The Memoirs of Lady Hyegyong: The Autobiographical Writings of a Crown Princess of Eighteenth-Century Korea by JaHyun Kim Haboush (PDF)

Description

Lady Hyegyong’s memoirs, which recount the chilling murder of her husband by his father, form one of the best known and most popular classics of Korean literature. From 1795 until 1805 Lady Hyegyong composed this masterpiece, depicting a court life Shakespearean in its pathos, drama, and grandeur. Presented in its social, cultural, and historical contexts, this first complete English translation opens a door into a world teeming with conflicting passions, political intrigue, and the daily preoccupations of a deeply intelligent and articulate woman. JaHyun Kim Haboush’s accurate, fluid translation captures the intimate and expressive voice of this consummate storyteller. Reissued nearly twenty years after its initial publication with a new foreword by Dorothy Ko, The Memoirs of Lady Hyegyong is a unique exploration of Korean selfhood and an extraordinary example of autobiography in the premodern era.

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: From the Inside Flap “Undoubtedly, The Memoirs of Lady Hyegyong, known as Hanjungnok (Records written in silence), is one of the most important and moving pieces of traditional Korean literature. . . . Haboush must be congratulated for an exemplary annotated translation that preserves the tone and color of the original texts.” Korean Studies “This authoritative edition. . . elucidates the intricate world of Korean court–its morass of age-old strictures, interfamilial rivalries, and just plain ill will–through which Lady Hyegyong had to navigate, both in her life and writing. . . Part of what makes these memoirs so gripping is the threat of erasure, present from the start.” Voice Literary Supplement “Lady Hyegyong writes of a life that none of us could have lived, yet her words and feelings are the same as those expressed and experienced by women in many time periods and many civilizations. . . . The translation by JaHyun Kim Haboush is fluid, and her wonderfully analytical introduction gives the reader useful background material, as well as insightful interpretation.” New Asian Pacific Review From the Back Cover “Undoubtedly, The Memoirs of Lady Hyegyong, known as Hanjungnok (Records written in silence), is one of the most important and moving pieces of traditional Korean literature. . . . Haboush must be congratulated for an exemplary annotated translation that preserves the tone and color of the original texts.”—Korean Studies “This authoritative edition. . . elucidates the intricate world of Korean court—its morass of age-old strictures, interfamilial rivalries, and just plain ill will—through which Lady Hyegyong had to navigate, both in her life and writing. . . Part of what makes these memoirs so gripping is the threat of erasure, present from the start.”—Voice Literary Supplement “Lady Hyegyong writes of a life that none of us could have lived, yet her words and feelings are the same as those expressed and experienced by women in many time periods and many civilizations. . . . The translation by JaHyun Kim Haboush is fluid, and her wonderfully analytical introduction gives the reader useful background material, as well as insightful interpretation.”—New Asian Pacific Review About the Author JaHyun Kim Haboush was Associate Professor of East Asian Languages and Cultures and History at the University of Illinois. Read more

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐I relish the opportunity to thank Dr. Jahyun Kim Haboush for the absolutely astonishing and altogether absorbing experience of being immersed in the Korean Confucian royal household of 1735 – 1805. A world both vanished and obscured by passage of time and by the extraordinarily tumultuous evolution of Korean culture since that time. If you are looking into Korea’s history for qualities of character, insight and strength that under pin Korea’s modern success, they are clearly evident in Lady Hyegyong and those who surround her. If official Korean History still leaves questions as to the causes of the decline of the 500 year long Yi Dynasty. Then the 90 years of Lady Hyegyong’s tragic life, as she lived and chronicled it will shed a shimmering yet still focused and elucidating light. Many readers will come to this book expecting of Heygyong, something like a Korean parallel with Lady Murasaki Shikibu of 10th century Japan. No two lives could be more different. With grave and stiff Confucian decorum, thirty or so years after the shocking and tragic event of 1762, that defines her life, Heygyong writes four successive accounts. Each account has as it purpose, fulfillment of a duty she sees as hers alone under Confucian filial principles, to set the record of that one event right. In the beginning she can’t even bring herself to speak of the event directly. But with each account, Heygyong summons more courage, and we discover in her greater strength of character and insight as well as remarkable fortitude and subtlety of intellect. Until, in the final Memoir, written when she is, as she states, “in my white haired old age”, she lays everything bare in excruciating detail and with remarkably lucid, even prescient insight into the turmoil of human psychology. While completely unintentional of course, the attendant and emotional build up of tension is exhilarating. Some knowledge of Korean History, from at least, the rein of King Sukchong down to the abysmal end of the Yi Dynasty and Japanese annexation in 1912, while not essential, will be very rewarding. An outline of the central event of 1762, the theme of the memoirs, is conveniently provided on the back cover of the book. Of course, readers who love history and love Korea, and delight in uncovering true stories that no fiction can hold a candle to, will as I did, fall in love with lady Heygyong. Many thanks once again to JaHyun Kim Haboush.Final disclosure: I myself have the great good fortune to have been married to an extraordinary Korean Lady, for the past 47 years.

