The Meaning of Beauty in Simcheongjeon : Focusing on Simcheong’s Death and Reincarnation

This paper aims to analyze the aesthetic in Shimcheongjeon, focusing on Shimcheong’s death and reincarnation. Shimcheong’s suicide for her father has been read as a sublime deed in that she did her filial duty. Shimcheong accepted the proposal to drown herself to earn the rice that her father promised. It is clearly a good deed for her father but she kills herself. Shimcheong’s suicide could not be interpreted as a beautiful deed. Rather it would be a ugly deed, in that she kills herself. Her death is not from natural process, but it is her choice. It is artificial. Therefore, it cannot be read as sublime, which is an emotion that could be felt facing with something unspeakably enormous in natural order. Shimcheong’s death, which is artificial death, is splendidly rewarded in the Dragon Palace. This reward makes Shimcheong’s death look beautiful rather than sublime. Shimcheong’s death is not natural. Shimcheong’s death makes the illusion of the relief from narrative relief. So it makes the beauty in Shimcheongjeon look sublime. The hallucination occurs between the beauty and the sublime because of the death. In Shimcheong’s reincarnation, readers feel pleasure from the compensation for Shimcheong’s filial piety as a good deed. Shimcheong gets rewards for her suicide because her death is for her father. Rewards for Shimcheong’s death is categorized as artificial beauty, which shows the beauty as it should be. The fact that vehicle which carries Shimcheong to the earth is the flower. A flower is categorized as the natural beauty as it is. This makes Shimcheong’s death look natural beauty. But in that the flower is special one, it also could show artificial beauty. It means that the hallucination of natural beauty and artificial beauty also occurs in Shimcheong’s reincarnation. Focusing on Shimcheong’s death and reincarnation, the aesthetic that could be read in Shimcheongjeon is not the sublime but the beauty. The death at the center of the narrative makes hallucination not only of the sublime and the beauty but also of the natural beauty and the artificial beauty.