The World of Circulation: The Universality of Literary Value in the Guunmong

Abstract

This chapter aims to measure the universal literary value of the Guunmong (九雲夢) by the Korean writer Kim Man-Jung (1637–1692), by comparing the classics of the center and the periphery, and showing their differences and commonalities, so as to rethink the significance of the universality of literary value. Dante’s Comedy is adopted for this work, which concentrates on how the Guunmong, as a classic from the periphery, can maintain universal literary value through its textual power to abolish the division of center and periphery itself. This is explained by analyzing such literary effects in the Guunmong as folding, harmony, ambivalence, appropriation, inclusion, and relativity, concepts that constitute the structure and concept of circulation.