Cho Hwisang begins The Power of the Brush with an analogy between Chosŏn epistolary practice and today's internet culture. The prologue clearly shows the academic orientations of this book; Cho aims to change the way scholars approach the subject. By broadening the concept and boundary of letters and, more importantly, by bringing attention to its sociopolitical significance, Cho shifts the discourse away from content analysis to new issues—format and materiality, communal function, and performative aspects. Structure-wise, the book follows a chronological order.
Chapter 1 provides a historical overview of Chosŏn epistolary practice, focusing on its languages, gender, and social environment. Chapter 2 explores “spiral letters,” a peculiar format in which the letter sheet is rotated 90 degrees—180 degrees at times—for reading and writing on each side. Cho suggests four persuasive hypotheses for the origin and development of the format: saving textual space, calligraphic aesthetics, communal reading, and epistolary fashion. Cho contends that this format originated in vernacular Korean letters in the late fifteenth century, which influenced literary Chinese letters by the late sixteenth century. Cho's theory is rational, yet it may need more research; in my preliminary survey, the earliest extant spiral letter written in literary Chinese was by Yu Ŭngbu (d. 1456).
Chapter 3 deliberates on the editorial intentions and social implications when letters are anthologized in book form. Yi Hwang (1501–70) completed two compilations of letters in the late 1550s. In his Abbreviated Essence of Master Zhu's Letters, Yi attempted to define a new Chosŏn academic agenda by adding paratextual elements to Zhu Xi's letters. Record of Self-Reflection, which consisted of twenty-two of his own letters, served as reminders for regulating his mind and behavior (p. 85). Other than the two purposes of philosophical interpretations and self-cultivation, Yi might have also undertaken the task of the two compilations to legitimize himself as the successor to Zhu Xi.
Chapter 4 discusses the diverse purposes to which letters can be put—scholarly debate, reading material, and mundane exchange—and their social meanings. The epistolary network fueled the private academy movement that gave rise to a complex relationship between the state and local literati; the latter strategically alternated collaboration with and antagonism toward the central court for their own interests. Similarly, they interacted with the local magistrates’ offices through record-keeping practices that developed into “quasi-administrative functions” (p. 124).
Chapters 5 and 6 move on to political aspects of letter practice in late Chosŏn society. Cho uncovers the versatile application of “circular letters” and joint memorials for enhancing group communication, mobilization, and political activism. Yet, the effects of those collective textual practices were hampered by the division of political voices as local academies gradually forged close ties with various political factions in the court. The epilogue explains the legacy of the Chosŏn epistolary practice: the nonelite appropriations and then modern adaptations of circular letters and joint memorials.
This book's scholarly contributions are undeniably vast. In the field of premodern Korean studies, to date, few have investigated the material aspects of letters and their social and political effects. Yet, Cho's historical documentation is insufficient for nonspecialists to understand the subject. Cho mainly focuses on local literati in the Yŏngnam region (present-day Kyŏngsang Province) but does not explain why private academies were established predominantly in this remote southern area. The social status, local influence, and political orientation of those literati also need further explication.
The Namins were, by and large, dominated by the Noron faction in the central court, but regionally, they wielded power indiscriminately over secondary status groups that included women, commoners, Buddhists, and sons of concubines from elite families. Cho relevantly documents that they acted against illegitimate sons when they requested equal access to the academy from 1884 to 1885 (p. 123). Yet, in the epilogue, Cho does not mention their consistent rejections of the illegitimate sons’ joint memorials and other protests for their rights (p. 182). Moreover, Cho often parallels the Namin's political actions and the resistant movements in other countries (pp. 121, 131, 176). Such remarks might lead readers to fail to recognize that they were influential in their region and conservative in essence. In this sense, it would have been desirable to expound on some phrases, such as “minority elite groups” in the prologue (p. 9) and “the people at the social, cultural, and political margins” in the book's last sentence.
Irrespective of my trivial suggestions, Cho's new discourse helps expand our understanding of premodern textual practice in a sociocultural context. Cho's comprehensive references to Asian and non-Asian cases provide a global context for Korean epistolary culture. In return, this book will appeal to scholars in the fields of the social sciences as well as to Koreanists. Cho humbly states, “The definition of social movement in non-Western societies before modernity awaits more serious study” (p. 233), but he has already achieved a remarkable case study.
