A Study on Sogok Yoon Kwang-so’s Literature

This study explores the literary world of Sogok Yun Gwang-so (1708-1786), a distinguished Confucian scholar and writer of the late Joseon dynasty, focusing particularly on his funeral orations (jaemun, 祭文) and elegies (aesa, 哀辭). Yun, inheriting the ritualist and Neo-Confucian traditions of the Papyŏng Yun lineage based in Noseong, did not view literature as a mere vehicle for emotional expression. Rather, he employed it as a public medium for the practice of Confucian ethics and the affirmation of communal identity. Analyzing 22 jaemun and 2 aesa preserved in the Collected Writings of Sogok (Sogok Yugo, 素谷遺稿), this paper examines the thematic structures and literary strategies through which Yun articulated his moral ideals. Yun’s funeral and memorial writings reinterpret death not as a private loss but as a moment for reaffirming dao (道義) and the continuity of the Confucian transmission of the Way (dotong, 道統). His commemorative writings for figures such as Myeongjae Yun Jeung, Gyeongam Yun Dong-su, and Iram Yun Dong-won express a profound awareness of the crisis of Neo-Confucian orthodoxy and a literary commitment to its preservation. In elegies for his fellow scholars, he renders Confucian friendship and self-cultivation within a restrained and dignified prose. Writings for family members and clan relations, grounded in filial piety (xiao, 孝) and fraternal duty (ti, 悌), express a moral vision rooted in communal ethics. Meanwhile, his commemorative inscriptions and state-commissioned sacrificial texts on historical figures convey a ritualist and doctrinal interpretation of loyalty and righteousness. Yun Gwang-so’s literary practice is marked by a creative adaptation of traditional Confucian prose forms grounded in moral action. By transforming personal grief into public expression through stylistic restraint, his writings function as vehicles for the ethical imperatives and collective memory of his community. Through this analysis, the study seeks to elucidate how late Joseon Confucian literature gave shape to moral ideals and communal narratives, and to reassess the intellectual and literary significance of Yun Gwang-so’s contributions to the Confucian tradition.