“…you are not yet awakened from your sleep. Master Chang became a butterfly, and the butterfly became Master Chang. Was Chang’s becoming a butterfly a dream, or was the butterfly’s becoming Chang a dream? You, Song-jin, now think yourself reality, and your past life a dream only; you do not reckon yourself one and the same as the dream. Which shall I label the dream, you Song-jin, or you So-yoo?” (정규복·진경환 역주, 《한국고전문학전집 27 : 구운몽》, 고려대학교 민족문화연구원, 2015) / Guunmong (The Cloud Dream of the Nine, a Korean novel: a Story of the Times of the Tangs of China about 840 AD), translated by James S. Gale, Kessinger Publishing, 2010
Kim Man Jung was a scholar-official and novelist of the late Joseon period, a progressive thinker who helped establish the conventions of vernacular Korean fiction and influenced East Asian literary culture.
1. Life
Kim Man Jung was born in 1637 and died in 1692, during the late Joseon period. He was born into a prestigious family and received an exceptional private education under the devoted guidance of his mother, Lady Yun. After passing the civil service examinations, he rose to some of the highest government positions, including that of Daejehak (Director of the Office of Royal Decrees). His life was marked by the turbulence of the era: he cycled repeatedly between exile and reinstatement at court. Though he belonged to the dominant political faction, he held notably progressive views, criticizing Confucian orthodoxy and drawing freely on Buddhist concepts and terminology that were officially regarded as heterodox at the state level. He left behind 363 poems and is said to have written a considerable body of vernacular fiction, though only Guunmong and Sassi namjeonggi survive today. He died of illness at the age of 56 while in exile in Namhae.
2. Writing
Kim Man Jung set out his literary philosophy in his miscellany Seopo manpil (西浦漫筆 Essays by Seopo). He criticized the Korean intellectuals of his time for writing exclusively in Classical Chinese, arguing that to write in a script different from one’s own spoken tongue was no better than a parrot mimicking human speech. He insisted that Koreans ought to write in their own language. Although his novel Guunmong (九雲夢 The Nine Cloud Dream) was first composed in classical Chinese, its vernacular Korean version carries roughly equal weight, and Sassi namjeonggi (謝氏南征記 Record of Lady Sa's Southward Journey) was written in Korean from the outset. Kim’s vernacular fiction reached readers across class and gender lines, and went on to set the template for prose fiction in Joseon Korea in the centuries that followed.
What set Guunmong apart from the heroic novels of its day was not merely its tale of a male protagonist’s worldly triumphs, but its richly woven account of his encounters and partings with eight women. Each of these women possesses distinct personalities, backgrounds, and abilities, and each is rendered with remarkably detailed individuality. Kim brought such care to these female characters in part because the novel was written to delight his mother. The work’s elegant style and its gripping, inventive narrative spoke not only to the educated elite but to commoners—especially to women readers—expanding the very idea of fiction readership. Structurally, Guunmong follows a pattern in which reality and dream alternate in a reality-dream-reality sequence. This framework originated in Indian Buddhist scriptures and became popular in Tang dynasty Chinese fiction. Kim adapted it for his own purposes, and what had existed only in embryonic form in its Indian and Tang antecedents achieved full, mature expression in Kim’s novel. The work was later translated into Japanese during the Meiji era (1868-1912).
Sassi namjeonggi holds a distinctive place as the first classical Korean novel to give sustained, detailed narrative attention to villainous characters driven by worldly desire. By setting a wicked woman against a virtuous one, Kim throws the moral character of his female protagonist into sharp relief.
Reference
《사씨남정기》, 세창서관, 1951 / Sassi namjeonggi (謝氏南征記 Record of Lady Sa's Southward Journey), Sechang Seogwan, 1951
《구운몽》, 세창서관, 1952 / Guunmong (九雲夢 The Nine Cloud Dream), Sechang Seogwan, 1952
《서포만필》, 문림사, 1959 / Seopo manpil (西浦漫筆 Essays by Seopo), Munrimsa, 1959
《구운몽》, 정음사, 1964 / Guunmong (九雲夢 The Nine Cloud Dream), Jeongumsa, 1964
《구운몽》, 민중서관, 1972 / Guunmong (九雲夢 The Nine Cloud Dream), Minjung Seogwan, 1972
《사씨남정기》, 서문당, 1974 / Sassi namjeonggi (謝氏南征記 Record of Lady Sa's Southward Journey), Seomundang, 1974
《사씨남정기》, 문예출판사, 1982 / Sassi namjeonggi (謝氏南征記 Record of Lady Sa's Southward Journey), Moonye, 1982
《구운몽·사씨남정기》, 정음사, 1983 / Guunmong, Sassi namjeonggi (九雲夢·謝氏南征記 The Nine Cloud Dream and Record of Lady Sa's Southward Journey), Jeongeumsa, 1983
《사씨남정기·서포만필》, 범우사, 1990 / Sassi namjeonggi, Seopo manpil (謝氏南征記·西浦漫筆 Record of Lady Sa's Southward Journey and Essays by Seopo), Bumwoosa, 1990
《김만중작품집》, 문예출판사, 1991 / Kim Man Jung jakpumjip (Collected Works of Kim Man Jung), Moonye, 1991
《서포선생문집》, 영인문화사, 1997 / Seopo seonsaeng munjip (Collected Literary Works of Master Seopo), Yeongin Munhwasa, 1997
《구운몽》, 민음사, 2003 / Guunmong (九雲夢 The Nine Cloud Dream), Minumsa, 2003
《사씨남정기》, 소담출판사, 2003 / Sassi namjeonggi (謝氏南征記 Record of Lady Sa's Southward Journey), Sodam Books, 2003
《(현대역) 구운몽》, 서울대학교출판부, 2007 / (Hyeondaeyeok) Guunmong (九雲夢 The Nine Cloud Dream, Modern Translation), Seoul National University Press, 2007
《서포만필》, 문학동네, 2010 / Seopo manpil (西浦漫筆 Essays by Seopo), Munhakdongne, 2010
《구운몽》, 문학동네, 2013 / Guunmong (九雲夢 The Nine Cloud Dream), Munhakdongne, 2013
《한국고전문학전집 27 : 구운몽》, 고려대학교 민족문화연구원, 2015 / Hanguk gojeon munhak jeonjip 27: Guunmong (Complete Collection of Korean Classical Literature, Vol. 27: 九雲夢 The Nine Cloud Dream), Korea University Institute of Korean Culture, 2015
《(원서발췌) 서포만필 : 30% 원서발췌》, 지식을만드는지식, 2021 / (Wonseo balchwe) Seopo manpil: 30% wonseo balchwe (西浦漫筆 Essays by Seopo: 30% Excerpted from the Original), Zmanz, 2021
《구운몽》, 범우, 2023 / Guunmong (九雲夢 The Nine Cloud Dream), Bumwoo, 2023
《서포만필》, 범우, 2023 / Seopo manpil (西浦漫筆 Essays by Seopo), Bumwoo, 2023
Translations (English)
《구운몽》
The Nine Cloud Dream, translated by Creative Writing Group, Ewha Womans University Press, 1975
The Cloud Dream of the Nine, translated by James S. Gale, Kurodahan Press, 2003
The Cloud Dream of the Nine, translated by James S. Gale, Cornell University Library, 2009
The Cloud Dream of the Nine, translated by James S. Gale, Kessinger Publishing, 2010
The Nine Cloud Dream, translated by Heinz Insu Fenkl, Penguin Classics, 2019
The Nine Cloud Dream, translated by Kim Hayoung, Hangeul House, 2024
LTI Korea 
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