⭐Why I bought this book? It all started by a Korean drama about how King Yeongjo putting his own son, the Crown Prince Sado to death, later Prince Sado’s son became King Jeongjo, he took it upon himself to prove his father’s innocence and later he plotted to kill all those involved in his death. The background in question was a very intriguing historical period that was dramatized for TV. At the end of the drama, I felt something still not completed and I was happy to find “The Memoirs of Lady Hyegyong” – at first it was not an easy reading because I am not a Korean and I do not know their history well. Reading the “memoirs”, I felt like reading a very elegant ongoing poem, kind of dream like tales of what went on behind the majestic palace, perhaps that was the style of writing for that period of time. This book actually could serve as a good historical and political reading when un-official palace history record was not available. Reader would feel the sadness, the struggle of Lady Hyegyong whose husband was the Crown Prince that had “gone mad”, ordered to be put in a rice box to die by his own father. The grand-father, King Yeongjo raised up Prince Sado’s son to be the next in line, carefully watching the boy in every detail, totally not trusting the boy until he could prove his worthiness. Lady Hyegyong would have liked to take her own life soon after her husband’s death, but to ensure her son would not meet the same fate, Lady Hyegyong endured all the hardship and the political games that went on inside the court to help her son to be the next King. Unfortunately, his son did not live long and died at 48 suddenly; Lady Hyegyong found herself once more needing to help her grandson to be the King. He is known as King Sunjo who would realize and to fulfill his father’s dream of a better Joseon.This is a very good book to read about Joseon history in an easy light manner and at the same time to read about the intriguing Joseon court life. According to history King Jeongjo was a very good King, who shaped the further growth and development of Joseon’s popular culture.Yes, if you like Korean history, drama, detective like stories with real history background, scholarly articulated yet in poem form writing – this is the book.

⭐I finished reading these memoirs days ago and still I’m haunted by the image of Prince Sado in the rice chest and Lady Hyegyong’s surreal cry: “Oh why did you go in?” These images encapsulate the mystery of this unnatural relationship between father and son/king and crown prince. If we are to take the view that Lady Hyegyong espouses in her memoirs, and they seem too sincere to doubt, then the king seems to suffer from the same symptoms that characterize Prince Sado’s mental illness. The king suffered from the same obsessive compulsive personality as did his son perhaps only to a different degree. He didn’t want to hear the words “death” or “return” and also changed clothes before entering certain buildings just like Sado obsessed over his clothes and was afraid of thunder. The only difference was that as king he had the power to kill. The prince seems to innately understand this crucial difference early on and that is why Lady Hyegyong considers his references to his own death premonitions. Instead they were the intelligent realizations of his precarious relationship with a father that would gladly trade a son’s life for his own. The constant distaste for a son who would eventually succeed him seems to represent an unnatural wish for his son’s death. Almost a trade for immortality in the sick king’s mind. These memoirs record a powerful and distorted father and son relationship that evokes images of familial entrapment in something so mundane as a rice chest. It is a chord that continues to resonate through the ages.

⭐A fascinating insight into the intrigues and constraints of eighteenth century Korean court life. The Crown Princess has a strong voice, but has to tread carefully when she discusses the problems of the Korean royal family which she married into at the age of nine. She wrote 4 memoirs and only in the last one of 1805, written for her grandson when she was 70, does she feel able to discuss fully her husband’s mental illness and subsequent death at the hand of his father, the King.The elegant prose of the Crown Princess is very powerful, and I found it unexpectedly gripping and haunting.

⭐Haven’t read it yet. Pleased with the order though.

⭐Lady Hyegyeong: un’incredibile figura storica femminile. Era la moglie del principe ereditario Sado che morì di fame in una cassa di riso nel 1762. La dinastia Joseon era governata da principi confuciani. In caso di tradimento o peccato, tutta la famiglia ne era responsabile. Se re Yeongjo avesse condannato a morte il principe Sado, suo figlio, avrebbe dovuto uccidere sia Lady Hyegyeong che Yi San, suo nipote. Per preservare il lignaggio reale, scelse questo metodo indiretto per uccidere suo figlio Sado. “Le memorie di Lady Hyegyeong”, scritte da Lady Hyegyeong, includono il resoconto storico degli anni di lei, durante gli anni in cui fu confinata al Palazzo di Changgyeong, del marito Sado, della sua follia e delle eventuali torture e morte per decreto del re Yeongjo. La vita di Lady Hyegyeong dunque è stata piena di sventure una dopo l’altra, ma è riuscita a prendersi cura dei suoi figli e dei suoi nipoti. Le memorie includono anche 4 capitoli scritti nel 1795, 1801, 1802 e 1805.Livre magnifique , traduction soignée, notes et annexes eclairantes.En anglais donc prevoir le dicco a portée de main mais cela en vaut la peine.

⭐

Keywords

Free Download The Memoirs of Lady Hyegyong: The Autobiographical Writings of a Crown Princess of Eighteenth-Century Korea in PDF format
The Memoirs of Lady Hyegyong: The Autobiographical Writings of a Crown Princess of Eighteenth-Century Korea PDF Free Download
Download The Memoirs of Lady Hyegyong: The Autobiographical Writings of a Crown Princess of Eighteenth-Century Korea 2013 PDF Free
The Memoirs of Lady Hyegyong: The Autobiographical Writings of a Crown Princess of Eighteenth-Century Korea 2013 PDF Free Download
Download The Memoirs of Lady Hyegyong: The Autobiographical Writings of a Crown Princess of Eighteenth-Century Korea PDF
Free Download Ebook The Memoirs of Lady Hyegyong: The Autobiographical Writings of a Crown Princess of Eighteenth-Century Korea