世界 敍事音樂과 판소리의 위치

P ansori in the World Perspectives of Epic Songs

The tradition of vocal music made from epic stories is commonly found in both illiterate and literate societies in the world. However. the epic musics of the literate societies have been widely favoured by the academics for their interesting topics. One of them. p ansori (representative Korean epic song) has largely been attracted by a number of researchers and been studied in terms of a variety of angles and approaches. This paper is not based on a new research on p ansori. but it attempts to reconsider its values at the wider range of contexts with which a comparison can be made. I have chosen four representative epic musics such as Punlaku of Choruli (songs and stories performed during Japanese puppet play). Wayang (Indonesian dance and drama), Gusle music (Yugoslavian epic music with the accompaniment of the gusle) and the music performed by Jali (Gambian secular musician) in order to understand their individual characteristics of the genre. The approach is based on the observation of their performances rather than looking in their historical sources. My findings derive from the fact that there are differences and similarities among these individual narrative musics in a number of aspects. For instance, the p ansori itself is considered as uniquely Korean and traditional. but it also possesses universal qualities which are widely shared with the same genres. The focus of the studies of p ansori on its unique aspects is certainly valuable. However, at the same time. I would argue that it needs a redefinition in terms of universality, thus identifying p ansori in the world perspectives of epic songs.