Part 1
처음 ~ 부자가 양반 대신 환곡을 갚기까지
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The Tale of a Yangban
In Jeongseon county there lives a yangban, a man of noble rank, who is wise and loves books but is desperately poor. Year after year he has borrowed grain from the government, and now his debt has reached a thousand sacks. Meanwhile a rich commoner in the same village, tired of bowing low to every yangban, has an unusual idea: if the yangban cannot pay, why not buy his rank?
Satire of the yangban's hollow formality and privilegeA shaking class system and the rising rich commonerWhat a social rank is really made ofCriticism of the powerful who live off the people
Public domain: the author died in 1805 and the work was published in 1754, so its copyright has ended in Korea, the US and the EU. Everything written here is our own; no translation is copied.
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- 정선 양반 The Yangban of Jeongseon A wise, book-loving yangban buried under a debt of a thousand sacks of government grain.
- 부자 The Rich Man A wealthy commoner who is tired of bowing to every yangban and wonders if rank can be bought.
- 정선 군수 The Magistrate of Jeongseon The county magistrate who respects the poor yangban but cannot save him from his debt.
- 양반의 아내 The Yangban's Wife A wife worn down by poverty who has lost patience with her husband's book learning.
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Part 2
군수가 양반을 찾아가는 대목 ~ 첫 번째 증서를 읽기까지
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Part 3
두 번째 증서를 짓는 대목 ~ 끝
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