Sijo as Affective Refuge: Chosŏn Court Politicians’ Emotional Community in Poetry

Abstract

This paper aims to analyze the prevalence of negative emotions in Sijo written by aristocratic politicians of the Joseon court. To analyze these emotions, I will use two analytical frameworks: first, the analysis of emotions from the perspective of Neo-Confucianism and, second, the conception of “emotional communities” as put forth by scholar Barbara H. Rosenwein. By using these two frameworks, I aim to reconcile the tension between the prevalence of such negative emotions in the politicians’ poetry and the Confucian notion that such negative emotions are strictly contrary to the balance of the polity and must be sublimated.