In 1428, a patricide shocked Sejong's court. To counter the perceived fall in ethical standards, the Chosŏn court compiled, printed, and distributed the Samgang haengsil-to (Illustrated guide to the three bonds; the SGHST), a compilation of stories praising exceptional people as the epitome of filial piety, loyalty, and womanly devotion for the three fundamental human relations—father-son, ruler-subject, and husband-wife, respectively. A densely packed study, Engraving Virtue persuasively traces the print history of the inception and multifarious receptions of the SGHST, unraveling the text's philosophical, sociocultural, political, linguistic, and literary aspects.
Chapter 1 sets the tone. A new vision of learning Zhu Xi advocated—the adoption of orality through vocalization of the text—in tandem with the rise of neo-Confucianism as Chosŏn's state ideology were pivotal in the conception of the SGHST, which was dedicated to the moral education of all in the kingdom. Its model of reading practice was two-tiered: the literate (versed in classical Chinese) serving as reader-reciters as well as teacher-interpreters for the illiterate who listened to messages mediated by the literate.
Chapter 2 focuses on the 1432 edition as a prototype for all later editions. One hundred eleven stories per category were culled from exemplars from Chinese and Korean histories. The profusion of Chinese cases indicated Chosŏn's commitment to a transregional realm of neo-Confucianism. Each story had one illustration and one written text. The illustrations were an affective aid to inspire moral consciousness among the illiterate audience for the heroic deeds (p. 126). Young Kyun Oh interprets the act of engraving the stories onto woodblocks as the Chosŏn compilers' symbolic gesture of inscribing text in perpetuity. That each episode appears in one woodblock per story suggests that each episode invited the audience to make a symbolic “visit to a shrine” (p. 105) to honoring the moral heroes. Throughout Chosŏn, the SGHST was housed in xylography (never in metal movable type, although it was briefly considered) precisely due to the ritual dimension of woodblock engraving, Oh posits.
Chapter 3 analyzes the development of a vernacular edition and a reduced edition, marking a new phase of the SGHST as a space of “social memories” (p. 127). The vernacular edition gave each story one illustration, one written text in classical Chinese, and a vernacular rendition of the corresponding Chinese text in the Korean script (hence, the chŏng’ŭm text). Installed in the upper margin, not disturbing the physical space allotted to the Chinese writing, the chŏng’ŭm text visualized hierarchies between the Sinitic and the vernacular and between the written and the spoken. Stylistically, the chŏng’ŭm text was an “approximate transposition” (p. 160), not full-fledged writing but “a narrative cue” (p. 160), for reader-reciters. Political and sociocultural environs and practical reasons determined the reduction process (thirty-five stories per category). For instance, reproaching subjects largely disappeared, as the model of ruler-subject had been likened to a father-son relationship. The reduced textual space gave stories a new role as “dramatic rehearsals” (p. 194) of virtue. The textual meaning and reading was monopolized by the reader-reciter.
Chapter 4 examines the publications of the Sequel to the Samgang haengsil-to (1514; the Sequel) and the New Sequel to the Samgang haengsil-to of the Eastern Kingdom (1617; the New Sequel), showing how each showcased conspicuous vernacularization (localization). The Sequel used predominantly Korean exemplars: it emerged while Confucian fundamentalists eagerly constructed a moral community after the Yŏnsan-Chungjong monarchical transition after a coup. Undergoing multiple editions, the Sequel's chŏng’ŭm text developed a closer correspondence with the Chinese text, while the illustrations became formulaic. Even more vernacularized, the New Sequel emerged from the complex environs of the Imjin War, the Kwanghae-Injo monarchical transition, Chosŏn-Ming diplomacy, and the literati's growing interests in Chosŏn social institutions. In it, the SGHST was presented as a “house of Chosŏn heroes” (p. 240)—no Chinese exemplars. The chŏng’ŭm text was no longer as a paratextual add-on, standing side-by-side with the Chinese text. Its phraseology corresponded closely with the Chinese text. Of its 1,500 stories, the New Sequel's inclusion of noticeably terse stories made the SGHST a site of public/official recognition (i.e., a hall of fame) for the moral heroes rather than a book of moral education. The upshot of such transformations was the break from the original reading model: the text no longer anticipated the mediation of a reader-interpreter.
The logic and explanations of Engraving Virtue's tripartite periodization for the printing history of the SGHST are cogent, and the prose is clear. Oh's engagement with the Chosŏn linguistic ecology is expertly done. But this reviewer has some quibbles. Oh stresses Zhu Xi's oral reading and moral education, but wasn't Zhu Xi primarily concerned with moral education through vocalization so as to encourage readers to internalize the very words of the ancients? The premise then may be more appropriate for the vernacular renditions of the Confucian classics. If the SGHST indeed became a “manual for the illiterate in times of ethical challenges” (p. 10), ascertaining the illiterates' reception of moral messages or how they appropriated them is difficult using discussions in Engraving Virtue alone. Oh's engagement with the linguistic aspect of the chŏng’ŭm text is thorough, but pitch accents in the earlier chŏng’ŭm text could be explained further: what was their function, or were they included as a convention? On p. 204, “如指諸掌” is posited as an “allusion to block-printing as engraving moral virtue.” One wonders if it—originating from Lunyu to mean “as easy as pointing to one's palm” as in “easily achievable”—simply means easy access.
All in all, Engraving Virtue is a welcome addition to Korean studies and will have a lasting impact on the way one understands premodern Korea's literary culture, reading practice, vernacularization process, art history, and history of the book. Comparative specialists of East Asian textual traditions will find the book's exploration of China-Korea-Japan cultural and textual connections useful.
