A time to add wisdom to my life, 'Life's Great River'
Free from the existing classics that are trapped in lessons
Time for active thinking!

All the essential knowledge you need for life is gathered together! The 22nd book in the "Life Lectures" series, a fascinating knowledge experience presented by Korea's leading professors, has been published.
The Life Lectures series, which transcribes the lectures of the best professors in various fields from universities across the country, including history, philosophy, science, medicine, and art, into books, provides readers with useful knowledge to live today and insight to look forward to tomorrow.
It is a knowledge and culture brand that allows you to encounter the best knowledge content in everyday life through not only books but also online lectures, YouTube, and podcasts.


『Reading Joseon Classics with Desire』 is a classic education book full of twists and subversions in which Professor Yoo Gwang-su, a professional storyteller in the world of classical literature, gives a new and twisted interpretation to representative works of our classics, such as 『The Tale of Heungbu and Nolbu』, 『The Tale of Chunhyang』, 『The Tale of Hong Gildong』, and 『The Dream of the Nine Clouds』.
Professor Yoo Gwang-su has restored the original, cheerful and revolutionary nature of our classics to this book, allowing readers to naturally understand the nature of humanity while reflecting on their lives here and now.
From the binary opposition between good and evil represented by Heungbu and Nolbu, to Chunhyang's struggle for self-determination and revolutionary spirit, to the paradox of fulfilling desires as a created hero, Hong Gildong, and the game of truth through Seongjin and Yang Soyu's dreams, you can encounter four exciting and captivating episodes that will remind you of the fun of classics.
Through this book, you will be able to free yourself from the trappings of conventional wisdom and stereotypes and learn what it means to live a more active and subjective life.

It might be very different from what you learned in school.
You may be surprised to learn that "Heungbu and Nolbu" is not a story about friendship, and "Chunhyangjeon" is not a story about a chaste woman.
It is also worth considering whether the author of "The Story of Hong Gildong" was Heo Gyun, and it may be embarrassing to discover that Hong Gildong did something completely different from what we thought.
Moreover, you may feel complicated by the fact that 『Guunmong』 is not a story of a fleeting spring dream.
The culprit that made us think of classics as boring is the indifference and abetment that we just pass them off as 'good, good, good stories.'
By arbitrarily calling up classics to suit our tastes and needs according to the demands of the times and making them into stuffed animals, our classics have been reduced to difficult, boring, and tiring burdens.
However, classics are not a burden to be carried, nor are they meant to be difficult to include in exam questions.
Classics have their own classic quality.
I plan to properly unravel the classics one by one through this book.
--- p.10~11

"Heungbu and Nolbu" is not a game where you have to choose between two people, nor is it a lesson book that tells you to live like one of the two people.
Through the actions of Nolbu and Heungbu, the story of Heungbu goes beyond simple judgments of good and evil and sharply points out that two extremes of life, behavior, thought, and value are equally problematic.
And it eloquently states that the world is a spectrum of countless images spread out between these two extremes, and that our lives lie somewhere in between.
Heungbu and Nolbu are us, and their lives are our lives.
If Heungbu is standing over there with that exact look, Nolbu is standing over here with that exact look.
The two are together.
Of course.
Because they are brothers.
So we stood together and lived together.
Our people read it, saw it, felt it, and enjoyed it.
Because they are people who are just like them.
--- p.92~93

Chunhyang is a protagonist who demonstrates true femininity.
Female hero novels portray women as heroes, but ultimately end up settling within that confines by marrying a man.
However, Chunhyang shows an incredible revolutionary spirit that far surpasses that of female heroes.
I didn't win a war for my country, nor did I pass the civil service exam.
Although she was a mere courtesan who was looked down upon and was nothing, she challenged the problems of her time proactively and with true femininity, and spoke powerfully about what it means to be human.
The people who found out about it were enthusiastic about Chunhyangjeon.
And, of course, it was made into a 'Chunhyangjeon' with 'Chunhyang' as the main character, not Lee Mong-ryong or Byeon Hak-do.
The fact that the protagonist is the most lowly, pitiful, and unreasonable woman of her time, who could be treated with impunity, is one aspect of the revolutionary nature of "Chunhyangjeon."
--- p.136~137

The story of 『The Story of Hong Gildong』 was not strange at all, not offensive at all, and not at all incomprehensible to the common people of the Joseon Dynasty.
It was their story, and I wanted it to be their story.
Hong Gildong was hope.
He was a true hero who reflected the hearts of the ordinary people of his time.
It is not simply because they provided relief, punished corrupt officials, and defeated evildoers, but because they understood their hearts and expressed their true desires through tremendous efforts.
People saw it in Hong Gil-dong.
Their hopes.
The only ones who haven't seen it are foreigners like Allen, later generations who have lived a little, and us who don't want to see the truth.
Let's not make excuses that someone covered up the truth.
Even Hong Pan-seo made excuses about his dream of a dragon.
The truth is sometimes uncomfortable and sometimes painful, but it ultimately triumphs.
Because it's true.
--- p.222

The important thing is not that Seongjin dreamed of becoming a sheep, but that Seongjin dreamed of being reincarnated as a sheep.
That is, the moment when the 'past life-present life-next life' of an existence that cannot be connected to each other is visualized through the device of a dream, that is, the moment when the surprising event of waking up from the dream occurs, we come to know that the essence of existence is connected.
And then you realize the surprising truth that nothing is true, it's just a dream, an illusion.
So, we must understand the endless cycle of reincarnation as if it were a four-verse verse that says, “We must look upon it as a dream, an illusion, a bubble.”
『The Nine Clouds』 is a surprising and fantastic story that embodies the theme throughout the work.

--- p.280