Yi Geung-ik

Yi Geung-ik (李肯翊, 1736–1806) was a late-Joseon Silhak scholar and evidential-research scholar. His courtesy name (courtesy name) was Jangyeong (長卿), and his art name (art name) was Wansan (完山) or Yeonryeosil (燃藜室). He was born in a village at the foot of Wongyosan¹ in Hanseong, the eldest son of Suduk Yi Gwang-sa, a Confucian scholar of Yangming learning.

His family seat was Jeonju (全州), and he was also a descendant of Deokcheon-gun Yi Hu-saeng (德泉君 李厚生), an illegitimate son of King Jeongjong (Yi Gyeong), the second king of Joseon.²

From childhood he studied under his father, Yi Gwang-sa, and he mastered both Neo-Confucianism and Yangmingism. He was especially skilled at calligraphy, promoted Silhak, and became well known as an evidential-research scholar. His family belonged to the Soron faction, and because of the Noron rise to power, he was exiled several times, and his whole family suffered greatly. He wrote many books, but most were lost during his repeated exiles, and only the Yeonryeosil Gisul, which can be called a golden monument of unofficial Joseon dynastic history (野史), has been preserved.

Works

The work that best reveals Yi Geung-ik's philosophy of history and his perspective is undoubtedly the Yeonryeosil Gisul. Yi Geung-ik regarded as the life of history and, in the spirit of "transmitting without creating" (述而不作) and "neither partial nor biased" (不偏不黨), he surveyed and cited materials without regard to the , , , and factions or to whether figures were famous or obscure, and he relied almost entirely on domestic sources. This contrasts with (韓致奫, 1765–1814), who wrote the and tried to understand Korean history through foreign sources. This was due to a strong sense of self-identity, the conviction that history must be built on the materials of one's own country. Moreover, the qualities he treated as the life of historical writing were objectivity, fairness, systematic organization, chronological sequence, and realism, which are regarded as an advanced historical consciousness for his time.