What is Travel Literature and What It Means in Wonju?

Wonju has been a hub of transportation for a long time and the central city of public administration, economy, culture, and military force in Gangwon-do province because Wonju was the capital city of Gangwon-do for five hundred years of the Joseon Dynasty(1392-1910). Thus, Wonju was one of the places of preference for many educated aristocratic class to travel, think, and write because Wonju was also highly accessible from Seoul(where was the Joseon Dynasty’s capital).

Kumgang Mountains are located in the North Korea but Kumgang Mountains are also very close to the borderline of Gangwon-do province of the South Korea. As many Koreans and people also around the world know, Kumgang Mountains are famous for the natural beauty and marvelous, scenic views. As Kumgang Mountains case tells us, Gangwon-do province of the South Korea has more mountains of rugged terrains and valleys of beautiful landscape than any other provinces of Korea. For this reason, many writers and people of high social status in the Joseon Dynasty traveled around Gangwon-do province including Wonju and left anthologies of poetry and writing about the nature’s beauty of Wonju and Gangwon-do.

Let’s have a look at a few examples.

Jeong-cheol, the biggest influential poet, writer, governor, and politician of the Joseon Dynasty who served as a prime minister and who was the most highly recognized authority on metrical literature, was sworn in as the Gagnwon-do governor in Wonju. He wrote poems that reflected his political ambitions about the natural landscape of Gangwon-do.

Folk tales about Won Cheon-seok, who came from Wonju and who was the respected scholar of the late Goryo Dynasty and of the early Joseon Dynasty, indigenous folklores in the oral tradition that pass down from generation to generation in each village of Wonju, and commemorative monuments established in many areas of Wonju say that Wonju was one of places of preference for travel and writing.

Kim Guem-won, who was from Wonju, is considered one of iconic writers of the time during the Joseon Dynasty period. She definitely speaks for Travel Literature also as a woman writer who represented Women Literature of the Joseon Dynasty period, if it is to clarified more. When Kim Guem-won was 14 years old, she disguised herself with men’s clothes because it was literally impossible for women to go outside and travel alone back then. Starting in Wonju, where she was born and lived with her parents, she travelled around Kumgang Mountains alone and left a collection of poems about the scenery. It is said that she kept talking her parents into letting her go travelling alone, though.

Irrespective of how long educated persons of writers or scholars of the Joseon Dynasty era lived in Wonju and Gangwon-do province or traveled around mountains of Wonju and Gangwon-do, their purpose of traveling and writing was not just simply to travel and enjoy the scenery.

They have their own beliefs, convictions, ideas, or philosophies. With one or some of these in their mind, they traveled all the way to Wonju and Gangwon-do because Gangwon-do was the area with many mountains of rugged terrains and valleys with scenic views, which caused them to think a lot while walking all along and back home, wrote poems of a variety of subject, including loyalty to kings, filial piety for parents, natural beauty and scenery of mountains, political ambitions, love for spouse, deep sorrows, regrets of life, etc, and left anthologies.

They expressed their thoughts, beliefs, convictions, loyalty to kings, filial piety for parents, life sorrows or regrets, political ambitions, and many more while traveling all the way to Wonju and Gangwon-do. Mountains of beautiful landscape of Gangwon-do and Wonju(where Chiak Mountain is located) attracted many writers and scholars. This is why Wonju was recognized as the place where Travel Literature originated.

The legacy, history, and vestiges of travel literature are felt in every nook and corner of Wonju and also around Seomgang River that flows near Wonju, which have also carried to the modern literature of poets and writers.