology
Confucianism is considered a ideology having long-term and extentsive influence
on Vietnamese and Korean societies which greatly contributing to the organization of the state, maintaining social order and economic development, influencing the literary works
in the middle age Many aspects of Confucianism ideology in this direction would also reflextive in the medieval fantasy story world Therefore, many fantasy stories could help readers to understand the level and ability to observe, recognize and explain the world as well as the difficult isses of historical and social reality For that reason, many Vietnamese and Korean writers in the middle age originally came from Confucians but they chose the genre of fantasy stories
2.1.2.3 The adoption of ideology from Vietnamese-Korean indigenous beliefs
The belief and religious life of Vietnamese and Korean residents is highly plentiful with many similarities Vietnamese people are distinguished with their polytheistic beliefs
Trang 12and Korean residents are also associated with polytheistic beliefs, called as the conception
of Musok (Vu tục), also known as Shamanism or Korean Shamanism This kind of belief would have an significant influence on the people’s visualization of the world and the formation of fantasy story genre In polytheistic belief, the people of both countries thought that both angels and gods exist The two countries’ people from the past have had the custom
of worshiping gods of nature Natural phenomena such as wind, rain, thunder, lightning, whether conditions, storms and floods, etc .have been considered as spirit things While Vietnam has worships of Mau Thuong Thien (Heavenly mother), Ba Chua Son Trang (God
of Mountains), Ba Nuoc (God of Water), and Mau Dia Phu (God of Earth) and natural phenomena as mentioned above, Korean people worship gods such as Supreme gods (who lives in the heaven and control everything in the universe), God of Space (Obang Changgun
is the common name of the five gods who reign in five directions, representing the folk universe of Korean people), the Gods of the Earth (San-sin), the Gods protecting the village (Changsang), Thánh chủ (Sõngju), God of Water and countless other unknown gods, etc All these features of Vietnamese-Korean indigenous beliefs would be acquired and represented
by the medieval novelists in the artistic world of their works
2.1.2.4 The adoption of regional fantasy literature
In fact, fantasy stories exist both in Western and Eastern literature and they all have a process of formation and development based on the individual developments of each region and each literature of each nation as well However, considering the adoption of the genre tradition as a factor forming the genre of Vietnamese and Korean medieval fantasy stories, the influence of Chinese literature tradition in ancient and middle ages is most obsolete Therefore, in this subsection, we focus on clarifying some basic aspects of the Chinese fantasy story tradition and the adoption process of Vietnamese-Korean authors
Sub-conclusion of Chapter 2
In chapter 2, we determine and briefly explained theoretical issues related to the thesis topic and the basis forming the genre of Vietnamese and Korean fantasy story The related theoretical issues including the theory of literary characters and the theory of genres are mentioned While the genre of story series has the characteristics of East Asian cultural area, the genre of fantasy story is international As indicated by researchers, fantasy stories formed early in the world and rapidly developed in many countries, including Vietnam and Korea Therefore, Vietnamese and Korean medieval fantasy stories, according to our survey, adopt not only the regional fantasy story tradition but also the influence of this genre in the world And it is worth noting that in the medieval cultural context of Vietnam and Korea, some fantasy story writers of the two countries have reached the regional level, providing certain contributions to the development of the genre These are some contents to be initially clarified in the following chapters In addition, in the content of this section, on the basis of referring to the previous researches, particularly based on the reality of the fantasy story genre in the literature of the two
countries, we come up with our conception of the fantastic things and the genre of Vietnamese-Korean medieval fantasy stories Besides, in this chapter, we also use some
pages for a brief analysis of the formation basics of the fantasy story genre, including historical and social basis as well as cultural and literary ones The distinct features of the historical and social origin as well as the basis of literary culture (such as the adoption of folk literature, the adoption of ideologies of Buddhism, Laozi - Zhuangzi, Confucianism,
Trang 13indigenous beliefs as well as the acquisition of regional and world fantasy literature traditions) have been clarified
Chapter 3 CHARACTERISTICS OF SOME TYPES OF CHARACTERS IN THE MEDIEVAL
FANTASY STORIES OF VIETNAM AND KOREA Because of the peculiarities of types and to avoid the duplication in content with other
sections of the dissertation, the main basis for surveying and dividing our characters is the origin of characters in relation to descriptive ways (there will be two basis types that
characters having a magical origin and characters with natural origin; of course these two
main types have separate group with their own characteristics) Of course, no matter how apart it is, even if it is separated, it will only have relative meaning The fact that a character can simultaneously be classified into many types is a pratice of art creation in general and the artistic thinking of fantasy writers of both countries in particular
3.1 Type of fantasy character
As mentioned in the previous sections, fantasy characters are to show the appearance of characters with magical characteristics and elements They are surrealistic characters with capable, mysterious or miraculous abilities or having different characteristics that ordinary people do not have This group consists of characters who may have extraordinary and supernatural origin without any connection with the world; or may be earthly characters but they are apotheosized to become fantasy characters by certain objective or subjective reasons, or they are dead people finding the way to return earthly world to carry out tasks that they did not have a chance to do
Bảng 3.1 The apperance of fantasy character in the medieval fantasy story of
Vietnam and Korea
No
STORY (Number of story with
appearance of fantasy
character)
NUMBER OF FANTASY CHARACTER
TYPES OF FANTASY CHARACTER Characters with
extraordinary origin
Characters with earthly origin