An investigation into the reason for ‘xuan huong’ story’s popularity through generations

Abstract

Xuan Huong story of Korea is considered one of the outstanding works in the history of Korean literature. Xuan Huong story received much love and passionate readers in Korea and currently there are many studies of the great scholars of this work. We based on those studies to understand the reasons and find 4 main reasons of Xuan Huong story, which can receive love of readers of many generations. In terms of content, Xuan Huong story implies 3 readers-appealing issues including ideal love overcoming the barrier of social status differences, human journey fighting against injustice and yielding for a better society, and the contemporary Korean’s desire for escaping from their humble fates. In terms of art, romanticism and realism are talented presented and interwovened with Korea’s folk satirical style. The stylistic devices aims at portraying author’s intention of describing characters’ fate, criticizing unjust feudal society and simultaneously poetizing ideal love and characters.